The authors of the Manchester Briefing, a fortnightly document aimed at those who plan and implement Recovery and Renewal from COVID-19, have launched a searchable database of international lessons on Recovery and Renewal.
The database has been designed to create an easy-to-use searchable function for the hundreds of individual lessons that have been shared through The Manchester Briefing on COVID-19 since the pandemic first struck. The Briefing is put together by AMBS and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute.
Lessons for resilience
The database is comprised of a number of features. For instance the Lessons for Resilience are organised according to the six core Recovery and Renewal themes of: Communities; Economic; Infrastructure; Environment; Health; and Governance.
Also available are the 575 lessons, think pieces and case studies that have been collated from 40 briefings, and this number will continue to grow as the team behind the Briefing continue to bring together international lessons on Recovery and Renewal.
A filter function also enables a search of lessons using the six core themes, associated keywords and country. Another file, Documents on Resilience, also details specific project outputs such as written evidence, articles and publications.
A look forward
Meanwhile, over coming months the team will be developing a new National Consortium for Societal Resilience with Thames Valley LRF (Local Resilience Forum) which will unite a range of interested parties around the important topic of societal resilience.
The government’s recent Integrated Review and the launch of the call for evidence of the National Resilience Strategy have put a renewed focus on whole-of-society resilience. The new National Consortium for Societal Resilience will seek to provide support to local government as it focuses on a topic that has been so critical to COVID-19.
Student support
The team will also look to scope a new university system to coordinate the deployment of student volunteers to support people and places that have been affected by major emergencies. Students and staff from The University of Manchester have provided substantial and ongoing support to its local communities during COVID-19. This initiative aims to think through how this institutional response can be formalised by working with partners to build a new capability to support local communities in times of disruptive events.
The team is also continuing to work on a range of COVID-19 research topics within three specific impact areas - Communities, Systems, and Recovery, Renewal, Resilience Frameworks. And, working with various partners, it will continue to organise free webinars exploring all these topics. More than 50 webinars and workshops have already been held over the last 16 months and the next event on September 3rd will examine the human aspects of resilience.
Green recovery
The latest issue of the Briefing covers a wide range of topics such as the priorities of local governments for public transport Recovery and Renewal, and global funding initiatives for a green recovery.
It also considers new public-private partnerships to protect health systems during crisis. Throughout the pandemic, many health systems across the world have come within days of being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, and others have been unable to prevent their systems from being overwhelmed.
For instance the response in the Singh district of Pakistan, which has the highest rate of COVID-19 cases in the country, was underpinned by public-private partnerships with local government. This provides insights into how public-private engagement can be accelerated during the crisis and how existing policy windows can be used for longer-term planning for pandemics and universal health coverage.
The Briefing also details city examples of local economic and financial recovery, citing the Building Urban Economic Resilience during and after COVID-19 report produced by UN-HABITAT and partners which outlines the different economic Recovery initiatives adopted by cities across the world.
Download this week's Manchester Briefing on COVID-19 (issue 40)
If you would like to contribute your knowledge to the Briefing contact Duncan.Shaw-2@manchester.ac.uk
