COVID-19
Crisis:Lessons for
RecoveryWhat can we learn from existing
research on the long-term aspects
of disaster risk and recovery?
Roger Few
Vasudha Chhotray
Mark Tebboth
Johanna Forster

Carole White
Teresa Armijos
Clare Shelton

School of International Development,
University of East Anglia, UK

COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

About the Shape the Future programme
The British Academy’s Shape the Future programme will explore how to create
a positive post-pandemic future for people, the economy and the environment.
We are convening our community in ways we have never done before, bridging
across sectors and disciplines, integrating insights to help inform policy, andencouraging interdisciplinary learning; focussing on issues that cannot be treatedin policy silos to bring considerations of place, ethics and shared values together
with the long view and the world view.
thebritishacademy.ac.uk/shape-the-future/

Below: Following floods in Chennai, the resettlement ofpoorer residents created new forms of social vulnerability(photo: Recovery with Dignity project)

COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Introduction
The impacts of COVID-19 have reached across the globe, directly affecting
millions of people and intensifying existing development challenges in many
countries. But, while in many places the pandemic has brought a level of societal
disruption seldom experienced before, in others the situation has broad parallels
with the losses and disruptions experienced in recent major disasters. Every
crisis is different, of course, and this one is certainly like no other contemporary
event. Nevertheless, it would be unwise not to recognise the lessons that can begained from other disaster and post-disaster contexts. In this brief document,
we highlight key insights from research on other crisis situations that we hope
can inform recovery from the impacts of COVID-19 as well as management ofresponses to future pandemics.
Our main concern in this document is how to manage the long-term implicationsof the pandemic in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs), because of
the combination of more widespread poverty and structurally weaker support
capacity within many of those countries. However, the lessons are by no means
restricted to those contexts.
Central in our arguments is the importance of supporting people to recover theirlivelihoods and wellbeing, equitably and sustainably. As in all disasters, there aremuch greater numbers of people affected by the crisis than physically harmed
by the hazard (in this case a biological hazard - the outbreak of a virus). And, as
in all disasters, these impacts do not fall evenly. Hence, the lessons we report on
are oriented to the needs and concerns of those most vulnerable to long-term
impacts, as shaped by differential exposure to hazards and barriers to recovery
associated with poverty, marginalisation and exclusion. The aim is to promotelonger-term, integrated thinking and planning, to create pathways out of thepandemic that more effectively support recovery.
In the following pages, we have brought together eight inter-related lessons
from our research work in Latin America, the Caribbean, East Africa and SouthAsia, which we have organised into four main sections: Managing a prolonged
crisis; Planning for complexity; Establishing priorities for recovery; and Building
capacities. Each lesson is illustrated with a short example from one of our casestudies.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Managing a prolonged crisis
COVID-19 is a long-duration hazard event, and the transition out of the crisis will
likely take even longer. Experiences from other disasters and disaster risk settings
underline the importance of taking a long-term view even when the direct impacts of
the hazard are still occurring. The situation will be constantly changing and it does
not make sense to wait for things to ‘stabilise’ before taking steps toward recovery. We
highlight here two key lessons.

Lesson 1: Vulnerability is not static during the progression of a longduration hazard ‘event’
Example 1: Livelihood needs andchanging risk behaviour (Ecuador)
From 1999 to 2016, Ecuador’s Tungurahua
volcano was in a prolonged eruptive phase,with major hazards, including deadly
pyroclastic flows, punctuating longer periodsof variable, lower-intensity activity andfrequent ashfalls. Tungurahua is in a populatedarea, with one major town and many ruralvillages in its immediate surroundings. The
area was subject to a number of evacuations
and there was ever-present chance of acatastrophic escalation of activity. However,for most of the time farmers continued towork their fields on the flanks of the volcano,despite the withdrawal of public services
from their villages and despite most families
being given resettlement homes elsewhere.
Rather than trying to develop new livelihoods
under difficult circumstances, many ofthese smallholders adapted their practices
in order to continue to tend their crops andlivestock on their established land. Continuous
communication with scientists and local
authorities helped them monitor the volcano’s
activity. Given the hardships in resettlement,
they felt that the continuing dangers they
faced were tolerable.

•

COVID-19 has parallels with other long-duration or slowonset hazards such as prolonged volcanic activity, periodsof drought, and biological infestations, as well as otherepidemics. The hazard is one that develops and is sustained
through an extended period of time, before diminishing to alevel that is no longer a major direct threat.

•

During the progression of a drawn-out emergency situationsuch as this, the parameters of risk – exposure to a hazard
and vulnerability to its multiple impacts - are not ‘frozen’.
Everything is in flux - people’s losses and needs, theirknowledge, attitudes and practices, as well as the varying
levels of threat posed by the hazard itself.

•

One key effect of this dynamic can be increasing precarityof livelihoods. The prolonged disruption created by a longduration emergency can generate new forms of economic
vulnerability, sometimes in social groups not normallyassociated with unstable incomes. We can see this occurring
across the globe, as the implications of COVID-19 lockdowns
are generating huge knock-on impacts on poverty, hunger and
ill-health.

•Moreover, livelihood precarity itself leads people to returnto practices, or undertake new practices, that heighten their
exposure to the direct effects of the hazard. This is one key
reason why preventive behaviour is bound to change during along epidemiological emergency, and for some social groups
this is not merely them becoming ‘complacent’, but a dynamic
driven by livelihood needs and the weighing up of one risk
against another.

Implication for COVID-19:

Monitor how vulnerability to the pandemic’s effects is shifting and how that might
increase ‘risky’ behaviour, and recognise the need for wider livelihood support asa holistic approach to reducing vulnerability.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Lesson 2: Crisis response tends to be immediate and short-term anddoes not encompass long-term recovery planning
Example 2: Crisis response anddisaster risk reduction (Odisha, India)
The coastal Indian state of Odisha suffers
regular cyclones from the Bay of Bengal. In
1999, a super-cyclone with wind speeds of
260km/hour and a storm surge that travelled
up to 20km inland killed more than 10,000
people, and there were devastating losses tolivelihoods. Relief efforts were inadequate andchaotic, and the state struggled to cope withthe scale of the crisis. In the years since, theOdisha government has gone on to set up
an elaborate crisis response and disaster risk
reduction apparatus. It relies predominantly
upon a strategy of early warnings and theestablishment of multipurpose cyclone
shelters. In subsequent cyclones there havebeen few losses of lives, but there is stilla major deficit of attention to impacts on
livelihoods and support for recovery. Poor
coastal populations are struggling to keep
their farming livelihoods going, are taking up
new and economically risky livelihoods likeaquaculture without support or regulation,
and are being pushed into higher levels ofvulnerability.

After the Odisha Super-cyclone many farmers
who converted ricefields to aquaculture ponds
could not sustain them (photo: Roger Few)•

There is an entrenched tendency amongst governments
and aid agencies to regard hazards as singular events withclear start and end dates. This tends to arise from a deeply
embedded project mentality that determines fund flows,
reporting structures, and ultimately, governance. In the caseof disasters however, such mentality translates into a risk
reduction strategy that focuses only on the tip of the problem,
while disregarding longer-term challenges. There is a real
danger that this could happen with COVID-19 as governments
everywhere are showing fatigue at the seemingly endlesscrisis.

•Many have argued that the different aspects of managing
disaster risk and its impacts should not be seen as segmented
and sequential. This is even more imperative in a longduration hazard event when the blurring of emergency
responses and getting livelihoods and wellbeing back together
is inevitable. Peoples’ lives have to go on even as the hazard
threat surrounds them, as is clear with the current COVID-19
situation. But in many cases (as in this example from Odisha),recovery planning does not even come under the radar of
disaster risk reduction.

•

An integral aspect of this tendency is to zero down on theidentifiable threat or factor that is driving the crisis andfocus on tackling that hazard. Promoting this idea produces
more muscular management approaches, and legitimises thecurtailment of dissent and democratic freedoms, but does
not help the creation of a well-formulated and well-evidenced
recovery strategy over time.

•

For the COVID-19 situation, as with different types of
emergencies, the hazard must be seen as a trigger withlong-term effects that interact with many other unfolding
problems. Anticipating these now, and supporting people toshape their responses in an equitable and resilient manner,
should be at the heart of a recovery strategy.

Implication for COVID-19:

A forward-thinking approach to dealing with the multiple and unfolding drivers
and effects of the crisis is needed, where we are not waiting for a finite ‘end’ before‘transitioning’ to recovery.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Planning for complexity
Recovery from a disaster or other crisis will almost never take a simple, linear
path – it will seldom simply be a matter of reproducing what was there before – norshould it necessarily be. Recovery is a process that is complicated, interacting withother dynamics in society, socially differentiated and riven with uncertainty. Suchconsiderations make planning for (and, ultimately realising) recovery inherently
difficult, but we cannot ‘wish’ those complexities away. Unless complexity is
acknowledged and factored into recovery strategies there is even more chancethat poor decisions will exacerbate poverty and marginalisation, and fail to equip
populations with the abilities to recover from future crises.

Lesson 3: Recognise and plan for interacting threats andissues that compound over time and influence the courseof long-term recovery
Example 3: Recognising the complexitythat underpins ‘discrete’ crisis events(Ethiopia)
In the drylands of Ethiopia, concerns aboutwater scarcity are an ever-present and a key
priority for government, civil society, andsociety at large. From 2015-2019 many partsof the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia,
experienced recurrent droughts or periodsof prolonged rainfall deficits. Response to
the drought focused on basic provision ofwater and food to affected populations.
However, research undertaken during the
drought showed that its implications were
impossible to disentangle from other key
drivers of change taking place, such aschanges in land use and access to water
sources, the increasing enclosure of land, andthe spread of invasive plants. More recently,
these ongoing issues are being compounded
further by the current severe locust invasion
across the region which is further impeding
efforts to ensure the wellbeing of large
proportions of the population. Isolating theimpacts of water scarcity from these ongoingsocietal and environmental dynamics is very
difficult and obscures efforts to address
underlying vulnerabilities that make drought
impacts so devastating.

•

Both crisis and recovery are inseparable from, and interact
with, other issues and dynamics that contribute tovulnerability.

•

In this example from Ethiopia, it is clear that managing thelong-term implications of any disaster and making efforts
to strengthen future resilience are unlikely to be successful
unless other factors beyond the hazard itself can be taken into
consideration.

•

When a major crisis such as COVID-19 occurs, it does notnullify pre-existing problems, such as food insecurity,
disempowerment or gender-based violence: these persist andmay become exacerbated in its aftermath. The disruptions it
creates may also give rise to new forms of stress, quite distinct
from the nature of the hazard itself. The impacts of decisions
made during crises such as incurring debt to provide food forthe family can continue to ripple through a person’s life longafter the event has finished.

•

Effectively managing the long-term repercussions of the
COVID-19 pandemic will require understanding of situationsof ongoing risk in which the need for recovery does not recede
but becomes entangled with pre-existing, new and more
immediate concerns.

Implication for COVID-19:

Planning of recovery needs to consider how other issues and dynamics insociety will shape the effectiveness of efforts to address problems createdby the pandemic.
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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Lesson 4: Expect a socially uneven process and work to reduce
inequities in people’s trajectories of recovery
Example 4: Social differentiation in
the long-term impacts of disasters(Montserrat)
The Caribbean island of Montserrat madeheadline news in the 1990s when its longquiet volcano, Soufriere Hills, brought
devastation to the main, southern part of theisland, destroying its capital and forcing themass evacuation of most of the population.
Much has been written about the overall
crisis and its management, but there has
been little direct focus on how the aftermathof the evacuations and the disruptions that
played out for many years more becamesocially differentiated. A retrospective analysis
undertaken in 2013 examined how themost vulnerable during and after the major
eruptive phase tended to be those socialgroups who came into the crisis with lower
incomes, fewer economic assets and limitedsocial networks, which constrained theiroptions to rebuild livelihoods in the north of
the island or relocate independently to places
overseas. But it also indicated how continuing
eruptive events and the decisions and actions
taken by organisations managing the crisis
over evacuation, resettlement, rehabilitation
and assisted migration accentuated the ways
in which these differences became manifest
over time. Everyone on the island was deeply
affected by the eruptions, but the long-term
implications were inherently uneven.

•

By looking at past disasters we can trace how theirimplications play out across different social groups over time.
By implications, we mean the longer-term environmental,
demographic, economic, social, psychosocial and otherwellbeing impacts associated with emergency events. Not
everyone recovers in the same way; and some may become
more marginalised through the recovery process.

•In historical research in the Caribbean, South America andIndia we have seen how patterns of inequality can become
reproduced and deepened over time through the passage
of disasters, and in Dominica we have traced this processrepeating but also evolving through multiple disasters acrossthe colonial and post-colonial periods.

•

Reinforcing pre-existing differences, but also sometimes
reconfiguring them (through, for example, drawing additionalgroups into poverty), these inevitably have a strong handin shaping differential trajectories of people’s recovery. We
may even witness reversals in equity gains recently made,such as retrenched inequalities in gender roles and access toemployment opportunities.

•

It is important also to recognise that poorer social groups
are often more susceptible to downstream impacts thatemerge well after the hazard event has subsided, such as
those noted in Lesson 3. Some of these downstream impacts
may be associated with decisions taken when managing the
emergency phase, and this is already widely recognised in
the discussions both around disease control and livelihood
support needs in the case of COVID-19.

The eruption of Soufrière Hills in Montserrat
destroyed homes and farms across two-thirds ofthe island (photo: Roger Few)

Implication for COVID-19:

Recognise that poverty and marginalisation not only prolong recovery but
increase susceptibility to downstream livelihood impacts; ensure as much as
possible that disease control and recovery decisions do not entrench inequities
still further.
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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Establishing priorities for recovery
Recovery has many facets, and, for organisations engaging in the process, the choiceof what to focus on and how is an inherently subjective one. Actions, interventions,policies and political dynamics in the aftermath of crisis events shape the prospects
for recovery and define who benefits. Research work has underlined the importanceof how, by whom and for what purposes events, processes and experiences of crisisand response are framed and communicated in the post-emergency phase. It is
important to retain this critical perspective to recognise how priorities might need tochange to better support recovery.

Lesson 5: Recognise that recovery agendas and actions are shaped bypower and politics which can lead to poorly designed and incorrectly
targeted interventions
Example 5: Relocating poorer
residents from inner-city (Chennai)
In November and December 2015, Tamil Nadu
was affected by extreme rains and flooding,with the capital city, Chennai, being one of theworst affected areas in the state. Following
the floods, the priorities of the Tamil Nadu
government focused on housing. Thousandsof poorer households were relocated fromareas in the centre of Chennai deemed to be‘at risk’ from flooding to new settlements on theoutskirts of the city. These ‘at risk’ areas within
the city were then repurposed for business
infrastructure and development. Interviews withresettled households highlighted how thesedecisions have created new vulnerabilities
for them. Access to their livelihoods, which
are located in the centre of the city, is muchharder now because of the distance and costof transport, and the provision of services inthese new locations is worse. The interviewees
felt that their priorities for recovery had beensidelined through relocation. Recovery priorities
instead became ‘captured’ by elite interests (inthis case prioritising city centre development)
and failed to provide the appropriate type andlevel of support for those who are most in need.

•

Ideas of recovery are socially differentiated with different
stakeholders having different conceptions about whatrecovery should entail. As processes to define and identify
recovery interventions are overlain on pre-existing matricesof power, those who are typically excluded or marginalised
will find it harder to make their vision of recovery matter. The
attendant risk is that recovery interventions will reflect andbe captured by elites.

•

Disaster risk managers use seemingly neutral andtechnocratic language to justify and bound theirinterventions. However, the processes that shape recovery arebacked by powerful political interests and narratives.

•

In this example from India we can see how a post-disastersituation created conditions whereby resettlement actions
that served different political agendas became possible, withmajor negative repercussions for the relocated population.

•

As we move from response to recovery with the current
pandemic it is important to be watchful and recognise how
seemingly benign interventions can reinforce exclusionary
practices.

Implication for COVID-19:

It is crucial to retain critical awareness of how the design and implementation ofrecovery actions can be shaped by interest groups, especially if the priorities of thepoor and marginalised are to be met.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Lesson 6: The tendency to focus on specific forms of actions inrecovery support can undermine recovery and overlook key needs
Example 6: Prioritising individual andcommunity wellbeing for disaster risk
recovery (Dominica)
Dominica was severely impacted by Tropical
Storm Erika (2015) and then again by category
5 Hurricane Maria (2017), which destroyed
over 90% of the country’s infrastructure –some of which had only just been rebuilt.
With many communities left homeless or
requiring permanent relocation, recovery
efforts and investments have focusedon rebuilding physical structures (roads,
housing and other essential infrastructure)that people need to pursue recovery within
their homes and communities. However, thisdoes not address people’s personal recovery
from trauma; and support for this is typicallyneglected. Dominicans emphasised theimportance of good relationships and strong
community spirit as central to wellbeing,bolstering resilience and recovery following
these traumatic events. While community
resilience is part of the national discourse,many have suffered mental health issues,
hindering capacity to rebuild lives. A local
council worker told us “my mind, my mental
state isn't the same anymore. I'm scared, of
everything now”. Two years on, this is clear
in the persisting social problems including
long-term unemployment, abandoned farms,
homelessness and substance misuse.

•

In the aftermath of disasters, governments typically prioritise
infrastructure and the economy (e.g. rebuilding roads andbuildings and reviving economic sectors). To a large extent
this is driven by a focus on macro-level indicators rather
than micro-scale factors, closer to lived experiences andlivelihoods.

•

In the concentration on such sectors of intervention, support
for other needs tends to be overlooked. Equally importantto rebuild are the social networks and community ties,
fundamental for recovery, that contribute to community
cohesion and support, and help people re-establish or
create new livelihoods. Simple actions can go a long way:
for instance, rebuilding a community sport field or spiritual
centre, and restoring online communication.

•

As the example from Dominica shows, psychosocial support
is one key example of a neglected sector. Recognition of its
importance is increasing, but support for individuals who
have experienced extreme loss and upheaval in their lives isstill rarely prioritised following disasters. Investing in mental
health is a central part of long-term recovery, which at its
heart requires people to feel stable, safe and hopeful for the
future.

•

The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are as multifaceted as any major disaster, extending far beyond the
direct impacts from the disease. It is important that macrolevel indicators do not dominate how recovery support isprioritised, and to recognise the need to assess and support
non-material aspects. These will vary from context to context.

The impacts of Hurricane Maria on people
in Dominica extend far beyond the physicaldamage to their homes (photo: Johanna Forster)

Implication for COVID-19:

A holistic approach that recognises how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts not only
livelihoods, but social support networks and mental health, is vital to prevent
creating more vulnerability.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Strengthening capacities
Recognising the lessons highlighted in the previous sections can help the processof planning a recovery from the pandemic so that it follows more equitable andsustainable paths. Though no crisis is the same, there are nevertheless principles thatcan be applied across them, and this application can be fostered through attention
to capacity development for recovery. Indeed, we maintain that capacities to recovercan be strengthened before, as well as during and after disasters, and this applies
equally to recovery from pandemics.

Lesson 7: Work on recovery does not have to be solely reactive
Example 7: Aiming to strengthen
recovery capacity in the schools
sector (Mozambique)
In a global study of capacity strengthening
programmes for disaster risk reduction,
conducted between 2013-2015, one of themost striking findings was that managementof recovery processes was weakly consideredin such programmes. Yet recovery support
is not only a crucial aspect of holistic
disaster risk reduction, but, if well planned,
an opportunity to significantly reduce risk
in future. One example that did emerge
within the study was an initiative supported
by multilateral donors in Mozambique,targeted to the schools sector. Initiallyfor reconstruction of cyclone-damaged
schools, the programme evolved into a wider
mechanism to strengthen the long-term
capacity of government and other actors
to promote, design and construct safer
schools. This did not just include technicalguidelines and training, but also setting
up multi-stakeholder policy forums anddialogues to help implement more forwardlooking approaches to school construction
and reconstruction, in settings prone toclimatic hazards. The initiative emphasisedthat planning mechanisms for how to rebuild
sustainably can be established in advance.

•

In their disaster management plans and guidelines, the focus
of many governments still tends to be on the effectivenessof emergency response, despite the shifting emphasis ininternational forums toward more holistic disaster risk
reduction.

•

Though relief and recovery are commonly linked
administratively, disaster agencies seldom take up a broader
and more proactive process of strategic planning for recovery.
There is perhaps often an expectation that disaster recovery
will follow ‘normal’ processes of development. As a result,strategic thinking about recovery tends to fall between thecracks of disconnected departmental structures.

•

The result is little anticipation of the particular long-termrisks and problems that emergency situations create,especially those faced by poorer groups that cannot readily
replace lost assets especially if they face recurrent hazards.

•

Gains are being made globally in disaster preparedness, but
typically this is geared to evacuation, rescue, and emergency
provisions. We see no fundamental reason why some degree ofstrategic recovery planning, and the capacities to do so, could
not also be put in place, as the example from Mozambiqueshows. This principle is just as important in planning andanticipation for epidemiological hazards like COVID-19 as it isfor physical hazards.

Implication for COVID-19:

Actively plan and build capacity for recovery, now and for future pandemics,
drawing positive lessons from countries and contexts where strategic planningmechanisms have aided pandemic management and recovery.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Lesson 8: Recognising and supporting grassroots recovery capacities
Example 8: Working with displaced
people to strengthen community
resilience (Colombia)
Years of conflict in Colombia have resulted
in millions of internally displaced persons,many of whom face hazards and disasterrisks in the places where they have resettled.
Research and engagement work in four
locations in Colombia conducted between
2016-19, demonstrated that although deeply
impacted by conflict, disaster and limited
state support, displaced people possess
important capacities that when mobilised canenhance recovery. Their abilities to respondand recover from multiple forms of crisis,such as building new homes or devising
new livelihood opportunities, are not always
recognised by those responsible for disasterrisk reduction. The project therefore foundthat there is an urgent need to open spaces
for dialogue between communities andpolicy makers. The creative arts, including
community theatre, dance and music becamesuch spaces where the voices and priorities of
those who have experienced disaster could beheard. In the words of an official who attended
a performance: ‘we should not forget that
although you have difficult stories, you arefighters […] I will remember this experienceand work so that you don’t continue being justlists of victims’.

•

Across the world there has been a growing movement tosupport communities in how they manage hazards anddisaster risk in their environment. This recognises boththe potential that exists at grassroots level to take charge ofaspects of risk management, but also the lived reality that it iscommunities affected by disaster, not aid agencies, who must
do most of the work to cope with the impacts.

•

Yet, again, we see that this support tends to focus mostly on
alerts, evacuation, shelter, first aid and relief measures forthe immediate emergency phase. Generally, little attention is
given to strengthening capacities for people to work together
for more effective recovery. But those recent programmesthat have been targeting self-recovery efforts following majordisasters are showing that the potential is clear.

•

Our example from research in Colombia underlines theinherent capacities that many groups who have coped withlifelong hardships possess. It also indicates how a creative,
facilitative and flexible approach to community engagement
might open opportunities both to support vulnerable
groups and strengthen the capacities of both governmentand communities to work together toward more effective,
equitable and sustainable recovery from crises.

•

Given the magnitude and complexity of the crisis surrounding
COVID-19, it seems that it is practically and ethicallyimportant to enable communities to drive their own recovery
process during and after a pandemic, to open spaces of
dialogue and listen to people’s priorities and concerns.
Communities are not just recipients of aid, they are agents ofchange: they hold important knowledge and capacities thatneed to be recognised in order to achieve long term recovery
from any form of crisis.

Creative arts have offered a way for communities
to convey both their struggles and theirresilience (photo: Luis David Acosta Rodríguez)

Implication for COVID-19:

Encourage agency at grassroots level now, and in anticipation of future
pandemics, to help communities plan, implement and gain support for theirprocesses of recovery; consider how creative approaches to engagement canfacilitate this capacity strengthening.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Above: In many dryland
areas of Ethiopia thepandemic is one newfactor in an alreadycomplex humanitariancrisis (photo: Roger Few)

Conclusion
There is a tendency to see the COVID-19 crisis as something new and unique,
yet there exist parallels with disaster situations that regularly occur across theworld, and from which we have much to learn. Recovery from any disasterhas to be conceived beyond narrow, short-term fixes focussed on the mostimmediate, tangible aspects – and all the more so in crises that are as prolonged
and ramifying in their effects as this pandemic. The pandemic has a lethal virus
at its centre, and a robust public health response to that hazard is, of course,
crucial. But, as in any disaster, the implications of its presence touch on many
more dimensions of society than disease risk alone, taking new and sometimes
unanticipated turns as they ripple across space and through time.
These implications are fundamentally different for different social groups.
Evidence shows that, in any form of disaster, certain people and populations will
be impacted more severely and for longer periods of time than others. It should
be a priority to identify these groups and ensure that measures are targeted tohelp them. It is generally accepted now within disaster risk reduction circles
that people’s level of vulnerability to disaster impacts is pre-conditioned by
12

COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recoverysocial inequalities, and this is writ large in how the impacts of COVID-19 and theassociated public health measures are playing out worldwide. What may be lessobvious is that, more often than not, these underlying social structures become
reinforced through the emergency and recovery processes. Moreover, structuralchanges that were thought to have reduced inequality prior to a disaster event,such as shifts in gender and race relations, can reveal their fragility in the
crucible of the crisis event.
In the long-drawn recovery period, there will be the tendency to justify
interventions that favour particular vested interests, but these must be criticallyscrutinised to ensure they continue to serve the wider public interest instead.
As the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath unfold, we need to simultaneously
think through impacts of any interventions on different groups across temporaland spatial scales and be cautious with how a narrowly defined problem can leadto a narrowly focused solution with unintended consequences.
These are tall orders for governance, and there is no blueprint for equitable andsustainable recovery to counteract the political constraints it will inevitably
face. But, a commitment to make recovery more effective for those who need
it most requires, at the very least, that careful thought goes into planning
recovery processes through analysis of differential impacts and anticipation of
the dynamics ahead. This requires a readiness to seek conversations between
different actors – especially those whose recovery prospects seem mostconstrained. It requires a flexibility and creativity in how to approach dialogues
to level out otherwise hierarchical relations, and a recognition that being
vulnerable does not in any sense mean lacking agency or lacking a legitimate
voice in shaping the way forward. Finally, this is a situation that most countries
are facing and reacting to simultaneously, some with greater experience ofdisasters and epidemics than others. It is vital to learn from other contexts – anda key role for social science can be in galvanising this interaction.

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COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery

Acknowledgements
The eight lessons compiled for this briefing document directly draw on aseries of research projects in which the UEA team have been involved, as
well as a much wider body of research and practice in disaster risk and crisis
management.
The following research projects contributed material to the examples shown foreach lesson:•‘Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas (STREVA)’(funded by NERC/ESRC)•'After the storm: Memories of vulnerability following the Orissa
super-cyclone of 1999' (funded by the British Academy)•‘Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR)’(funded by IDRC/DFID, under the CARIAA programme)•‘Recovery with Dignity’ (funded by the British Academy, under GCRF)•‘Between a rock and a wet place: historical trajectories of
exposure to disaster risk in Small Island Developing States’(funded by NERC/ESRC/AHRC, under GCRF)•‘Future proofing Caribbean fisheries from hurricane impacts: linking
fisheries resilience and disaster risk management in Dominica’(funded by UEA GCRF QR Rapid Response fund)•‘Strategic research into national and local capacity building fordisaster risk management’ (funded by IFRC/DFID)•‘Moving with Risk: forced displacement and vulnerability tohazards in Colombia’ (funded by ESRC/AHRC, under GCRF)

The writing team also wish to thanks Janet Seeley (LSHTM) and the British
Academy reviewer panel for their constructive inputs to the document.

Further reading
Anderson MB and Woodrow PJ (2019) Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster.
Routledge.
Bankoff G, Frerks G and Hilhorst D (eds) (2004) Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development andPeople. Earthscan, London.
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Published July 2020
ISBN 978-0-85672-649-1
To cite this briefing:
Few R, Chhotray V, Tebboth M, Forster J, White C, Armijos T and Shelton C (2020)
COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery. What can we learn from existing research on
the long-term aspects of disaster risk and recovery? The British Academy, London
doi.org/10.5871/bac19stf/9780856726491.001
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