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

Publications

10 25 50
 
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 Bridging the gap: NCSR+ focus group on The UK Government Resilience Framework (UKNRF)
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact Picked up by national and local government.
URL https://www.alliancembs.manchester.ac.uk/media/ambs/content-assets/documents/news/the-national-brief...
 
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 Evaluation Advisory Panel for the Stronger LRF Pilot
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact Advising on maximising value from the governments investment in local resilience forums
 
Description House of Lords Review of Risk Assessment Process - Report - Preparing for Extreme Risks: Building a Resilient Society
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8082/documents/83124/default/
 
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 National Conference on Societal Resilience 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 140 resilience practitioners learned how to develop local resilience capabilities for their local areas
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL http://www.ambs.ac.uk/NCSRconference
 
Description National Conference on Societal Resilience 2024 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 190 participants registered to attend the conference and substantial learning resulted which changed minds and practices.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL http://www.ambs.ac.uk/NCSRconference
 
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