Thinking ahead: For a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Publication year
Resource type
UNCCD Library
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Web resource
Across the World Bank Group, efforts are underway to help governments respond to the crisis triggered by COVID-19. The priority today is to support overwhelmed health systems and the millions of workers and business owners who are being hit hard. Thinking ahead, however, the response also offers a significant opportunity to build a more resilient and sustainable future.
A First Phase: Lessons from the Front Lines of Disaster Response
The initial focus must be on the front lines: supporting doctors and nurses, as well as ensuring that homes and hospitals have power and water, waste is properly disposed, and food is available and affordable. Attention must also focus on the households hit by drastically reduced incomes, especially those with exposed occupations (e.g., tourism or restaurants) or unstable incomes (e.g., independent workers), as well as the poorest households with little savings.
Right now, the goal cannot be to stimulate demand and increase economic activity before the virus is under control. Instead, we need redistributive actions to smooth the shock.
Restoring degraded forestlands and landscapes could create many jobs over the short term while also generating net benefits worth hundreds of billions of dollars from watershed protection, better crop yields, and forest products. In Ethiopia, for instance, the Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project increased local incomes and helped restore 2,700 hectares of biodiverse native forest, boosting carbon sequestration benefits. More tree cover also reduced local drought vulnerability.
Long-Term Benefits
For those of us who focus on the threat that climate change presents to hard-won development gains around the world, this crisis has a sense of foreboding to it. But if we are strategic in how we design policy responses, we can achieve both short and long-term outcomes that benefit both national and global interests. Planning for that, however, must start immediately. If we get it right, the response to COVID-19 may not only minimize pain and suffering now, but can also build the foundation for a greener, safer, and more prosperous future. Read further from the link abave
A First Phase: Lessons from the Front Lines of Disaster Response
The initial focus must be on the front lines: supporting doctors and nurses, as well as ensuring that homes and hospitals have power and water, waste is properly disposed, and food is available and affordable. Attention must also focus on the households hit by drastically reduced incomes, especially those with exposed occupations (e.g., tourism or restaurants) or unstable incomes (e.g., independent workers), as well as the poorest households with little savings.
Right now, the goal cannot be to stimulate demand and increase economic activity before the virus is under control. Instead, we need redistributive actions to smooth the shock.
Restoring degraded forestlands and landscapes could create many jobs over the short term while also generating net benefits worth hundreds of billions of dollars from watershed protection, better crop yields, and forest products. In Ethiopia, for instance, the Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project increased local incomes and helped restore 2,700 hectares of biodiverse native forest, boosting carbon sequestration benefits. More tree cover also reduced local drought vulnerability.
Long-Term Benefits
For those of us who focus on the threat that climate change presents to hard-won development gains around the world, this crisis has a sense of foreboding to it. But if we are strategic in how we design policy responses, we can achieve both short and long-term outcomes that benefit both national and global interests. Planning for that, however, must start immediately. If we get it right, the response to COVID-19 may not only minimize pain and suffering now, but can also build the foundation for a greener, safer, and more prosperous future. Read further from the link abave
Keywords
sustainability
land restoration
climate change
financial incentives
social protection
disaster risk management
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