Briefings

Project and Document Summary COVID-19 has brought crisis to the doorstep of every country in the world, spotlighting politicalincoherence and failed policy visions, deep vulnerabilities of systems and institutions acrosssectors, and polarised state and societal relations. This is occurring in underdeveloped anddeveloped countries alike. At the same time, there is growing awareness that such crises also createopportunities to refashion the rules of the game in transformative ways. This paper unpacks the question of how COVID-19 and the crisis-driven responses to addressthe pandemic can contribute to wider national goals relating to forging or strengthening nationalsocial contracts – that tie bold new policy visions to robust and resilient systems and institutionalarrangements, that transform harmful structural legacies and strengthen social contracts – that canadapt, evolve and sustain in the face of crisis, and that hold promise for ever-greater levels of well-being for all in society. To investigate this topic, the paper first introduces the discussion of buildingback better from crisis, and