Cox and Slick on resilience after COVID-19

Drs. Robin Cox and Jean Slick, experts in disaster and emergency management in Royal Roads’ School of Humanitarian Studies, spoke with The Discourse’s Shalu Mehta about how we move forward after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their recently released report, co-authored by complexity scientist and director of Royal Roads’ Cascade Institute Thomas Homer-Dixon, calls the pandemic a “tipping event” that could nudge us toward greater resilience and adaptation for future challenges such as climate change.

Here is an excerpt:

“‘Whether it’s food security, a catastrophic earthquake or climate change, we need to be conscious of how the changes we’re making can support us in all of these other threats and not just in response to the pandemic itself,’ Slick says. ‘We want to make enduring changes that can address other threats. It’s not about inventing something new, it’s about taking what we know.’

“Cox says that when any disaster begins to prompt change, momentum for further change is already created. It gives people the chance to make decisions and move forward and just maybe make deeper shifts that contribute to long-term resilience.”

Read the full article and read the complete report, Surviving, Thriving or Radical Revisioning: Scenarios and Considerations for Pandemic Recovery and Response Planning.