Enhancing the role of Multi-Stakeholder Collaborations for COVID-19 Mitigation

Cities today are more interconnected than ever. The way cities share ideas, information and knowledge is truly boundless and thus, in this sense, solutions to respond properly to COVID consequences should not be the work of governments alone: they require a multi-stakeholder response. For many, such multi-stakeholder collaboration is not only a crucial mechanism to tackle the urban challenges of COVID-19, but will also be essential to build back and recover more sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies.

Experiencing now a second wave of coronavirus (COVID-19), with a worrying increase and spread of new infections as well as associated mortality in certain territories, it seems obvious unilateralism, whether as cities or as sectors, cannot provide a valid response to our global challenges. We can’t solve this on our own.

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of our societies, posing unprecedented challenges to everyone, in particular to those that are more vulnerable which are at even greater risk and, regretfully, are left even further behind.  

Thus, in all senses, the pandemic has underscored the importance of enhancing global collaboration and effective partnerships among all sectors and stakeholders, and many leaders across the public, private, and civil sectors have started thinking about how they can take action together.  

On our first webinar session from our Platform of Cities of the Global South, cities such as Mumbai, Agra, Jakarta, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, or Bogotá shared their local solutions and agreed on how synergies between civil society agencies, private sector partners and sector agencies are crucial to curate coordinated response in the future.  It was highlighted also, how local data availability is key to improving and localizing responses in affected cities.  

This second webinar of the Platform of Cities of the Global South will address the short and long-term actions different municipalities from Latin America and Asia are adopting to enhance partnerships and either start new or scale existing multi-sector, multi-stakeholder collaborations to improve the lives of vulnerable communities, specifically frontline workers and families from the informal sector, to achieve more resilient and sustainable societies.  

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