What are the “new normals” that COVID-19 might be pointing to?

By Prateeksha Singh, Head of Experimentation, UNDP AP Regional Innovation Team

COVID-19 feels like a storm, and reads like fiction. It has blindsided the world with its global scale, speed, and current impacts. The ‘aftermath’ is still taking shape (and no one really can guarantee when that will be), but we do know it will leave behind a long trail of disruption and much needed recovery. The real question, is not what the aftermath might be, but how will we allow it to shape our societies and institutions?

Our work at the Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Centre is to primarily support our regional Country Offices, and in the context of COVID-19, to be a partner in seeing through the ‘urgent’ to frame what this all might mean for them, their countries, and potential government counterparts. For us, this has meant we ask and answer:

• ‘How can we (attempt to) digest what is unfolding live in front of us globally, and present that in a way that can be of value to our region?
• How can we, in a moment that demands an urgent response on multiple fronts on the ground, also support our teams and government counterparts to see the forest from the trees.

If there is one thing COVID-19 has confirmed, it is that we are more interconnected and affected by each other than we give pause to, so our actions in the now and follow-up necessitate the consideration of unintended consequences. That said, whilst it is, understandable, that the attention of many governments world over is currently focused on the immediate response to the COVID-19 crisis, the measures they are putting in place right now will likely have long term development implications. What is — and is not included — in stimulus packages, restriction policies, safety net programs might have significant broader implications for the SDG trajectory of the respective country, and our ability to address, for example, the critical climate needs as a global community.

This blog is not sharing COVID-19 trends at large, but rather an initial scan of what is already emerging around the world right now as a trend that could stay with us once COVID-19 passes #newnormals, with a particular focus on the Asian context. It includes some provocations to push us to think about how the vastly different countries (and contexts) that make up this region could be affected by the same emerging trends. It is not comprehensive, because that was not possible, but it is a starting point. It is the first step in what we see as a collective journey to wade through the storm together as best as we can. In sharing this with you, it is also an offer to connect and come together and build this analysis from our various perspectives because we are all affected.

What else is on the radar? Additionally, as a team, we are shifting the regional NextGenGov summit this year to take place entirely online in April to focus on COVID-19 responses. The NextGenGov in Asia Pacific online summit seeks to identify paradigm shifts emerging from the current response of regional governments and societies to the crisis. It will ask which of these shifts point to new models of governance that can enable better preparedness to future crises and the achievement of the SDGs. Importantly, the event will help identify interventions that are grounded in system thinking and can accelerate the transition from exceptions to “the new normal”. For example, how can we design climate policies that reduce the risks of future pandemics? How do we reimagine health service delivery so that it is community centric (rather than patient centric) to allow for better pandemic response? How can we accelerate the transition to new forms of urban planning that reduce the risks of contagion and increase access to opportunities for everyone?

We look forward to sharing soon how we will keep building on this work on #newnormals. You can reach us directly @ricap_undp

The “new normals” we see on the horizon

The categories used to organize the #newnormals are:

• Tech is mutating and shaping us in new ways
• Governance is taking a new center stage
• Uncharted economic territory
• Exponential social distancing and collective connectivity
• The climate change opportunity and threat

(Please note: additional articles/reading list for the emerging #newnormals below can be found here).

Tech is mutating and shaping us in new ways

1- Normalized Surveillance / Proof of Immunity

COVID-19 has the potential to be leveraged as an entry point to normalize data surveillance by governments and companies. Already, within the past few weeks we have seen several nationstates claim that tracking citizens through mobile apps and SIMs is key to monitoring the development of the outbreak. Yet, once this short term utility has dissipated there is a new batch of implications, including that of privacy and data integrity. What might this look like?: “Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity — an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.”

2- Mass online collaboration

From global hackathons to collaborative gene coding — COVID-19 has sparked a new wave of mass online collaboration, yet not without a backlash against IPs, and paid models of academic publishing. Is it possible we are seeing the end of Elsevier and the like? Also, while COVID-19 brought the broken supply chains and resultant shortage of critical medical equipment (from masks to ventilators), and spare parts to the fore, it also raised the issue for the need of the right to repair as a critical aspect of crisis response, with many manufacturers strongly opposed to sharing information that allows citizens to repair equipment by themselves.

3- Fintech and healthcare

COVID-19 has exposed the weaknesses of traditional centralized (and usually national) healthcare management systems which are not set up to withstand a global crisis. There is an opportunity for the combination of fintech tools and platforms such as Machine learning, A.I., Robotics, and Blockchain to come together and redesign what a global healthcare management system could be (including one that could also potentially track the spread of a global virus like COVID-19).

4- ‘Infodemics’ and the misinformation warfare

While there is a virtual movement of social solidarity, with on and offline communities connecting to keep informed, there is also the counter challenge to manage rampant misinformation and fake news. There is news about Russian trolls spreading misinformation, the american far right using the virus with apocalyptic narratives to recruit followers, and the far-right neonazi groups are openly talking about how to use the crisis to recruit people to terrorist white supremacy. An example of a crowdsourced alternative that has emerged includes the Thailand born COVID-19 crowdsource real time tracker- it monitors the number of cases in real time, yet also provides an option to tag fake news. Fighting misinformation will continue to be an important area of focus for government, civic, and tech sector collaboration.

Governance is taking a new center stage

5- Crisis Management

COVID-19 offers a rare view of how governments around the world are responding to the same crisis. Although the spectrum is diverse, many patterns of ‘crisis management governance models’ are emerging. And there are critical lessons to be extracted- especially when it comes to these Two Levers: Timely Government Response and Data-Based Citizen Awareness. At the same time we can see a difference in geo-political management style- from soft diplomacy as seen emerging with China and South Korea by coming to the aid of others; or the counter contrast- where between the current global convener China, and inward focused United States.

6 — The role of government post COVID-19

Connected to the above, is renewed acceptance of the central role of governments. As Mariana Mazzucato captures in this article ‘This requires a rethink of what governments are for: rather than simply fixing market failures when they arise, they should move towards actively shaping and creating markets that deliver sustainable and inclusive growth’. At the same time, the landscape remains rife with Nationalistic and Inward focused narratives and in the face of crisis that has global implications requiring global solidarity, and more specifically for Asia, the need to unpack the potential shift to even greater authoritarianism.

7- Finding hidden (housing) capacity

Twitter posts from around the world are pointing to rental market explosions resulting from AirBnB owners forced to put their properties on the rental market amid the COVID-19. AirBnB corporate ‘Extenuating Circumstances’ policy is also allowing for reservation cancellations from March 14 — April 14, 2020 period to offer relief to last minute change of plans. The supply surge is significant, and so is the likely influence on rental prices. This real-time visibility is highlighting both the sidelined housing capacity that actually exists in cities around the world (that can potentially be used as alternative emergency housing), and the direct impact of regulation (or lack thereof) on critical policy matters such as housing.

Unchartered Economic Territory

8 — Kickstarting the (domestic) economy

Given the forecasts of a global economic recession, and potentially even depression, governments are already working to introduce deep economic stimulus packages (In relative terms, Germany, U.K., France and Spain offering stimulus’ larger than U.S. trillion dollar package).There is a need and opportunity to consider what this might look now. Is there an opportunity to propose a competitive plan that is not reliant on fossil fuels (as has often been the case in prior recessions)? Another major and separate point of contention and attention will be directed to financial bailouts governments will be asked to give, with a particular focus for us, both on who will be prioritized to receive them, and under what attached conditions? While the U.S. haggles over the emergency economic package, Denmark has proposed a radical economic plan to defeat the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus.

9- The overhaul of safety nets

What basic needs are being insured by the government? Globally civil societies tended by nation states of all stripes are demanding concrete responses to the crisis- which is exposing the most severe gaps in conventional safety nets. Governments are forced to re-examine what is critical in terms of healthcare, worker rights (previously considered a primarily union matter) and economic support for daily wage earners. Another related consideration is the built environment itself- from urban to rural: what is the non-negotiable infrastructure that is permissible when it comes to a functioning society in the context of a health pandemic like COVID-19? How might a city function without a supermarket in the times of a crisis, for example. Although universal basic income has become a part of a global discussion pre-COVID-19, we are now witnessing the expedition of experimentation, such as the scheme underway by previous US Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang to aid affected New York residents in America. The argument is in juxtaposition to big economic stimulus packages already on the table, yet much of which does not support the vast majority of workers employed by small to medium size businesses.

10- Business model transformations

With much of the world at home because of social isolation, retail is being reinvented overnight (with many Chinese companies understanding and adapting to challenges posed by coronavirus), with online shopping taking over and e-commerce businesses stepping in to create new opportunities. The Chinese e-commerce cases here show how they are transforming the platform economy (known for centralization and gatekeeping) into a collaborative and community needs model that could outlive the crisis and become a sustained practice. More here how Coronavirus is speeding up the Amazonification of the planet, and the many implications of such a monopoly on precarious work, robotization, thousands of smaller businesses being wiped out. How will the shopping conveniences of COVID-19, forever change retail, and how might local economies shift to adapt to the changes, versus react or succumb?

11- Unstable supply chains

Corona is going to change the face of globalization as we know it. It has exposed the fragility of the current unsustainable global supply chains, which are largely centered around China and the principles of offshoring, outsourcing, and just-in-time. With mass quarantines in China and factory shutdowns, it has hastened the need for decentralized supplies chains with more local nodes, built on the principles of redundancy (e.g., China +1,2, 3), and diversification. Easier said than done when increasingly we have effectively over the last several years dwindled our options down only to those in China. The pandemic has particularly highlighted the severe implications of such breakdowns in the already overburdened healthcare sector, when masks, ibuprofen, and ventilators run in short supply. At the same time it has opened the door to force us to imagine more sustainable supply chains we must start building as soon as possible. The implication on supply chain restructructuring on Asia would be significant.

Exponential Social Distancing and Collective Connectivity

12- The world: One large social hive

There is no questioning the interconnectedness of society, our interdependencies and need for community. What we are seeing is a paradoxical requirement for social distancing, isolation, quarantine to ‘flatten the curve’, yet coming at the expense of isolation and mental health. It is clear that this crisis is changing the tide of mainstream conversations — there is a strong surge of awareness regarding the COVID-19; the top four of five trending hashtags are related to CV and #stayathome, signaling a dominant conversation theme. Tangential to the growing collective intelligence we are observing are those also uniting with altruistic intentions and actions- from peer to peer health support services at the hyper local level, like this COVID-19 AID group that was created to support the most vulnerable and elderly, to a resurgence of mutual aid. How can this solidarity movement we are seeing be maintained, and mobilized for climate change?

13- The emergence of ‘Contactless’ -No Touching

Our relationship to touch and germs is being rewritten globally, and we are seeing food, hospitality and other industries that depend on high contact, face to face services, leading the transformation over night to contact free modes of delivery and business models in Asia, particularly China. Electronic menus at sit down restaurants, contact free food home deliveries, robots delivering food. On a personal side, many people, those who have to go to work outside and not, are writing about their fear/anxiety to touch and care for family and the elderly/vulnerable in case they have unknowingly contracted corona. The contactless economy seems primed to grow.

14- We are only as strong as our weakest link: supporting the vulnerable

Corona has put a global on the inadequacy of our current public health systems and policies on ‘care’ for our elderly and immuno-compromised. In light of the immediate needs and systemic failures, we have seen communities around the world reorganizing themselves to shift to peer-to-peer/mutual aid health models. This has also highlighted the need for government planning 10–20 years out with our demographic shifts (and this is particularly relevant for many Asian countries who have an increasingly aging population). There is an opportunity right now to influence the future resiliency in our healthcare and social systems to fight future crises’. Tangentially, but no less importantly, the virus will be been a game changer for mental health, and virtual tech enabled models of care, given the significantly larger portion of population asking for help with the added stresses of social isolation, anxiety and uncertainty about the future (although significantly less media with Asian coverage on this).

15- The largest global telecommuting and homeschooling experiment

Corona is the largest global experiment in telecommuting and home schooling — and is likely to change the rule of the game forever. It is already being expected that some aspects/variations of Work-From-Home and flex working arrangements will be here to stay post pandemic, as well home/distance schooling options. Where the online transition is possible, this could also mark a watershed moment for workspace inclusivity movements that have long excluded those with disabilities, care-giving responsibilities, etc. While some quick implications of WFH could range from cost savings to employers and a collective reduction of millions of miles of unnecessary commutes (with second range impacts on reducing traffic accidents and pollution, fuel consumption, and increasing mental/social health), there are larger implications about who can WFH, and who cannot. The inequality gap is set to be worsened by multiple levers at the same time. Which countries (residents, students) have the digital infrastructure, bandwidth and resources to just move online, and which do not? What does not being able to digitally and virtually transition (or transition fast enough) mean for those communities, countries, governments in the short/medium/long-term? How does this transition create space for innovation, and what does that mean for our governments and they can both encourage and manage them?

16- Vacating Shared Spaces

How will corona fundamentally change the way we come together and share space (implications on how we learn, travel, worship, marry, eat, vote, appreciate art, relax). What will be the future of libraries, bars, museums, and the many crammed day and night markets Asia is so well known for? How will Corona fundamentally shift the way our cities are designed to be pandemic resilient, and, more broadly, how we practice urban planning? We are only as strong as our weakest link in the face of a pandemic, so what does this mean for how we house our most vulnerable or those in limited spaces where social distancing cannot be practiced (e.g. our elderly, homeless, refugees, prisoners, lower-income housing)?

The Climate Change Opportunity and Threat

17- The Climate Change Opportunity Paradox

Not far from many health related COVID-19 headlines you can see new cost-benefit analysis at play in terms of the impact of the virus on the climate change conundrum. One recent four week study highlights the correlation between the economic slowdown in China, due to the lockdown, translating into 25% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the span four weeks alone. In some scenarios, the crisis is proving that human individual and collective action can reduce pollution, waste, and greenhouse gases drastically. Sustained change however will depend on whether or not governments are equipped and incentivized to restructure outdated policy and, at the same time ‘use economic stimulus packages to support a long-term switch to more environmentally and climate-friendly business and personal practices.’? We are already seeing some regression or climate commitments, for example, as China has already started reducing car emission standards and is keeping focus to meet previously set GDP targets. The lessons from the past are not so distant- the previous 2008–09 financial recession proved counterproductive for environmentalists who observed similar patterns- in fact 2010 had the highest record of fossil fuel based emissions that China had seen since 2003.

18- Reconnecting with nature

COVID-19 is allowing for a reset on our relationship with nature. Not only are more people realizing the benefits public parks (and nature more broadly) hold in a time of social distancing and work-from-home, this can be a pivotal moment to reflect and reimagine what conservation and wildlife protection can look like so we can respectfully rebuild the broken boundaries that have gotten us here today. This is particularly critical for most Asian countries, where in the lack of strong urban planning city boundaries continue to grow, and deforestation and illegal wildlife related activities are still common affairs.

Additional reading links for the emerging #new normals above can be found here.

Led by Prateeksha Singh, Head of Experimentation, Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Centre, with support and co-writing from Giulio Quaggiotto, Alex Oprunenco, Courtney Savie Lawrence, Shumin Liu, and consultation with foresight specialists Dione Scott, and Suzanne Stein.