Recovering from COVID-19: Informing, supporting and developing guidance for local resilience
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Alliance Manchester Business School
Abstract
Recovery is "the process of rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitating the community following an emergency" (HMG Emergency Response and Recovery, 2013). For COVID-19, recovery will involve all-of society (because everyone in the country has been affected to some extent) and whole-system (because every organisation, service and function has been affected). Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic we have deployed our research expertise in emergency response and recovery to support government. This has involved providing ongoing information about recovery, producing rapid response guides on aspects of response and recovery, and identifying opportunities for research to support the recovery effort. This project builds on this initial work to understand how government develop plans for short-term, transactional 'recovery' and how they think strategically about longer-term, ambitious, transformational change which we call 'renewal'.
Objective: This project works closely with resilience partners in three Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to develop a generalizable, theoretically underpinned framework for how recovery and renewal to COVID-19 can enhance resilience. The framework will:
- Take a whole system approach to recovery and renewal (from communities to national levels)
- Explore how to manage the changes in people, places and processes that is needed to live with COVID-19
- Address short-term, transactional recovery as well as longer-term, transformational renewal
- Complement existing guidance and resilience standards and inform an international standard that we will write on recovery and renewal
Approach: The framework will be informed by (and inform) Recovery Coordination Groups (RCGs) by using an action research approach to work closely with the resilience partners and engage with local and national organisations on how they plan recovery and renewal on a system-wide basis. Our partner LRFs have different structures (e.g. for local governance and recovery governance) and characteristics (e.g. partnerships, priorities, populations, local challenges, inequalities) so we can create a framework that is widely applicable to local variations.
Activities: We will:
- Collect and analyse national/international lessons on recovery and renewal
- Gather primary data by interviewing experts across the world on emergency planning, risk, and resilience
- Contribute to three Recovery Coordination Groups (RCGs) as well as three specific renewal projects (e.g. on volunteering, community resilience, demand management in emergency services)
- Extensively engage with other local and national government organisations to ensure alignment of our framework and exploit ongoing opportunities for impact
- Facilitate webinars and training on recovery and renewal for resilience
- Develop and test a framework for recovery and renewal, refine it in different contexts (national and international), learn about its application, and use feedback to improve it
- Develop and test a methodology to assess the impact of the framework
Main deliverables:
- A searchable database of lessons for recovery and renewal for local resilience
- Expert briefings on how to implement recovery and renewal for resilience
- A generalizable, theoretically underpinned, practice-tested framework to support government's thinking about recovery and renewal for resilience
- A self-evaluation methodology to reflect on recovery practices
- Publish fortnightly 'The Manchester Briefing on Recovery and Renewal' currently distributed directly (and through a network of national/international partners) to 52,000 people along with case studies and training products
- International and national standards having a global impact
Objective: This project works closely with resilience partners in three Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to develop a generalizable, theoretically underpinned framework for how recovery and renewal to COVID-19 can enhance resilience. The framework will:
- Take a whole system approach to recovery and renewal (from communities to national levels)
- Explore how to manage the changes in people, places and processes that is needed to live with COVID-19
- Address short-term, transactional recovery as well as longer-term, transformational renewal
- Complement existing guidance and resilience standards and inform an international standard that we will write on recovery and renewal
Approach: The framework will be informed by (and inform) Recovery Coordination Groups (RCGs) by using an action research approach to work closely with the resilience partners and engage with local and national organisations on how they plan recovery and renewal on a system-wide basis. Our partner LRFs have different structures (e.g. for local governance and recovery governance) and characteristics (e.g. partnerships, priorities, populations, local challenges, inequalities) so we can create a framework that is widely applicable to local variations.
Activities: We will:
- Collect and analyse national/international lessons on recovery and renewal
- Gather primary data by interviewing experts across the world on emergency planning, risk, and resilience
- Contribute to three Recovery Coordination Groups (RCGs) as well as three specific renewal projects (e.g. on volunteering, community resilience, demand management in emergency services)
- Extensively engage with other local and national government organisations to ensure alignment of our framework and exploit ongoing opportunities for impact
- Facilitate webinars and training on recovery and renewal for resilience
- Develop and test a framework for recovery and renewal, refine it in different contexts (national and international), learn about its application, and use feedback to improve it
- Develop and test a methodology to assess the impact of the framework
Main deliverables:
- A searchable database of lessons for recovery and renewal for local resilience
- Expert briefings on how to implement recovery and renewal for resilience
- A generalizable, theoretically underpinned, practice-tested framework to support government's thinking about recovery and renewal for resilience
- A self-evaluation methodology to reflect on recovery practices
- Publish fortnightly 'The Manchester Briefing on Recovery and Renewal' currently distributed directly (and through a network of national/international partners) to 52,000 people along with case studies and training products
- International and national standards having a global impact
Organisations
- University of Manchester (Lead Research Organisation)
- Essex County Council (Project Partner)
- The Emergency Planning Society (Project Partner)
- Government of the United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (Project Partner)
- Local Government Association (Project Partner)
- Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service (Project Partner)
- Solace (Project Partner)
- Global Resilient Cities Network (Project Partner)
Publications
McClelland A
(2022)
Post-COVID recovery and renewal through whole-of-society resilience in cities
in Journal of Safety Science and Resilience
McClelland A
(2023)
Resilience to disruptions: the role of regional soft spaces
in Regional Studies
McClelland A
(2022)
Recovery for Development: A Multi-Dimensional, Practice-Oriented Framework for Transformative Change Post-Disaster
in The Journal of Development Studies
O'Grady N
(2022)
People in a pandemic: Rethinking the role of 'Community' in community resilience practices.
in Geoforum; journal of physical, human, and regional geosciences
O'Grady N
(2023)
Disaster reparations? Rethinking disaster recovery through the politics of affect
in The Geographical Journal
O'Grady N
(2023)
Resilience, responsibility and state abandon: The changing role of the government in emergencies
in Political Geography
Scully J
(2022)
Societal resilience initiatives during Covid-19
Shaw D
(2022)
The Manchester Briefing - Issues 1-51
| Description | The main findings: - The recovery framework to inform local and national government. This is published as an international standard ISO/TS 22393 which now available globally. - We use TMB to influence government practice and national narrative about recovery and renewal. - The online, searchable database of +600 lessons on Covid-19 recovery and renewal. We are currently evaluating the popularity of this by users. We have a lot of analysis ongoing which means that the findings are still under development. We are still involved with our partners, and they are involved in the RCG Chair interviews. We have introduced the framework to them having it been informed by our action research support provided to them. An earlier version of the framework is available on YouTube with 499 views as of 15-3-2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-CXFFAGo2I&t=437s). We will record new videos to explain the framework near the end of the project. - Our Recovery, Renewal, Resilience website is available and disseminates support to local government via The Manchester Briefing www.ambs.ac.uk/covidrecovery. The Manchester Briefing is now in Issue 51. We disseminate the briefing to more than 55,000 people and 10,000 cities globally through direct sign-ups and our dissemination partners, such as Resilient Cities Network. - We have produced a database of lessons using The Manchester Briefing. This database contains +600 lessons on COVID-19 https://recoverydatabase.manchester.ac.uk/lessons - We have far exceeded the number of webinars and seminars that we promised to deliver. - Publications are progressing. Five papers have been submitted, of which 2 have been accepted for publication. National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+] has been co-founded and co-chaired by this project. The consortium includes 62 partners, and our local government partners alone cover 97% of the UK population. Societal resilience has been selected by these local governments as a major renewal endeavour following Covid. The consortium is further detailed on www.ambs.ac.uk/ncsr |
| Exploitation Route | National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+] has been co-founded and co-chaired by this project. The consortium includes 62 partners, and our local government partners alone cover 97% of the UK population. Societal resilience has been selected by these local governments as a major renewal endeavour following Covid. The consortium is further detailed on www.ambs.ac.uk/ncsr We wrote ISO22393:2021. Security and resilience - Community Resilience - Guidelines for planning recovery and renewal. This was used by Ramallah Municipality in Palestine and we recently visited there to support their implementation of Recovery and Renewal. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Security and Diplomacy |
| URL | http://www.ambs.ac.uk/covidrecovery |
| Description | The International Standards Organization (ISO) invited us to produce an international standard on recovery and renewal. This standard has been completed as a Technical Specification and is now published in a record time as ISO/TS 2293 'Guidelines for planning recovery and renewal' and is available for purchase from standard bodies websites. We have been asked to immediately restart the standard to add our latest project findings to the international standard and this will increase it to a full international standard. We have held initial meetings for the full standard and the ISO process will mean this is published in early 2023. Ramallah Municipality and many councils in UK have used this guidance to inform their recovery and renewal planning. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Citation in World Bank Report - Addressing Gender Gaps in Housing Interventions |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | Changing how people think about gender roles in DRR |
| URL | https://www.thegpsc.org/sites/gpsc/files/addressing_gender_gaps_in_housing_interventionsfinal.pdf |
| Description | ISO 22393 |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Providing guidance on how to structure planning for recovery and renewal |
| URL | https://www.iso.org/standard/50290.html |
| Description | Report - Preparing for Extreme Risks: Building a Resilient Society |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | This is informing the governments position on societal resilience to support people who are disproportionately vulnerable in a crisis. |
| URL | https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8082/documents/83124/default/ |
| Description | Review of how Ramallah Municipality implemented ISO/TS 22393 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | COVID-19 has shown the best of many city governments, especially Ramallah Municipality. Ramallah Municipality is a highly respected administration in Palestine and is nationally regarded as an advanced and innovative organisation that demonstrates what is possible in the unique circumstances of Palestine. A national State of Emergency was declared in response to COVID-19 on 5th March 2020 which activated national structures to coordinate responses, control and containment measures, and a range of activities to maintain services, the economy, and social well-being. Ramallah Municipality played a full and proactive role as part of a national endeavour to ensure local recovery from the pandemic. Our work first began with Ramallah as part of the Recovery, Renewal, Resilience project (RRR) in 2020, following introduction by one of RRR's key partners - Resilient Cities Network (RCN). We worked with Ramallah on their response to COVID-19 and their recovery work in the aftermath of the pandemic - facilitating the development of their recovery thinking and organisation of their planning structures. Subsequently, the RRR team wrote the international standard ISO/TS 22393 Guidelines for planning recovery and renewal from COVID-19 and, following much international interest in our guidelines, Ramallah Municipality asked to re-engage with us with a view to being assessed against the good practices on recovery and renewal contained in ISO/TS 22393. Ramallah Municipality sought to use ISO/TS 22393 to assess their own COVID-19 recovery and renewal activities, having adapted it to their organisational/operational style, culture and experience. As COVID-19 infection levels eased in 2022, RRR staff were invited to travel to Ramallah to gain further insights, review Ramallah Municipality's progress against ISO/TS 22393, and suggest further actions for recovery and renewal. That work over this two-year period culminated in a visit between Sunday 22nd May and Wednesday 25th May 2022. This report on recovery and renewal to COVID-19 outlines findings from the RRR Review Team formed of Duncan Shaw and David Powell (The University of Manchester) who wrote ISO/TS 22393. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |