Metropolises Overcoming the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Urgent Call for Territorializing Global Agendas at Subnational Levels

Abstract

To a large extent, inter-municipal cooperation mechanisms and collaboration between local, subnational and national governments as well as between their numerous sectoral institutions have proved to be effective in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Territories that implemented solutions in an articulated manner and made consensual decisions between the public, private and social sectors have optimized the way they use their resources and maximized results during the pandemic. Using several data from various sources coupled with analyses and desk review, we demonstrate how pandemic mitigation, adaptation and recovery strategies adopted through a territorial approach, going beyond political–administrative borders and across the urban–rural continuum, is the first step on a path to a more sustainable future from cities. Using the COVID-19 lens, the chapter outlines how metropolises are responding to pressing challenges of sustainable development. The chapter concludes with a series of lessons learned during more than a year of pandemic, which also serve as recommendations that would contribute to increasing understanding of the negative impacts caused by COVID-19, as well as highlighting the opportunity to use the pandemic to build back better and pursue sustainable development goals.