Webinar: COVID-19: Responding, re-opening and recovering towards the resilience of cities

When: 8 July 2020 (Recording available)

Where: Online

Apply by: Registration open

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to scale up global efforts to strengthen resilience at all levels. The challenges of managing disasters while reducing disaster risks in countries, cities and communities have been exposed. Nevertheless, a range of international instruments and frameworks exist, to support countries in managing disaster risks and events, in particular the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, and the Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Framework (2019), providing guidance to protect development gains from the risk of disasters due to natural, human-induced and environmental hazards. An Interim Guidance for Local Authorities on “Strengthening preparedness for COVID-19 in cities and urban settings” was also published by the World Health Organization in May 2020.

Resilience building is a long-term journey. Thus, this webinar aimed to present and discuss the experiences of cities in preparing for, responding to and efforts to recover from the wide-ranging health and socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. It explored what cities visualize as the new normal and how they are planning and preparing to re-open and recover from COVID-19 in a way that can strengthen the resilience of their cities while remaining vigilant about the ongoing pandemic.

Please, find the recording of the webinar here.