Abstract
In many contexts recovery from COVID-19 is ongoing. The impacts of the pandemic were diverse and their distribution uneven, which may in part explain the diversity in the ways in which its recovery has been framed. Numerous framings concerning what constitutes ‘recovery’, what its pursuit should entail, who (or what) it should target and whose vision the notion of recovery should represent have been expressed by various fields of study. An assessment of the way in which diverse fields (e.g. health, conservation and development) have represented the priorities of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is so far not available. This knowledge gap is important since understanding the threads in common, and those distinct between fields, may help move towards a more integrated appraisal of the multiple priorities salient to recovery. Integration however also involves representing diverse knowledges, values and lived experiences and supporting disaster-resilient communities requires being attentive to the voices of the most marginalized. Due recognition of and engagement with these groups is essential for enhancing the justice and equity of recovery-focused interventions, and can help ensure that interventions do not presume, misplace or misrepresent local priorities. With growing recognition of the need for decolonial, grounded and co-developed responses to processes of recovery, nature futures and global development there is a need to understand how COVID-19 recovery has been conceived and articulated across fields, and crucially, the extent to which it has included the perceptions of socially, economically and politically marginalized groups. We analyzed 30 papers (10 per field), and asked (1) How does COVID-19 recovery tend to be framed within these fields, including the representation of intersecting risks? (2) Where is there divergence and congruence in recovery discourses across these fields, and what would an integrated understanding of recovery look like? (3) To what extent are local voices reflected or acknowledged in these international framings? We found that while perspectives differed, all highlighted how COVID-19 exposed pre-existing interconnected crises. Many framed the root cause as flawed economic growth models, which was considered in need of various degrees of transformation combined with more integrated governance. Crucially, few framings had strong representation of local, or marginalized voices and relatively few papers actively grounded their calls, or prominently advocated for such practices. Our findings point to a need for more co-created knowledge generation and agenda setting for COVID-19 recovery, and disaster recovery more broadly.
Introduction
Since its global outbreak in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has created multiple burdens across sectors and scales, for both people and nature (Forster et al., 2020; Loh et al., 2021; Onyeaka et al., 2021; Power et al., 2020). The peak of infections has since passed and the global health emergency was declared over in May 2023 (UN, 2023). However, in August 2024 the UN reported that infections were again rising, expressing concern that more severe variants may be on the horizon (UN, 2024). Regardless of the current number of infections, COVID-19 is not over in the sense that recovery from COVID-19 remains ongoing – recovery is a long-term process rather than an end-state. Impacts of the pandemic have included the health burdens and mortality associated with the disease itself, as well as additional and wide-ranging impacts that were generated through the control measures put in place to reduce its transmission. Some impacts were considered positive, for example, the deceleration of the metabolism of the economy alleviated associated environmental pressures, carbon emissions, noise pollution and enforced a slow-down to the pace of life for some (Labib et al., 2022; Loh et al., 2021). Yet, burdens were also widespread, for example, environmental harms were reported in some regions, including possible increases in deforestation (Céspedes et al., 2023; Ferrante & Fearnside, 2020) and a suite of impacts magnified the vulnerabilities of already marginalized groups, for example through unequal access to health care and magnified poverty and exposure (Hassan et al., 2021; Patel et al., 2023; da Silva et al., 2020). The concept of the pandemic being a ‘leveller’ was short-lived and has been justly critiqued and subsequently rejected (Ali et al., 2020).
The diversity of impacts and their differentiated distribution may in part explain the apparently mirrored diversity that exists in the various discourses and framings surrounding COVID-19 recovery. The magnitude and severity of the pandemic, combined with the scale and breadth of its impacts led-to numerous framings (and associated interests) concerning what constitutes ‘recovery’, what its pursuit should entail, who (or what) it should target and whose vision the notion of recovery should represent. Framings of recovery can be markedly divergent, it may be defined and represented as being achievable through rebuilding the buoyancy of the economy, or recovery may be seen to require a fundamental recalibration of values, new social organization forms and or an associated easing of economic throughput (Castro et al., 2020; Furman et al., 2020; Giurca et al., 2022). Notably, the distinctions between the various recovery framings are likely influenced by factors such as scale, sector, vested interests, power, and knowledge of, and exposure to, pre-existing risks and vulnerabilities (Few et al., 2020, 2021).
Sectoral approaches to understanding, responding to, and assessing global crises such as environmental degradation, disaster risk, inequities of development, and public health emergencies, are still prevalent despite much research and many calls recognizing the need for more integrated and holistic approaches (Carmenta, Barlow, et al., 2023; Carmenta & Vira, 2018; Henig & Knight, 2023; Liu et al., 2015; Reed et al., 2017). Whilst different fields have distinct priorities, concerns, approaches and methods, it is increasingly understood that system-level, cross-sectoral and integrated knowledge, responses and governance arrangements are necessary to adequately govern socio-natural systems (Ratima et al., 2019; Sachs et al., 2022; Schipper et al., 2021). For example, the sustainable development goal agenda is inherently focussed on cross-sectoral links (Lim et al., 2018), the planetary health agenda recognizes the interconnection between environmental integrity and human health (Robinson et al., 2022), and the conservation community are calling for integrated (cross-sectoral) approaches to achieve better (i.e. more sustainable and more just) outcomes for people and nature (Mansourian & Parrotta, 2018; Reed et al., 2016). An assessment of the way in which diverse fields (e.g. health, conservation and development) have represented the priorities of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is so far not available. This knowledge gap is important since understanding the threads in common, and those distinct between fields, may help move towards a more integrated appraisal of the multiple priorities salient to recovery.
Integration however is not only achieved by working across sectors to move beyond siloed understandings, but also involves integrating diverse knowledges, values and lived experiences which engages the notion of an intersectional lens (Carmenta et al., 2022; Ratima et al., 2019). An intersectional lens is considered imperative when it comes to supporting communities to become disaster-resilient and requires being attentive to the voices, values and priorities of the most marginalized, particularly when they may be hardest hit by intersecting risks (Crenshaw, 2013; Droz et al., 2023; Nanthini & Nair, 2020; Salman, 2020; Whetstone & Demiroz, 2023; Zafra-Calvo et al., 2020). All too often the voices, values and knowledges of marginalized groups such as women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, and other groups facing systemic discrimination due to factors such as race, religion, poverty or sexual orientation are afforded least visibility and recognition, meanwhile these groups tend to experience the heaviest burdens of environmental changes, often that they have done little to create (Carmenta et al., 2021; Fanning & Hickel, 2023; Hickel et al., 2022; da Silva et al., 2020; Mallard et al., 2021). Enabling voice, and due recognition to these groups is essential for enhancing the justice and equity of recovery-focused interventions, and can help ensure that interventions do not presume, misplace or misrepresent local priorities. With growing recognition of the need for decolonial, grounded and co-developed responses to processes of recovery, nature futures and global development (Benjamens et al., 2021; Carmenta, Zähringer, et al., 2023; Kothari, 2021; Kothari et al., 2019; Pereira et al., 2020) there is a need to understand how recovery is conceived and articulated, and the extent to which it includes the perceptions of socially, economically and politically marginalized groups.
Concerns over the ambiguity around what is meant by social marginalization and marginalized groups have been raised, particularly with the proliferation of interest in the term and the considerable amounts of public spending and aid directed at reducing ‘social marginalization’ (Fluit et al., 2024). We consider the unifying definition of social marginalization given by Fluit et al. (2024) to adequately capture our application of the term, as follows: ‘a multifaceted concept that refers to a context-dependent social process of “othering” – where certain individuals or groups are systematically excluded based on societal norms and values – and the resulting experience of disadvantage. As such, social marginalization comes with restricted access to resources such as education, healthcare, and employment, while increasing exposure to various adverse socio-structural life outcomes, including poverty, discrimination, and social isolation. Crucially, both the process and outcomes of social marginalization can vary significantly across diverse social, cultural, and historical contexts’. The COVID-19 experience(s) offers a unique insight to assess the degree to which (i) fields of study converge and diverge in the content and priorities reflected in their framings of recovery, and (ii) the extent to which these global framings of recovery are informed by, or recognize, and propose to enact and deliver to, the inclusion of grounded voices and realities, and particularly those of marginalized groups.
Grounding international framings of recovery in local realities and experiences is important because of the longevity and influence that discourses can hold (Roe, 1991). Our concept of framing overlaps with the concept of discourse, but is distinct in that discourses are often more directly coercive and utilized by powerful actors, whilst framing refers more to the way in which logics are constructed and arguments built. Crucially, with both discourses and framings, when local realities and priorities are not reflected, harms can be perpetuated and misguided interventions developed and deployed (Skutsch & Turnhout, 2020), new threats can emerge, and resources be wasted. Further, framings can tend to hold traction regardless of the degree to which they resemble fact or involve inclusion of voices, yet they can create ‘sticky’ institutional lock-in that is hard to release once established (Delabre et al., 2020). Framings hold implications for intervention design and delivery, and it is therefore essential to examine their content (Adams et al., 2004; Carmenta et al., 2025; Howe et al., 2014). Further, as the view of a problem is influenced by power, voice it’s perception and access to platforms, framings can serve to enable the status quo whilst invisibilizing peripheral views and thus perpetuating their under-represented nature. This tendency is particularly concerning when interventions are likely to be targeted and operational in the landscapes and territories of peripheral groups.
Our intention is to address these gaps – specifically to identify the ways in which COVID-19 recovery has been articulated across the divergent fields of conservation, development studies and global health, and the degree to which these framings have sought to be inclusive of the voices (e.g. the differentiated needs, visions, priorities and values) of marginalized groups. We recognize that these are three specific fields among many, but we have selected them as particularly relevant to the formation of framings that might be seen as offering alternatives to ‘business-as-usual’ recovery approaches. They are also salient because of their close interconnection and potential for system feedbacks which means identifying areas of convergence and defining their distinction could be useful for all sectors. We characterize and compare the ways in which COVID-19 pandemic recovery is framed (i.e. what does it focus on) and the recovery priorities that are foregrounded. We explore the possibility of synthesizing across these framings (e.g. identify where most divergence and where congruence exists), identifying themes in common that might help to generate an understanding of what a more integrated recovery discourse would look like. Such an initiative is important given the current gap in such appraisal across these fields, because uniting efforts across shared understandings might bring leverage and collaborative effort which is deemed necessary in the broader field of sustainability. Crucially, we situate the inclusion of local narratives, voice and place-based experience as central to integration, and thus critique the extent to which ‘local’ priorities are reflected, or not, in the global discourses identified (Estrada-Carmona et al., 2024).
This review was therefore guided by the following research questions: (1) How does COVID-19 recovery tend to be framed within the fields of (i) health, (ii) development studies, and (iii) conservation, including the representation of intersecting risks? (2) Where is there divergence and congruence in recovery discourses across these fields, and what would an integrated understanding of recovery look like? (3) To what extent are local voices reflected or acknowledged in these international framings?
Methods
List of Papers Reviewed for each of the Fields of Health, Development and Conservation
Our focus was solely on the way COVID-19 recovery was framed and articulated (i.e. described, defined, detailed), and did not extend to consider the various burdens recognized in these framings, nor the ways in which blame for the pandemic was presented, or suggestions for how future pandemics may be avoided – unless these were inherently part of the recovery narrative. The review was limited to the peer-reviewed academic literature published in English, generating caveats due to the omission of potentially relevant articles in the grey literature, or contributions in non-English languages. However, since we were interested in the global framings of international communities this decision was appropriate.
An overarching data extraction framework was applied in order to ensure comparability across the data and enable a synthesis phase in which insights across fields could be evaluated collectively and data will be made available upon request. We paid particular attention to the representations of pathways to recovery by documenting who was represented as responsible for recovery delivery, the scale of social targeting – which also represents the degree to which stakeholder-specific needs were recognized, the degree of transformation required, recognition of the imperative to include marginalized voices (i.e. understanding and designing recovery from the bottom-up) and the intersecting risks that were noted. Using our framework combined with thematic analysis of the data extracted, it was then possible to identify three key emergent framings of COVID-19 recovery that appeared representative for each field. Thematic analysis was done by the lead author upon multiple reads and iterative attempts at organizing the data, three sets of discussion were held between all coding co-authors (RC, RF, MTA) to ensure that the thematic analysis was representative of the fields to which we each held the greatest insight. Within each framing there were often multiple pathways to recovery represented, but whilst the pathways were often distinct, other characteristics may be held in common. We drew these attributes together in a synthesis phase in which we identified areas of overlap and differentiation across fields from the material reviewed.
We developed two scaled dimensions as heuristic tools to organize our thematic analysis. The Transformation scale describes a shift which moves from ‘incremental’ – that is small shifts in the status quo (business-as-usual) to ‘system-wide’ which is a higher degree of change and involves calls for system-wide or paradigm shifts in norms, practices, institutions and values as articulated by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) transformations working group. The scale of Targeting distinguished between a site-level, differentiated and/or socially targeted emphasis to those framings that were concerned with recovery at a broader, national, and/or whole-society in a non-differentiated approach.
Results
Characterizing COVID-19 Recovery Framings Across Fields
Our analysis yielded a number of key distinctions that were apparent in framings of COVID-19 recovery both within and between fields. We sought to identify the leading features of these framings, whilst recognizing that in so doing we omit degrees of overlap that existed between some of the details which become subsumed within these broader features.
Health Framings
Framings of COVID-19 Recovery Within the Health Literature
Equity dimensions were an explicit [papers H3, 4, 6, 8] or implicit [papers H2, 5, 9, 10] concern within the health field. In most cases the health framing typically took a more expansive view of human and societal wellbeing, locating health needs within the wider challenge of recognizing the fundamental social purpose of economic recovery. This covered calls for a renewed focus on the social determinants of health, rooting recovery in firmly addressing differentiated health needs, and taking a rights-based approach including through gender equity. There was a strong focus on ensuring recovery targeted the needs and rights of those most vulnerable in society [H3, 4, 6]. Such approaches were understood as requiring a socially progressive shift in the present priorities of health systems, enabling them to move towards a focus on greatest needs and reducing structural inequities, and away from the economic priorities that undermine public health provision. Whilst the framing was around equity and health, it included emphasizing the need to shift the paradigm from economic growth to transformation toward a more sustainable, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) oriented vision for development [H8] – a focus that was also prevalent in the Development papers.
Though the arguments were framed mainly in terms of the delivery agents identified as relevant, such as governmental agencies (public health, planners, social care etc.) and aid or development agencies (multi-lateral, bilateral, non-governmental), there was some reference to the need for public inclusion in shaping recovery processes. For example, three papers [H3, 6, 8] referred explicitly to the importance of enabling the ‘voices’ of marginalized groups in decisions related to health, including on housing [H3] and in the development of preparedness and response plans [H6]. Yet, despite this recognition, none of these papers outlined how such inclusion could take place.
The second distinct framing of COVID-19 recovery within this field concerned health care gaps, notably the importance of strategically strengthening them. This approach was the fundamental framing within one third of the papers [H5, 7, 10], and was strongly reflected in another [H2]. The framing centred on how the pandemic highlighted specific needs within health provision whilst simultaneously highlighting the potential gains, generally and for future epidemic crises, if these gaps were addressed and health care systems strengthened. A number of specific gaps within heath care systems were within mental health services, maternal and child health, neglected tropical diseases, and primary health care respectively [H2, 5, 7, 10]. Whilst the papers took a whole-society approach to these needs, they also recognized how these gaps are particularly significant for certain population groups. The arguments mainly referred to targeting certain health care sectors that have been relatively weak, rather than a full systemic transformation, though there was a degree of fundamental shift implied in the rebalancing of priorities and greater social targeting.
Perhaps expectedly, several of the papers from the health field focussed their attention around a framing of pandemic preparedness and prevention. Interestingly, strengthening resilience to future pandemics was in most cases advocated as achievable through integrated approaches extending beyond the health sector and this idea of integration was central to three [H1, 2, 9] and implicit in two [H5, 6] of the papers. Specific topics covered multisectoral pandemic planning, disease risk information and communication systems and adapting the organization of international cooperation and finance mechanisms to deliver these objectives. Again, this was a whole-society generally non-differentiated approach, but with recognition that some social targeting would be important to ensure the most vulnerable would be protected [H2, 9]. Since most of these measures were either demonstrably weak or non-existent at the time of COVID-19, enacting them would represent a system overhaul, or transformational change in a managerial and technical sense. For example, in relation to creating governance, communication and financing systems oriented toward pandemic prevention and disaster risk reduction, rather than a more reactive response to crises [H1, 2, 9]. In terms of voice, two of the papers made links to topics of inclusion, with one paper highlighting cases of exclusion of marginalized groups (such as migrants) from disease control responses [H1], and another alluding to the imperative of inclusivity of target groups in decision-making [H2], calling for primary health systems with strong relationships at community level.
Development Framings
Framings of COVID-19 Recovery from the Development Literature
Nearly half (D3, 5, 7) of the papers explicitly emphasized Integrated Systems Thinking as necessary to a COVID-19 recovery pathway. Also represented as a multi-dimensional focus underscoring the need for improved access to health, wellbeing and environmental sustainability over growth (D3, 4, 5, 7). However, these articles note that the level of transformation required to achieve recovery in the long-term would demand considerable changes in the economic systems away from Development models that prioritizes economic growth. Within the transformations noted, some were more radical than others, ranging from communing based to green growth and degrowth. An important element in the transformations suggested were changes to people’s relationship with the environment to live ‘sustainably’ while also improving access to health (D3, 4, 5, 7). Most papers call for high-level targeting, recognizing the needs of marginalized groups within broader society and sometimes with a more specific focus (including on Indigenous Peoples, women and girls). Recovery focused on the marginalized was deemed essential to achieve inclusive and equitable development.
Another key recovery framing centred on Co-production of knowledge to achieve future resilience. Although the level of targeting and the groups targeted varied (e.g. local vs. regional scale, indigenous communities or/or women), in this framing all themes prioritized the need to co-produce knowledge at different scales. Co-production is considered essential because it enables recovery strategies created in locally relevant ways, underpinned by community capacities and knowledge while also considering the impacts of climate change. For example, one of the papers emphasized indigenous knowledge and food systems for future recovery and resilience (D1) while another focused on the role of community leadership and the co-production of knowledge and solutions for preparedness and response (D10).
The third framing related to Justice and equitable development. In this framing the focus was explicitly on achieving more inclusive, just and sustainable societies while substantially improving targeted financing projects. Improved targeting was deemed necessary both for women and girls as well as for marginalized groups in general. Two papers in this theme focussed on the needs of women and girls (D4, 8), recognizing them as important target groups, two are more ambitious in scope and extend the recognition of other marginalized groups specifically noting the disproportionate burden of ill-health and economic hardship, on black, brown and Indigenous peoples (D8, 10). This latter article, calls for community centred and radical transformation of the status quo for ongoing recovery post COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, within the three framings, there was a persistent call to move away from the current dominant development model towards development beyond growth (D3, 5, 7, 8, 10) that aims to be more inclusive and equitable. Such a recovery strategy would redress the inequalities and gendered impacts of COVID-19 (D5, 6, 8, 9) and necessarily prioritize responses beyond business-as-usual (D3, 5, 6, 7, 8). Some emphasized a reconfiguration of labour relations (D3, 5, 7, 8) state-citizen relations (D5, 7), values and economic priorities. Most importantly all emphasized a focus on the needs of the most vulnerable through different mechanisms to tackle gender-related, and other social inequalities. The majority (6) of the papers called for recovery planning that also considered future preparedness to system shocks (D2, 3, 7), involving leadership and voices of the vulnerable at the local level (D3, 4, 6, 8). Several of the papers dealt with the implications of debt and microeconomic policies on recovery for local communities (D3) women and girls and other marginalized groups (D4, 9), such as Indigenous Peoples, afro-descendants, youth and migrants (D2, 5, 10). There was a clear emphasis on equity and justice for recovery across the papers.
Despite the focus on the needs of the marginalized, calls to directly involve the voices of these groups ranged from implicit to more targeted calls. Only three papers (3D, 4D and 10D) present ways in which those voices could be included.
Conservation and Sustainability Framings
Framings of COVID-19 Recovery from the Conservation Literature
Green economy, combined within an SDGs approach was another clear recovery framing within three papers among the conservation and sustainability literature. These papers argued for recovery founded in the principles of a green economy, for sustainable, nature-based development within the context of the SDGs. Strategies included those embedded in conservation (e.g. forest management and protection, conservation of large intact habitats), stressing the interconnected nature of healthy ecosystems and public health and the need for system-wide transformations to economies and societies – guided by the SDGs. The focus was on the forested tropics in general and the actors apportioned with responsibility for delivery were diverse. Underlying and intersecting risks focus on environmental crises, and notably deforestation. The need to include marginalized voices was addressed through recognition of past experience, lessons and progress in working with communities and recognition that any recovery package must be inclusive.
Finally, a recovery framing centred on the potential of Decoupling economic activity from environmental and climatic harms was also evident (represented in two papers). It was framed largely in the context of pursuing integrated wins (the triple win of climate, conservation and development), and the possibility of developing policy pathways, including robust bio-economy models, or entirely new economic systems in order to build back better. Addressing structural issues that impair the contribution of rural communities to sustainability, such as land rights, power relations, food security and sovereignty, health equity, gender equality, agroforestry and reforestation are all featured. These are combined with calls for actions in centres of wealth such as waste-reduction (e.g. food, energy), emissions reductions, reconnecting with nature, replacing material consumer culture and developing circular bioeconomies. Whilst the degree of transformation is high, and the recognition of actions in both rural and urban settings is required, this discourse does not feature the voices of the marginalized in any clear way.
Divergence and Similarity Across Degree of Transformation and of Targeting
Our analysis demonstrates that the degree of targeting (i.e. differentiated need), and of transformation considered necessary for recovery varies within and between fields. For example, the Equity framing within the Health field, and the Decoupling framing within the Conservation field had the highest levels of targeting and of transformation, suggesting the highest degree of movement away from business-as-usual. Meanwhile, other discourses, such as Green Economic Recovery were high in terms of calling for system-wide transformations, but discussed this at the global or whole-society scale without differentiation (lower levels of targeting) (Figure 1). Emergent framings of COVID-19 recovery from the fields of (i) health; (ii) development and (iii) conservation and organized along two central axis of Transformation (from incremental to system-wide) and Targeting (from none to differentiated). Note that placings are approximate to serve as a heuristic illustrating the distinctions
Moving towards an Integrated Recovery Agenda: Finding Common Ground
Cross-Sectoral Integration is Needed
Across each of the three fields of research reviewed, certain elements of recovery framings appear common – notably integration (e.g. of sectors, scales, risks) was called for across all fields. Integration was considered vital for adequate recovery, part of which included mitigating future pandemics. Overall, the strength and the appropriateness of an integrated approach was argued for because of the feedbacks and connectivity between sectors. These feedbacks are relevant because, for example, a one-health approach could deliver health gains alongside gains in conservation. Further these benefits in turn could help mitigate future pandemics. COVID-19 contributed to the case for integrated governance because it demonstrated the interconnected nature of these systems and our dependencies on them.
Transformation Away from Dominant Development
COVID-19 was generally presented as a much needed opportunity to reset the course away from siloed sectoral approaches. Whilst the fields and framings did vary on the degree of transformation, generally some level of transformation was routinely called for and all papers made at least one suggestion for some form of change. Most framings highlighted that COVID-19 was insightful because it revealed the multiple crises that were already underway and demonstrated the inadequacy of the current prevailing norms, institutions, and development models which have resulted in the pandemic, and associated crises. For many of the framings, the underlying issue was considered to be the prevailing development model and dominance of the pursuit of economic growth. In general, the framings attempted to draw lessons from the pandemic that can inform future development trajectories within a recovery strategy.
Lack of Representation and Inclusion
Crucially, under-representation of local, or marginalized voices was another tendency that cut across many papers, with relatively few papers actively drawing on, or incorporating grounded voices, or prominently advocating for such practices. More common was to recognize the need for, or speak to some form of, differentiated targeting. In general, it was the Development field that distinguished the need for the inclusion of grounded voices the most, and this field also stood out as holding the recovery framings that were most transformational and differentiated. This points to a fundamental need in terms of knowledge generation and agenda setting for COVID-19 recovery, and disaster recovery more broadly. We consider this, and our other findings in the following discussion.
Discussion
The Opportunity of COVID-19 Recovery: Steering Towards a New Normal
A Moment to Reset Underlying Issues
Overall there are distinctions across fields in the way that COVID-19 recovery has been framed and apparently understood. Our findings also suggest that different fields adopted framings that, perhaps unsurprisingly, reflect their own priorities and emphasis. In this way, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have been utilized as a window of opportunity to highlight the various issues that different fields emphasize (e.g. overconsumption, inequitable health care) as driving their cause. Recovery framings were apparently developed to emphasize given priorities (of health, conservation and development) in a moment that appeared to offer a space to take stock and rethink the future albeit in distinct ways across fields. Whilst the framings of pathways to recovery were distinct, it was apparent across all papers that COVID-19 was taken as an experience and a lens through which other existing issues (e.g. inequality; climate change, environmental degradation) could be made more visible and foregrounded.
Importantly, whilst the COVID-19 crisis may have passed, these underlying issues and intersecting risks remain, as they did before the pandemic. For example, in the health field, the pre-existing conditions perceived to be magnified through the pandemic included: a lack of social targeting; heavy emphasis on response not prevention, and the pre-eminence of economic accumulation which undermines spending in public health. The pandemic tended to be presented as yet another rationale and argument for acting on those pre-existing issues, and doing so therefore logically sits within the field-specific recovery strategies. Within the conservation field, the pre-existing issues included: poor land rights; pre-eminence of economic accumulation creating encroachment into remaining wild places, and ecosystem fragility, all of which demand resetting as part of a recovery strategy. Whilst in the development field the pre-existing issues that were extenuated by COVID-19 included inequity and poverty and climate-related hazards. In this way then, the pandemic became a magnifier that was seen to demonstrate the importance and indeed verify the relevance of pre-existing issues. COVID-19 recovery represents an opportunity to grasp, a moment to act, and a lesson to seize. Doing so could steer away not only from future pandemics, but also from the other various social, health and conservation related perils that were already on the table (Goniewicz et al., 2023; O’Ryan et al., 2023). The possibility of disasters offering windows of opportunity for change is not restricted to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the longevity of any momentum built-up as a result of disasters, including the pandemic remains unclear (Birkmann et al., 2010).
Distinctions in Recovery Framings Across Fields of Conservation, Development and Health
Across the fields of health, development and conservation, we found at least nine distinct COVID-19 recovery framings, and these varied in a number of ways. In health, these were: Pandemic Preparedness; Health-Care Gaps and Equity. In development they were: Integrated thinking, Knowledge co-production and Inclusive development. In conservation they were: Green-economy, Decoupling and Conservation. A clear point of divergence across the recovery framings was the level of transformation away from business-as-usual that they represented. For instance, some framings suggested that recovery would be possible with only incremental changes to current structures and systems, whilst others made the case for complete transformation of social and economic systems to achieve recovery. Overall, the literature within the development field appeared the most transformational and also most highly targeted to the variable needs of different and distinct groups. Interestingly, divergence in framings was not only between fields, but a considerable amount of variation within fields was also evident suggesting policy messaging may be unclear.
Towards an Integrated COVID-19 Recovery Discourse
Systemic and System-Wide Change
A common theme across many of the papers was the idea of integration across sectors and recognition of multiple and interconnected risks. In order to achieve that, most of the papers promoted alternatives to the ‘mainstream’ thinking around recovery (Farhana & Siti-Nabiha, 2024) – that is, one shaped principally by the idea of restoring previous conditions through economic recovery and economic ‘re-growth’. Many concur that some form of transformation would be essential in relation to achieving recovery into the future. That means a change from what might be seen as ‘business-as-usual’ approaches, and attention to values and priorities beyond that of economic growth alone (O’Ryan et al., 2023; Schipper et al., 2021). Many constitute socially progressive, even radical versions of transformative action (Few et al., 2017), ultimately underscored by the need for systemic and system-wide change. Despite this cross-cutting recognition, there was a general lack of detail identifying the pathways or leverage points that might be available to achieve these transformations. None of the papers broke down how such transformation could take place. The work of the IPBES community on leverage points as entry points for instigating change has now been elaborated and may provide a useful way to extend the calls for recovery in to action since they define a set of strategies and actions for pursuing transformative change (IPBES, 2022). Further, the transformations assessment report explains how transformation happens, and documents how to foster, accelerate and maintain transformative change (IPBES, 2022). The Values assessment distinguished between incremental change and transformational – scale change, although acknowledge that achieving the latter can also be through a series of steps, from conducting plural valuation, through to embedding plural values in decision-making and policy reform, and potentially resulting in societal-wide shifts in norms-held and goals pursued (IPBES, 2022).
Justice and Equity
An additional unifying strand across fields of research was around justice and equity. Indeed, others have observed how justice must be placed at the centre of transformations to sustainability (Martin et al., 2020) and whilst this framing did not appear central in the conservation field, indeed the conservation community is recognizing the imperative of just conservation (Dawson et al., 2024; Martin et al., 2016). Previous scholarship has explored the tendencies of the conventional conservation effort and identified that particularly entrenched forms of practice influence the extent to which heightened justice and equity can be achieved. For example, Carmenta et al. (2025) expand on disciplinary dominance (in which the field is dominated by the more quantitative side of the natural and social sciences, overshadowing attention to non-utility maximizing decisions and intangible values), hegemonic development (the prevalence of the dominant development paradigm within which material value and consumption are considered the accolades of success, and obscuring other notions of living well or wellbeing), and convenient governance (which is that conservation so often operates within the boundaries of what donors dictate, and where it is therefore more convenient to continue business-as-usual style approaches, rather than try and antagonize the system) (Carmenta et al., 2025). Further, empirical research in other disasters has shown how a ‘human dimensions’ justice framing may be better placed to galvanize action to steer-away from future events because such a humanitarian perspective can be more salient across a wider range of stakeholder groups than framings centred on the environment or carbon (Carmenta et al., 2017). Conservation interventions pushing in to the space of enhanced equity, justice, recognition and inclusion include, for example, the Biocultural heritage territories, which are entirely informed by grounded priorities, values and conceptions of a good life (including the spiritual domain) and draw on gift and barter economies (Swiderska et al., 2022).
Missing the Most Marginalized
There was a relatively marginal emphasis in the papers we reviewed on the need for inclusivity in working across diverse perspectives and voices. However the papers tended to focus beyond the local scale, which has been argued as the scale at which integration tends already to happen, in the sense that grassroots’ perspectives and self-organized responses to crises are inherently less likely to constrained by sectoral interests or delimited by sectoral boundaries (Chapin III et al., 2016; de Moraes et al., 2023).
Overcoming the Absence of Local Voices and Associated Plural Values
Grounding Needs in Local Voices
The COVID-19 recovery framings that we identified through this review commonly referred to the need to target attention to under-served and marginalized groups. However, much less common were calls for inclusion of locally generated priorities, grounded in the voices of such groups, and few contributions detailed ‘how’ to achieve such inclusion of marginalized voices (Kothari, 2021). This gap appears to be a key need for future work on recovery, and one that is required across all fields, but particularly the conservation and health fields. Doing so is necessary because often the diverse ways of knowing, valuing and living in the world can be obscured through top-down approaches that superimpose external ideas of what recovery or a good life is (Chapin III et al., 2016; Melber et al., 2024; Rodríguez, 2023). Without careful calibration with locally grounded insights such interventions can in the worse cases create harms and perverse outcomes.
Practitioners and researchers can engage in methods that serve to highlight local views, visions and perspectives and in doing so help to secure their inclusion into strategies and interventions for health, conservation, development and recovery. Methods to engage with and involve local voices to address development issues are not new and date to the 1990s when stakeholder and rightsholder participation in decision-making became more mainstream for many organizations and researchers (Chambers, 1994; Cornwall, 2006; Fals-Borda, 1987). Yet, top-down research and policy continues to dominate as evidenced in this review and in recent calls to decolonize knowledge production (Kothari, 2021). Involving marginalized voices in creating more plural approaches to recovery entails genuine inclusion of local community members and stakeholders at different stages of the process, such as in setting the question, methods, design and information dissemination. As noted by capabilitarian scholars, the question is not whether there should be inclusion in different forms of knowledge production but the form of participation and how that is facilitated to involve otherwise marginalized and unrecognized voices (Martinez-Vargas et al., 2022).
Participatory action research has proven promising in the emergence of self-determined Indigenous research and pursuing their priorities (Blangy et al., 2024). Others have shown how interestingly technology can also be used to support representation of local realities and for communities themselves to mobilize, unite their struggles and amplify their voices (Hopke & Paris, 2021). For instance, the Haze Gazer platform was developed to capture crowd-sourced data enabling local people to share their reality of living through the catastrophic peatland fires. Through this platform their experiences were directly connected to the presidents situation room (Baraniuk, 2017). The integrated landscape approach community has also provided a number of advances and practical steps for how best to achieve inclusion across sectors and scales (Carmenta et al., 2020; Reed et al., 2016, 2019; Sayer et al., 2013). These resources detail the forms of stakeholder engagement that can enable such dialogue and how mapping common ground can serve as entry points to lay the ground-word for discussion where divergence of opinion exists. Recovery likely requires engaging not only multiple sectors in integrated approaches, but also multiple scales creating scope to connect to available models for forming coalitions of governance suited to tackle the telecoupled reality of our times (Carmenta, Barlow, et al., 2023), and organizing health, conservation and development interventions along evidence-based causal chains (Qiu et al., 2018).
Engaging Plural and Intangible Values
The plurality of values that people hold for nature, and that constitute their multi-dimensional wellbeing are important to consider when configuring recovery, and any intervention option (Carmenta et al., 2022). Too often conceptions of wellbeing are derived from external measures and tend to impose western framings of what matters to achieve a good life and recover. Moving towards plural valuation approaches to ‘measure what matters’ is essential for guiding just recovery (Hill et al., 2021; McGregor et al., 2015; Zafra-Calvo et al., 2020) because targets determine actions (Jacobs et al., 2018). Whilst plural values (i.e. the subjective and relational as well as the material) have tended to be under-represented and yet are potentially most salient to wellbeing in rural communities, and for local and Indigenous Peoples, a number of methods exist for capturing and recognizing this value plurality (Carmenta, Zähringer, et al., 2023; Jacobs et al., 2016). Such efforts are imperative to designing interventions and visioning recovery in inclusive ways that speak to the diverse cultural lifeways which recovery strategies often interact with. Previous work lays out a set of methods for engaging with the plural values that are held between people, place and institutions (Carmenta et al., 2023). A special issue in People and Nature entitled ‘Lost in Transition? Capturing the impacts of conservation and development interventions on relational values and human wellbeing in the forested tropics’ (V.5. Issue 6) presents a series of case studies where methods from Q method, to life histories and biocultural appraisals have been employed to give voice to those ‘fuzzier’ and often ‘intangible’ elements of wellbeing, and recovery, that matter to people locally.
Concluding Thoughts
We show that whilst fields diverged, each had framings highlighting how COVID-19 revealed the magnitude of multiple and interconnected crises that were already underway. Many framings considered the underlying issue to be the prevailing development model and its pursuit of economic growth – which was considered inadequate and in need of various degrees of transformation combined with more integrated governance. Overall, the development field appeared most transformational, and may offer insights for the fields of health and conservation given the pressing imperative for large scale, system-wide transformation to achieve sustainability (IPBES, 2022). Crucially, equity appeared a uniting concept across fields, yet few framings had strong representation of local, or marginalized voices and relatively few papers actively grounded their calls, or prominently advocated for such practices. There remains much scope for working with participatory methods and co-created knowledge generation and agenda setting for COVID-19 recovery, and disaster recovery more broadly in order to achieve the inclusion of diverse priorities, values and voices in the process.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Global Framings of Pandemic Recovery: Insights Across Conservation, Development and Health Fields
Supplemental Material for Global Framings of Pandemic Recovery: Insights Across Conservation, Development and Health Fields by Rachel Carmenta, Liana Anderson, M. Teresa Armijos, Victoria Lugo, Hazel Marsh, Maria Eugenia Ulfe Young, and Roger Few in The Journal of Environment & Development.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This is an output of the Recognizing intersecting risks, capacities and pandemic recovery needs in marginalized communities of Latin America project, and we are grateful to this international partnership supported by the following funding organizations in the framework of the TransAtlantic Platform (
): International Development Research Centre (Canada) grant numbers 109835-002 and 109835-003; Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación and Fondo Francisco José De Caldas (Colombia) grant number 80740-094-2022; Sao Paulo Research Foundation (Brazil) grant number 2021/07660-2, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grant number 2021/07660-2 and CNPq Productivity scholarship (#307364/2025-9); and Arts and Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom) grant number AH/X001733/1. Universidad de Caldas (HC509; HD538) provided additional support. The opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily represent those of the funding agencies listed here.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by International Development Research Centre (Canada) grant numbers 109835-002 and 109835-003; Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación and Fondo Francisco José De Caldas (Colombia) grant number 80740-094-2022; Sao Paulo Research Foundation (Brazil) grant number 2021/07660-2, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grant number 2021/07660-2 and CNPq Productivity scholarship (#307364/2025-9); and Arts and Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom) grant number AH/X001733/1. Universidad de Caldas (HC509; HD538) provided additional support. The opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily represent those of the funding agencies listed here.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Author Biographies
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
