Emergency Governance for Cities and Regions

The COVID-19 epidemic has become the strongest indication so far that governance capacities at various levels of government fall short of delivering adequate responses to complex, global emergencies. This includes approaches to urban and regional governance which will have to change rapidly to adapt to the challenges of the 21st century. Place-based governance reforms are critical to accelerate the responses from subnational governments to the global health and climate crises, natural disasters, extreme and growing inequalities, unrest, socio-economic and political shocks, and a more fragile global economy.

The Emergency Governance Initiative aims to provide city and regional governments with actionable information, suitable frameworks, knowledge and resources to navigate the new demands of leading emergency responses. In that respect, its goal is also to inform the governance of grand challenges which are increasingly framed as complex emergencies, above all climate change. The initiative has three main components:

1.       A three-month Pilot Project establishing critical priorities based on stakeholder engagement, testing different modes of collecting and analysing data, and experimenting with relevant formats of reporting back to the target audiences.

2.       An Emergency Transitions Monitor collecting and analysing data from cities and regions on how they are transitioning into and out of emergency modes. This monitor will initially focus on COVID-19 urban governance and actions while centrally considering interventions beyond the immediate crisis responses. In particular, it will monitor to what extent crisis response experiments may become new fixtures of post-crisis governance.

3.       A UCLG Special Report on ‘Emergency Governance for Cities and Regions’ summarising the most relevant insights emerging from the Emergency Transitions Monitor alongside broader frameworks, knowledge and evidence on emergency governance. It will present findings on how cities and regions are reframing grand challenges as emergencies and how they are addressing related emergency responses. The report will also make suggestions for governance innovations addressing emergency modes.

Across these three components and in addition to specific outputs, the aim is to establish processes that enable collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and tools, and to inform parallel initiatives currently being developed by UCLG and Metropolis.

 Outputs

Policy Brief #01

Emergency Governance Initiative for Cities and Regions (July 2020)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Policy Brief #02

Towards a Concept and Framework for Governing Complex Emergencies (November 2020)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Policy Brief #03

Financing Emergencies in Cities and Regions: ongoing lessons from the pandemic (January 2021)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Policy Brief #04

Multilevel Emergency Governance: enabling adaptive and agile responses (September 2021)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Policy Brief #05

Local Public Services in Crisis Mode: adapting governance models to exceptional times (March 2022)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Policy Brief #06

Democracy and Representation for Emergency Action (July 2022)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Analytics Note #01

COVID-19 Monitors of Relevance to Urban and Regional Governance (June 2020)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis.

Analytics Note #02

The COVID-19 Response: governance challenges and innovations by cities and regions (July 2020)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis.

Analytics Note #03

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Subnational Finances (January 2021)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis.

Analytics Note #04

Multilevel Governance and COVID-19 Emergency Coordination (December 2021)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Analytics Note #05

Local Public Services and Sustainable Development: shifts in priorities due to Covid-19 (April 2022)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis

Analytics Note #06

Local Democracy During Complex Emergencies (April 2023)
LSE Cities, UCLG, Metropolis