Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19

The document argues that COVID-19 recovery efforts have remained largely piecemeal and short-term, missing the opportunity for deep structural reform. It proposes a nested framework of green structural measures—ranging from green fiscal reform and natural capital investment to green skills and governance—and categorises prioritisation criteria into conventional, advanced, and systemic/political brackets. The authors highlight significant gaps in current recovery agendas, particularly regarding gender integration, nature-based solutions, and the financing challenges faced by the global south.

• Green structural reforms are defined by three core features: they alter fundamental economic arrangements (systemic), require a longer timeframe for impact (secular), and are generally applicable across various contexts, though they require local tailoring.
• The authors identify a 'menu' of high-level structural reforms, with 'Green skills and qualification measures' and 'Strengthened planning, strategies and governance' showing the strongest alignment with prioritisation criteria, while 'Green monetary tools' are the least well aligned.
• Natural capital investment is identified as the specific subsidiary measure with the strongest alignment across multiple criteria due to its combined social, economic, and environmental returns.
• Current green recovery agendas suffer from three primary gaps: an insufficient focus on long-term structural reform over short-term stimulus, the undervaluation of specific policy areas like gender and monetary tools, and a lack of implementation in nature and just transition policies.
• Gender inclusion is a persistent gap in green growth frameworks; the economic shocks of COVID-19 hit marginalised women hardest, yet gender lenses are largely absent from stimulus packages and green job assessments.
• Financing structural green recovery is particularly challenging for the global south due to liquidity constraints and a lack of the permissive financing conditions available to high-income regions like the EU.
• Recommended financing strategies for developing countries with tight fiscal constraints include using sustainability-linked bonds, debt-for-nature or debt-for-climate swaps, and leveraging Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to crowd-in private capital.
• The document provides empirical examples of structural policies, such as Senegal's focus on green taxation and sustainable procurement, Argentina's sectoral plans for industrial reconversion, and Brazil's greening of family agriculture in Mato Grosso.

APA

Hopkins, C., & Greenfield, O. (2021). Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19. Green Economy Coalition. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf

Chicago

Hopkins, Chris, and Oliver Greenfield. Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19. Green Economy Coalition, 2021. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hopkins |first1=Chris |last2=Greenfield |first2=Oliver |title=Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19 |publisher=Green Economy Coalition |date=November 2021 |url=https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hopkins2021setting, author = {Hopkins, Chris and Greenfield, Oliver}, title = {{Setting a structural agenda for a green economic recovery from COVID-19}}, institution = {Green Economy Coalition}, year = {2021}, month = nov, url = {https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/PIGE-Working-Paper-SettingAStructuralAgendaforaGreenEconomicRecoveryfromCOVID-19-Nov2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }