Practical Lessons for Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Principles for Recovery

Since COVID-19 was first recognized in December of 2019, it has spread to every continent, almost every country, infected millions and cost unacceptable lives lost. It has caused the greatest global economic downturn in a century, and threatens to reverse decades of development gains.

There has never been a more pressing mandate to build back better than from this crisis. The pandemic has exposed and exploited vulnerabilities and inequalities at the root of the virus' most severe and disproportionate consequences. Preventing future outbreaks from becoming pandemics, and future shocks from causing such scale and scope of damage across the development spectrum, will depend on addressing these root vulnerabilities in recovery. It is not just a moral imperative to do so, it is necessary to ensure the durability of recovery and to build resilience to future global shocks.

This publication offers a set of guiding, action-oriented principles and practical cases to support recovering communities as they plan and implement recovery. The principles focus on key cross-cutting issues for recovery such as building back better and greener, inclusive and people-centred recovery, and preserving development gains, among others. It offers a roadmap of options to guide recovery efforts, based on applied disaster recovery experience, and established methods and evidence.

It is the third in a series of publications from the International Recovery Platform to support recovery from the pandemic. It builds on the COVID-19 Recovery Policy Brief, and shall be followed by a fourth publication, which highlights nine key government actions for COVID-19 recovery.