UNDRR ROAS Launches a Regional Policy Brief: Health System Resilience and Build Back Better (BBB) from Disasters Post COVID-19 in the Arab Region

December 2022, The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office for Arab States, published a Regional Policy Brief on Health System Resilience and Building Back Better from Disasters Post COVID-19 in the Arab Region, with the support of the Government of Japan. It is designed to highlight existing COVID-19 response measures within the Arab region and presents a set of regional, national, and subnational recommendations to guide the Arab governments on ways to enhance health system resilience and recovery post-COVID-19. Furthermore, it provides supplemental actions to support the “Integration of Biological Hazards in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Action and Planning in the Arab region”.

Health System Resilience and BBB from Disasters Post COVID-19 in the Arab Region targets recovery decision-makers and policymakers in national and local governments, ministries of health and other relevant ministries, disaster risk reduction and emergency management agencies in Arab countries, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and members of the private sector.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the Arab countries experienced significant socioeconomic consequences as well as public health and health system repercussions. These effects have overburdened countries' capacities in numerous ways, impeding their ability to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. The crisis also highlighted several capacity gaps that must be addressed immediately to strengthen governments' response to and recovery from the current COVID-19 outbreaks, placing a special focus on the concept of building back better. The breakdown of the health system occurred is another example that is associated with the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. This scenario was prominent in some Arab countries and drove most of the overall COVID-19 response policies in these countries.

This policy brief comes to discuss the key actions required to build back better and enhance health resilience to all hazards even during the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing the theoretical concepts of health system recovery; highlighting global efforts, goals, and commitment in the disaster and health context; addressing the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on different dimensions with an emphasis on the health system infrastructure and the need for building back better; exploring global and regional policy alternatives for health system resilience and building back better from disasters post-COVID-19. It then concludes by offering recommended actions for the way forward at regional, national, and subnational levels.