Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

The UN-HABITAT City Resilience Global Programme (CRGP) define urban resilience as the “measurable ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses, while positively adapting and transforming towards sustainability”. This gives rise to the following ‘Urban Resilience Principles’ to consider:

‘Dynamic nature of urban resilience’

• Recognise that resilience is a fluid condition and requires that systems “evolve, transform and adapt to current and future conditions”. Resilience building activities require “context-specific” and adaptable plans and activities which account for the complex and “dynamic nature of risk and resilience”

‘Systemic approach to cities’

• Acknowledge that urban areas consist of “interconnected systems through complex networks” and even small adaptions can impact the entire network of systems. A wide-ranging and comprehensive approach is required to account for the interdependencies that exist within urban systems and are exposed to disruption during crisis

‘Promoting participation in planning and governance’

• Co-production of resilience planning and governance can enhance the “prosperity” of stakeholders (e.g. city residents), increase a sense of local ownership and achieve more effective implementation of resilience building plans and activities

‘Multi-stakeholder engagement’

• “Continuity of governance, economic activity and other city functions” is critical to a resilient system. Facilitating collaborative communication and working between all interested stakeholders such as “public entities, the private sector, civil society, academic institutions and the city community”, is essential

‘Strive towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs)

• Underpinning resilience building plans and initiatives with SDGs can ensure that human rights are “fulfilled, respected, and protected”

We identify the core barriers to co-production during the pandemic: Pace, distance and complexity, and provide a broad framework which can be designed into a project's main policy framework to facilitate co-production in preparedness and response.

Follow the source link below to TMB Issue 33 to read this briefing in full (p.3-6).

Vaccination certification for COVID-19, sometimes referred to as immunity/vaccine passports, are being considered by some countries as a strategy to relax the strict measures that have been imposed on society over the last year. The document is designed to certify people as immune to COVID-19 based on vaccination. Consider the ethical issues associated with varying restrictions on individual liberties based on possession of a vaccine certificate. Consider:

• If a vaccination certification programme could cause unequal treatment of individuals by segregating members of society into different tiers of infection risk and contagiousness, for example:
  • Members of groups who live with systemic discrimination and marginalization may face more barriers to accessing particular areas of society or activities if they are not certified as vaccinated
  • Differences in exposure, access to health care and vaccination certification may lead to some groups having higher or lower proportions of vaccine-certified people
• If the application of vaccination certification should only be used with existing precautions and should not prevent non-vaccine certified people from accessing areas or activities, e.g. people who have not received a vaccination certificate should not be prevented from travelling but may be required to take a test/quarantine on arrival as per the existing precautionary measure
• Whether vaccinations certifications should:
  • Impact a person's ability to exercise fundamental rights such as voting, accessing and social care or education
  • Cause an increase in cost or burden for vaccine-certified individuals, e.g. frontline healthcare workers who are vaccination certified should not be expected to manage more work
• If the perceived benefits of vaccine certifications could increase the risk of people increasing their exposure to intentionally become infected and receive a certificate, which poses risks to an increase in community spread and could potentially cause harm to others
• The perceived value of vaccine certificates and counterfeit market activity/certificates
• How to mitigate implementation risks, e.g. certification being managed by certified bodies, results being processed and confirmed by licensed laboratories, and certificates being issued by health authorities
• To protect personal data and minimize breaches of confidentiality, legal and regulatory measures should be put in place to limit the access to data by governmental authorities

Vaccines must be a global public good, which contribute to the equitable protection and promotion of human well-being among all people. At national level, a clear aim for vaccine programmes is essential, e.g. reduce immediate risk to life, in order to inform the identification of priority groups. As sufficient vaccine supply for whole populations will not be immediately available, WHO have provided a Prioritization Roadmap and a Values Framework, to assist with the prioritization of target groups. The WHO guidelines and framework advise to:

• Identify groups that will achieve the vaccine programme aim where there is an immediate risk to life, e.g. Stage 1 Priority Group - Care home residents, staff and volunteers working in care homes; Stage 2 Priority - Frontline health workers and those of 80 years of age and over. Priority groups should be listed and detailed to cover the whole population that is to be vaccinated
• Clearly define groups within priority phases, e.g. workers who are at very high risk of becoming infected and transmitting COVID-19 because they work in, for example, frontline health care, COVID-19 treatment centres, COVID-19 testing laboratories, or have direct contact with COVID-19 infected patients
• Avoid classifying groups as 'essential workers' as a qualifier
• Make priority groups explicit, straightforward, concise and publicly available
• Assess the prioritisation of those who are in high population density settings, e.g. refugees/detention camps, prisons; or who are not recorded in existing systems, e.g. un-registered persons
• Recognise vaccination as a global issue to begin conversations that identify how we will achieve the aim of reducing immediate risk to life globally, through international collaboration

Renewal through Place requires consideration of transformation of where we live, available infrastructure, health and care systems, businesses, and neighbourhoods. We bring together some of the core issues related to Renewal through Place, concerning Relocation and Regeneration and the relationships this has with navigating, experiencing and utilising Place post COVID-19.

Follow the source link below to read this case study in full (p.18-20).

We bring together some of the core issues for the renewal of people, topics which can be considered in terms of Reconciliation, Reparation and/or Repair depending on the degree of harm caused.

Follow the source link below to TMB Issue 24 to read this case study in full (p.23-25).

Lessons should be learned to assess the response and identify improvements. Some debriefs only collect 'obvious' comments as they give limited time to participants to co-create more sophisticated learning and critically appraise each other's comments. Some processes drown out informed people, and anonymity can encourage the sharing of extreme views that people would not normally offer or defend. On analysis, participants are not a homogenous group, but analysis may treat them as if they were, and results are generalised to 'how participants felt' which is inappropriate. To partly overcome some of these limitations, the process of debriefing may include five activities:

1. Surveys designed and interpreted with the above potential limitations in mind
2. Individual discussions with knowledgeable people to collect informed views, reasoning, and explore wider contexts
3. Analyse survey and individual views by respondent-type to identify themes for further analysis
4. Facilitated group discussions with knowledgeable people who build on each other's view to generate new understanding, and agree a final 'lessons learned' that accommodates competing perspectives
5. Facilitated action planning with knowledgeable people to agree an action plan to address the lessons

Our partners, the Global Resilient Cities Network, discuss the challenges ahead for cities and local governments in addressing recovery; the strategic planning tools required in response; the importance of resilience and the phases of work involved in recovering from a crises like COVID-19. GRCN demonstrate the need to invest time and effort in learning from the successes and challenges to inform better preparedness for future challenges and to prevent the poorest and most vulnerable from being worst impacted again.

To read this briefing in full, follow the source link below (p.5-8).

I have noted how meetings have struggled to identify shared and comfortable language to describe recovery. The TMB team have defined two terms - Recovery and Renewal:

Recovery can be dealt with through Local Authority led Recovery Coordination Groups, and be:

• A relatively short-term process that involves reinstating normal operations, learning from response, and preparing resilience for the next emergency
• Focused on positive transactional activities to address exposed fragilities and identify wider opportunities
• Relatively fast-paced but this will depend on ongoing demands, outbreaks, backlogs, fatigue, supply difficulties
• Involving a review of operations so organisations will decide what they want to reinstate and what they don't see value in reinstating

Renewal is an ambitious focus on what the future should be like and how to achieve that, and be:

• A relatively medium/long-term process that involves appreciating what has happened, and develop renewal plans to implement
• Considering issues beyond Recovery which are transformational so include a complex web of strategic actions across social, political/democratic, and developmental issues
• Ambitious and address future opportunities for the local government such those in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals
• Developed by wide multiple relationships and broader partnerships - initially through a Renewal Summit to agree joint focus

TMB Issue 10 brings together the reflections of our learning from the first 10 weeks of gathering lessons on recovery and renewal from COVID-19. Follow the source link below to read all of the reflections from our team (p.9-15).

Local government will address five tracks of major activities running simultaneously and demanding resources:

• Track 1: Response - provide crisis response functions to first, and subsequent, waves of COVID-19 and to other emergencies. Also, the effect of COVID-19 on response e.g. social distancing on evacuation/sheltering and event management
• Track 2: Recovery - develop plans to reinstate operations, learn from response, and prepare for the next emergency
• Track 3: Renewal - hold a Renewal Summit to align strategic leaders on transformational opportunities of COVID-19 and link to positive initiatives (not the negativity of COVID-19)
• Track 4: Brexit - review plans for no-deal exit (Operation Yellowhammer), and for an orderly exit - considering implications for local authorities
• Track 5: Recession - monitor implications of recession on operations/finances of local government, organisations in local area, employment, household finances, etc

The five tracks will individually and in combination put pressure on local government

TMB Issue 10 brings together the reflections of our learning ffrom the first 10 weeks of gathering lessons on recovery and renewal from COVID-19. Follow the source link below to read all of the reflections from our team (p.9-15).

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.