CONCLUSION

Being able to build resilience to be better prepared for future hazards and shocks is a task for our times. The last two years have demonstrated vividly how, through the systemic nature of risk, COVID-19 has led to cascading effects across all of society, challenging risk management.

This calls for a new approach to risk management that takes into account a granular understanding of how our world is a dynamic system, interconnected across sectors, borders and scales. While these interconnections are not new, they are affecting and accelerating changes in how hazards and shocks play out in increasingly unexpected ways.

The solutions we craft as a global society must confront these systemic issues and allow for interconnected ways in which to solve multiple problems at once. The way we understand and perceive risks influences our ability to respond to them. COVID-19 has shown that the risks posed by hazards and shocks can have far-reaching and cascading effects. But we can, and must, learn from those risks, so we can build solutions and thereby collectively change our systems for the better.