Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

The proliferation of concurrent disasters (including natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and technological threats), alongside COVID-19, highlights the need for recovery and renewal strategies that tackle the multiple hazards facing society. Croatia’s National Recovery Plan considers both the lessons learned by the COVID-19 crisis and the earthquake experienced in 2020. Consider some of Croatia’s recovery and resilience strategies:

Economy, education, the environment & research

• Introduce new labour market policies that focus on building green and digital skills, and specifically target vulnerable groups
• Recognise the economic value of the culture and tourism industries through targeted investment
• Review the social welfare system, establish new social services, and implement measures that increase “coverage, adequacy, and targeting of social benefits”
• Reform the education system by updating school curricula, “increase access to early childhood education and care, and implement single-shift, full-day teaching”
• Establish partnerships between universities, research centres, and the private sector, to inform the development of context specific risk management strategies through collaborative research and action

Digitalization of government

• Decentralise governance practices, to simplify and increase the efficiency of local government systems
• Increase the use of ICT in statutory agencies (e.g. health care and judiciary systems)
• Implement community outreach services, to promote and integrate resilience building activities at the local level

Infrastructure

• Targeted investment in repair and reconstruction of infrastructure impacted by the earthquake and COVID-19, both public and private, including local heritage sites
• Regulate, create, or change local building regulations, codes of practice and requirements for infrastructure, to consider the needs of a multi-hazard management approach
• Improve the water and waste management system through strategies that focus on the environment and transitioning to a circular economy