RESILIENCE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM COVID-19

This policy brief examines the social resilience of 15 communities in the Global South during the COVID-19 pandemic. It finds that resilience is multifaceted, involving assets, flexibility, social organization, learning, behavioral factors, and agency. The study highlights the critical role of community-based organizations, particularly women's and youth groups, in mobilizing resources and maintaining social cohesion. It recommends that policymakers target multiple social domains of resilience rather than focusing on a single policy angle, treating community organizations as key partners and investing in social capital to enhance collective action.

• Communities in the Global South utilized a combination of six social domains of resilience—assets, flexibility, social organization, learning, behavioural and cognitive factors, and agency—to cope with COVID-19. Half of the 15 studied communities drew on all six domains, and every community mobilized at least four.
• Different types of assets were leveraged for pandemic response: ICTs provided news and awareness (physical assets), cash savings and remittances provided funding (financial assets), existing skills were used to produce masks and detergents (human assets), and agricultural land was used for local food production (natural assets).
• Community-based organizations, specifically women's and youth groups, church networks, and grassroots movements, were essential for sharing resources, providing housing for the homeless, and managing information to prevent infections.
• Resilience was supported by flexibility through livelihood diversification and urban-to-rural migration, and by behavioral factors such as drawing on experience from previous humanitarian crises. Conversely, misinformation and the stigmatization of families acted as barriers to resilience.

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} }