Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

COVID-19 has exacerbated what has already been described as a “triple emergency: climate change; nature loss; rising poverty and inequality”, while also presenting a rare opportunity to improve preparedness and mitigation through recovery and renewal. Effective NbS involve working closely with nature, people and the climate, realising the interdependent nature of these elements. NbS are a cost effective approach and have the potential to deliver multiple benefits simultaneously when implemented effectively. A recent report brings together examples of NbS for climate, nature and people from 13 local community case studies. Consider the following examples of holistic approaches that address the these interdependent threats:

• The Medmerry project, UK, embarked on a coastal managed realignment to build new sea defences inland from the coast allowing a new ‘intertidal’ area to develop. Cross benefits of this initiative include:
  • Climate change: The intertidal habitat serves as a blue carbon store, meaning the area can itself adapt to the effect of climate change and mitigate future climate change impacts, making the area more resilient to sea level rise and storms
  • Nature: Bird populations have thrived as a result of the site creation
  • People: The project has developed flood protection to homes, critical infrastructure and local services. The work of this project has increased the economic value of production in the area, boosted tourism and reduced the emotional stress faced by vulnerable communities
• Talensi, Ghana, implemented a farmer-led and community-based dryland restoration initiative to tackle the deteriorating soil fertility and local natural resources. The communities used ‘Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration’ to restore multipurpose trees to rural areas. Cross benefits of this initiative include:
  • Climate change: Increase in water retention and soil erosion reduction as a result of soil and tree restoration on farms
  • Nature: 718 hectares of degraded land was restored and the project resulted in the planning of 23,000 additional fruit trees in the area
  • People: A reduction in annual household hunger and an increase in diverse household income sources (e.g. greater range of food crops) leading to increased levels of household resilience

Previous TMBs discuss additional NbS strategies: Issue 20, Issue 30 and Issue 33

The pressures placed on the global food system during COVID-19 activated various policy responses across the world to manage supply and demand. Sub-Saharan African countries rely heavily on food imports. This means that international agricultural policy responses to the pandemic in markets on which Africa relies, directly affect the region’s food markets. Potential impacts include “commodity price volatility the availability of supplies and farmers’ planting decisions”. Consider how to address the impacts of COVID and build food system resilience for the future with regard to countries that rely on food imports:

• Design more “holistic policy interventions” which tackle bottlenecks in the vast span of “value chain actors” e.g. suppliers and transporters, traders and retailers, to advance resilience of the entire supply chain
• Invest in market infrastructure, e.g. cold storage systems, to strengthen supply chains of perishable goods
• Establish and increase social protections for particularly vulnerable groups e.g. “urban poor, informal workers and resource-poor smallholder farmers"
• Advance regional and local trade agreements that enable greater food market integration – with the aim of developing resilient domestic and regional food systems, lowering the reliance on importing, and increasing local domestic economic growth

Consider:

• How digitization can facilitate capacity for longer-term economic recovery. For example, in Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa, increased migration from cash to digital transactions has resulted in more account-to-account transfers and e-commerce sales which boosts economic activity and maintains social distancing
• The role of digital-payment platforms in increasing financial inclusion outside of traditional banking systems e.g. in Togo through cash transfers that disburse social welfare payments through mobiles
• Collaboration with banks and non-bank payments players to restructure transaction fees and limits to encourage digital payments
• Promoting easier access to digital-payment tools e.g. the Ghanaian government eased account-opening regulations

Attempts to quarantine and sanitise informal settlements at the time of the 2014 Ebola crisis ended with mixed, if not poor results, along with violence and revolts due to poor preparation, planning and information sharing with the population. Consideration of these issues during a global pandemic is important to mitigate the risk of resurgence

Singapore's recent spike in COVID-19 cases is an example of this issue; the spike originated from the country's vast migrant worker population who live in poor conditions in crowded dormitories. Workers have been quarantined in their small, over-populated rooms for two weeks. It will be important to consider health and well-being and the potential for unrest in these contexts.

From many examples, internet and smart phone applications are playing a critical role for communication, awareness-raising, teleworking but also learning and skills development. Online platforms should test how good their systems are, collect feedback, and improve their products - because many of us will never leave these platforms after discovering their utility.