Equitable recovery from COVID-19: Bring global commitments to community level – World – ReliefWeb

Summary box

High level speakers at the December 2020 United Nations General Assembly pointed to the growing inequalities and stress to health, social, economic and democratic systems caused by COVID-19, calling for a range of collective interest driven responses and measures for a sustainable recovery.

The pandemic, lockdown and other responses, along with underfunded, poorly prepared and overstretched public sector social and health systems in many countries worsened many dimensions of family, womens, child and adolescent health and well-being that were already facing deficits, generating a rising health and social debt in communities, the true scale and long-term consequences of which are as yet unknown, especially for the most marginalised in society.

Rather than getting back to normal, recovery and reset demands change to tackle the inequalities, conditions, services, socioeconomic and environmental policies that made people susceptible and vulnerable to COVID-19.

While economic recovery should not replicate the features of the global economy that are generating pandemic and other crises, for global aspirations to translate into benefit for communities, families, young people and children, an equitable recovery should include significant investment in: (1) universal, public sector, primary health care-oriented health services; (2) redistributive, universal rights-based and life course based social protection; and (3) people, especially in early childhood and in youth, as drivers of change.

Who designs the reset influences the change, and within countries and internationally, opportunities must be provided for meaningful public engagement as a critical driver of an equitable recovery.

Introduction

One after the other, high-level speakers at the 2020 United Nations General Assembly (UNGASS) on COVID-19 pointed to growing inequalities and stresses to health, social, economic and democratic systems caused by the pandemic, calling for comprehensive, collective interest driven responses. They called for a sustainable recovery to include: debt relief and international financing; ensuring food security; universal access to vaccines, diagnostics and medicines for COVID-19 as global public goods; military ceasefires to reach populations in conflict areas; and halting ecological determinants of zoonotic pandemics.

These issues will be on international agendas into 2021 and beyond. However, global commitments must translate into benefit for local communities for any recovery to tackle the inequalities and conditions that made society vulnerable to COVID-19, particularly for those experiencing its worst impact.

In this commentary, we examine how COVID-19 has impacted on family and child health and well-being (FCHW) and the implications for a bottom-up recovery. We propose significant investment in universal, public sector, community-driven health and social protection systems to connect measures called for globally with those needed to ensure equitable recovery within communities.

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Equitable recovery from COVID-19: Bring global commitments to community level - World - ReliefWeb