EPI, contracted with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and working with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) as the two executing agencies, is supporting the development of a global project document as well as providing technical analysis and planning support of Covid 19 recovery efforts in in Accra (Ghana), Yaoundé (Cameroon) and Harare (Zimbabwe). The implementing partners are United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the technical collaboration partners are United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).
EcoPlan International is working with United Nations to support the project: “Global Building of Economic Resilience During and After COVID-19”
Beyond the obvious health related effects of COVID-19 in urban areas, the pandemic is devastating urban areas in a number of other ways. The urban economic and financing impacts of COVID-19 have been especially severe and universally observed without exception. Severe reductions in short-run labour productivity, employment and revenues at the local scale are already underway in cities globally. The project focuses specifically on the following areas:
- Massive loss of jobs and unemployment
- Dwindling local government revenues
- Enormous losses in the urban economy
The project focus’ on strengthening the capacities of local governments in 16 cities globally to design, implement and monitor sustainable, resilient and inclusive COVID-19 economic and financial responses, recovery and rebuilding plans. The immediate impact of the project will be the provision of good global practices from other cities which will inform the pilot cities in their activities to develop and implement their immediate response and recovery plans to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the project will contribute to planning for more resilience cities and local governments better able to withstand shocks such as COVID-19 and urban systems’ stresses likely to reoccur in a predominantly urban world. Implementation will consider linkages with other dimensions of urban resilience of specific relevance to the different social, spatial and governance contexts of each region.
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