Table of Contents
- Checklist
- Introduction
- Household Economy
- Community Resilience
- A Pandemic of Racism
- Election Integrity
- Healthcare Surge Capacity
- Supply Chain Management
- Universal Access to Digital Services
- Banking and Payment Systems
- Economic Resilience
- Future of Work
- Epidemiological Readiness
- Porous Lines of Defense
- Institutions
- Policy Considerations
Checklist
- Solve twenty-first century challenges with twenty-first century technology: Virtually every government mounting an effective response to the pandemic—including South Korea, Estonia, Taiwan, and New Zealand—powers their institutions with world-class digital infrastructure. We need to learn from these examples. Citizens should have access to secure data wallets that provide individuals with ownership and control of their information and records. The right tech can streamline access to services, facilitate contact tracing, and allow for more rapid recovery from future disasters.
- Ensure universal access to basic digital services: It is almost impossible to participate fully in society without access to digital platforms. The pandemic has further exacerbated the inequalities that flow from disparities in connectivity. An expanded twenty-first century social safety net should include universal access to: 1) high-speed, low-cost internet; 2) a basic laptop or tablet to get online; and 3) foundational digital government and financial services.
- Build open source to expedite digital crisis response: Governments should leverage the power of open source software to share innovations with other communities around the world. Open source allows governments to pool resources and quickly replicate digital services from other jurisdictions rather than building from scratch. Adopting world-class systems that have already been tested and implemented in other settings should form the foundation of a global digital response to future crises.
- Foster options to reinforce resilience: Providing citizens with multiple paths to access vital services creates safeguards when things go wrong. From low-cost telemedicine as a fallback when in-person care is unavailable to digital and mail-in balloting to supplement in-person voting, the principle of optionality should apply to all essential services.
- Avoid trading efficiency for fragility: Prior to the pandemic, organizations in almost all sectors prioritized efficiency at any cost. The pandemic exposed the weaknesses of systems optimized for airtight “just-in-time” delivery as supply chain failures caused cascading shortages for everything from test kits to meat. Policymakers must build redundancy to reduce risk. Institutions and firms should adopt digital procurement systems that rely on blockchain traceability to manage supply chain risk and build stockpiles and surge capacity.
- To build resilience, remember that staffing is policy: The United States needs a cabinet-level chief risk officer to define a national strategy around risk-sharing and preparedness. We should also create a preparedness accelerator that can develop and scale solutions to future crises, an early alert system to monitor potential threats, and a resilience reserve corps to inject qualified responders into communities in need.
- Help families get back on their feet: Many households will experience financial setbacks that last far beyond lockdowns and quarantines. Public institutions must redesign their work to help individuals weather these hardships. Measures that could help include debt forgiveness for students emerging from college and those struggling to find employment, healthcare cost waivers to ensure access to testing and treatment during the pandemic, and credit scoring resets to help guarantee that those who fall on hard times during this crisis are not saddled with an added burden when rebuilding their lives in years to come.