Global compendium of practices on local economic and financial recovery: Building urban economic resilience during and after COVID-19

The project focuses on strengthening the capacities of local governments globally—starting with 16 partner cities— to design, implement, and monitor sustainable, resilient, and inclusive COVID-19 economic responses, recovery, and rebuilding plans. It aims to contribute to planning for more resilient cities and local governments that are better able to manage shocks such as COVID-19 and other broad-based socio-economic stresses likely to reoccur in a predominantly urban world. To achieve this, one essential step is to derive insights from actual experiences of cities and local governments spread across different regions, and to leverage these in order to achieve project objectives. The Global Compendium of Practices serves as a repository for the case studies and lessons from cities, grounded on the conceptual framework on urban economic resilience.

The results of the first phase of the project, and in particular, the survey of global practices, confirm that more resilient cities have been able to better mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic and prepare for recovery. Some key characteristics of resilient cities include:

• Effective, inclusive, and participatory governance;
• Partnerships with central and regional governments;
• Reliable service delivery;
• Robust public financial management system;
• Close engagement with the private sector, formal and informal;
• Leaving no one behind’ approach;
• Foresight and perspective planning.