Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

A guide by UNDRR and partners sets out 10 core steps of business resilience to COVID-19 that is particularly relevant for small businesses. These include:

• Stay informed. Identify at least one workplace team member to be a Focal Point for COVID19. The focal point can help coordinate readiness activities, distribute information, answer questions and to coordinate staff roles and responsibilities during an outbreak
• Identify core products and services which are essential to the survival of your business. Be prepared to change your business practices if needed to maintain delivering your essential services or products
• Communicate plans with employees and customers
• Establish policies for physical distancing, hand sanitizing, and safe working at work
• Protect employee health. Provide public health materials on COVID-19, regularly clean surfaces that are often touched, and train your staff on what your COVID-19 response plans are once you have completed them. Also maintain the privacy of employees with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection and inform employees that some may be at higher risk for severe illness
• Plan how to operate with absent employees
• Prepare your supply chain. Identify and talk to your critical suppliers, identify alternate supply chains, understand your position in the supply chain
• Plan to modify service delivery to customers
• Apply for crisis assistance from government and business associations
• Exercise your COVID-19 plan. Consider using existing standards to do this, such as ISO 22301 business continuity management

The reduction of international travel has had positive environmental effects, but has negatively impacted conservation in developing countries. Consider:

• How the effects of eco-tourism collapse and how to support conservation of the worlds' core ecosystems
• How the economic implications of COVID-19 may impact surges in poaching, illegal fishing and deforestation, and how this can be policed
• The dangers to Park Rangers who protect wildlife, and measures to protect staff from violence

Consider:

• Women are more likely to carry out unpaid work or serve as care givers. The pandemic is likely to negatively impact their livelihoods and dramatically increase their unpaid care work
• Women constitute over two-thirds of workers in the health and social sector globally, placing them on the frontlines of the pandemic response, but with a persistent gender pay gap and fewer leadership positions than their male counterparts
• These issues can restrict access to resources, decision making and the ability to take preventive measures

Close consultation is needed with women's organisations i.e. groups for mothers, carers, women's rights, domestic violence

The World Economic Forum suggests 5 key areas which businesses should focus their recovery:

Reskilling and upskilling deeply human skills as well as digital skills

• It is critical that employers emphasise retraining workers and that governments build upskilling and reskilling into the fiscal stimulus they are injecting into economies

Supporting the jobs of tomorrow

• Employers should focus on professions that care for people, support the planet, manage new technologies and communicate products and services

Prioritizing redeployment and re-employment

• Rapidly redeploy furloughed workers to high-demand roles, such as logistics and care provision
• Provide job market insights, job market intermediation (match-making services), and job-search assistance

Re-evaluating essential work and improving the quality of jobs

• Consider increasing the payment of essential workers and improving their job security

Resetting education, skills and jobs systems for post-pandemic recovery

• Critical collaboration between employers, governments and workers both nationally and globally is essential to reskilling and upskilling individuals - especially those in low paid precarious jobs

For example:

• Consider sustainable recovery schemes that end fossil fuel subsidies in developed countries
• Consider whether specific growth targets which have been harmful to the environment are the most appropriate goal at this time
• Encourage a shift in hierarchy from GDP to the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, CITES or the Convention on Biodiversity

Including:

• The pressure on vital sexual and reproductive health services (including for women subjected to violence) and how provisions can be maintained
• The provision of hotlines, crisis centres, shelters, legal aid, and protection services and impacts of scaling these back
• Identifying and evaluating outreach methods to support those at risk of abuse within their own home
• Plans for the safety of health workers (the majority of whom are women) who may be at risk of violence in their own home and at work
• How to include men in conversations about violence towards women

Those already strained by COVID-19:

• This could include using GIS mapping to consider allocation of resources and areas most likely to be worst affected. For example, the sorts of mitigations needed to minimise transmission of the virus during evacuation and sheltering
• Analyse existing strategies to develop disaster-plus-COVID-19 scenarios. Thinking of Hurricane Katrina as an example, 20,000 people took refuge in the Superdrome stadium. Disasters like this force people to gather in close proximity in higher numbers than recommended by health authorities for countering the COVID-19 outbreak
• Consider also that vulnerable people are particularly affected by disasters and infectious diseases and may already be disadvantaged through COVID-19

These should be disseminated to workers and to the public to protect people as many services go online. Consider:

1. Using an updated firewall to provide barriers between data and cyberattacks; this should be done at organisational and personal levels
2. Documenting and sharing cybersecurity policies including training, checklists and organisation-specific information
3. Planning security for mobile devices include wearable technology which can include personal information. Ensure security updates and password policies are in place to any mobile device accessing the network.
4. Providing training and education for all employees on risks and how to identify malicious activity i.e. phishing emails
5. Regularly updating employees on protocols and security policy
6. Encouraging changing of passwords every 60-90 days, and the use of complex passwords with combinations of uppercase letters, numbers and symbols
7. Regularly backing up all data and checking the function
8. Installing anti-malware software to mitigate phishing emails
9. Using multifactor identification and virtual private networks (VPNs) to provide an extra layer of protection

Understanding children's perspectives is important to provide children with an outlet to express themselves, and for adults to gain a better understanding of how children view their situation.

• Consider creative activities where children can explore their feelings about COVID-19, this could include drawings, video blogs or music. One example, is a collection of drawings and messages collated by the BBC, showcasing children's perspectives about the world they are living in. These types of activities could be recurring, and could be developed to address a number of issues i.e. lockdown, not going to school, fear, bereavement.
• Similar activities could support communities in emotional and social recovery from the impacts of COVID-19 and could provide innovative ways for adults and children to explore bereavement, memorials and commemoration.
• Children's pictures of colourful flowers in windows can make their walks more enjoyable and brighten the nation. The rainbows can be refreshed to create a refreshed vibe for the children to engage with.

This may help communities feel they have ownership over information rather than simply being told.

For particular groups consider:

• Providing parents with skills to handle their own anxieties and help manage those in their children
• Provide information in accessible formats for those with disabilities
• Offer multiple forms of communication e.g. text captioning, signed video, online material suitable for use with assistive technology
• Support the translation of information into the preferred languages for different groups, ensuring that refuges and migrant groups are included
• Adjust information for community perceptions, beliefs and practices

This can include:

• Don't forget the basics. Urban design should facilitate certain behaviours and feelings, and shape a built environment that creates value (economic, social, environmental, health, individual, safety)
• Consider redefining what we mean by Place+Making. Ultimately, places are a socially constructed phenomena so can the definition of place be broadened i.e. virtual spaces (Milan brought museums and art galleries online, working from home).
• Consider how urban spaces can perpetuate inequities i.e. accessibility, affordability, and how basic needs can be met.
• Learn from inequalities that arise to tackle social issues such as loneliness, discrimination etc.

This includes elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, migrants and homeless. Consult with organisations representing these groups to develop understanding of how they might be affected by complex emergencies and what measures could be taken. (UN -75 People's consultations established for this). For example, in the UK some LRFs are considering how to evacuate during lockdowns or social distancing.

Software and cyber experts can only do so much. Informed workers remain the best line of defence, and can ensure the resilience and safety of technical systems for recovery.

Lockdown as to be replaced by something and must ensure there is a well-informed and committed populations that will adapt and adhere to changes to lockdown policy. WHO suggests:

• Disease transmission is under control
• Health systems are able to "detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact"
• Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes
• Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures
• The risk of importing new cases "can be managed"
• Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal

They may consider adopting the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) as a framework to track, respond to- and reduce the impact of expected cyber-attacks.

Local government should assess whether the 'Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Public Health' can inform its thinking about aspects of recovery. This scorecard is described in Topic 1 of this briefing in terms of how is provides attributes for rapid assessment to support holistic approaches to thinking about recovery.

This briefing explores the UNDRR’s Disaster Resilience Scorecard (DRS) and its Public Health Addendum (PHA) guidance to assess response and recovery. Both frameworks can also be used to assess potential secondary emergencies during e.g. COVID-19 (e.g. a flood) and their impacts on the healthcare system.

To read this briefing in full, follow the source link below to TMB Issue 1 (p.1-6).

Local government should develop recovery plans that include potential for cascading, simultaneous disasters which may require emergency responses activities e.g. evacuation of homes during a flood, amid the epidemic.