RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19

This policy brief by the Global Resilience Partnership assesses how 15 local communities in the Global South utilized six social domains of resilience to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis emphasizes that resilience depends not only on assets but also on flexibility, social organization, learning, behavioral factors, and agency, highlighting the critical role of community-based organizations in mobilizing these responses.

• An assessment of 15 communities in the Global South revealed that half of them utilized all six social domains of resilience to respond to COVID-19, while every community mobilized at least four of these domains. These domains include assets (natural, physical, human, financial), flexibility to change strategies, social organization for collective action, learning to respond to change, behavioral and cognitive factors, and the agency to determine whether to change.
• Communities mobilized various assets to manage the pandemic: physical assets like information and communication technologies (ICTs) were used for news and awareness; financial assets included cash savings, remittances, and donations; human assets involved using existing skills to produce masks and detergents; and natural assets included land for local food production.
• Social organization and agency were critical for resilience, with women's and youth groups, church networks, and community leadership serving as platforms for sharing resources, providing housing for the homeless, and managing information. The active involvement of women and youth specifically benefited the design and implementation of response actions, including the acquisition of food and financial resources.
• Resilience was further supported by flexibility—seen through livelihood diversification, urban-to-rural migration, and a shift to virtual work—and learning through group trainings and information campaigns. However, behavioral barriers such as myths, misinformation, and the stigmatization of families hindered resilience in some cases.
• The document recommends that governments and development agencies avoid focusing on a single policy angle and instead target multiple social domains of resilience. It specifically advises treating community-based organizations as key partners and investing in programs that increase social cohesion and trust to provide the architecture for collective action.

APA

Norström, A., Mfitumukiza, D., Beauchamp, E., & Rahman, M. F. (2021). RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/brief_resilience-of-local-communities-1.pdf

Chicago

Norström, Albert, David Mfitumukiza, Emilie Beauchamp, and Mohammad Feisal Rahman. RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19. Global Resilience Partnership, 2021. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/brief_resilience-of-local-communities-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Norström |first1=Albert |last2=Mfitumukiza |first2=David |last3=Beauchamp |first3=Emilie |last4=Rahman |first4=Mohammad Feisal |title=RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19 |publisher=Global Resilience Partnership |date=18 January 2021 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/brief_resilience-of-local-communities-1.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{norstrm2021resilience, author = {Norström, Albert and Mfitumukiza, David and Beauchamp, Emilie and Rahman, Mohammad Feisal}, title = {{RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/brief_resilience-of-local-communities-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }