Are our data ready for the next global challenges? Resilient data for resilient societies and economies

The waves of the COVID-19 pandemic have visibly shaken a wide range of national systems and infrastructures: from health to welfare, from environment to security. This shaking has exacerbated dangerous fragilities which were already exposed by the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and climate change, including nature loss, shrinking habits and growing toxicity and pollution. While a relative newcomer in the ‘crises club’, by grinding the world to a halt for months, COVID-19 has highlighted that our ability to build resilience into our systems still has considerable ways to go. So how do we respond? We have been hearing a lot about ‘bouncing back’ – that is, returning to pre-COVID conditions – as the core objective. However, in a number of contexts, and particularly for the global South, returning appears less desirable than using this crisis for advancing sustainability agendas. In both cases, a key question is: how do we make sure that inattention to the triple planetary crisis of climate, nature and pollution (with dimensions ranging from land cover change to hostile species invasions) do not lead us to the next round of shocks? How do we move from'esponse mode' to 'pre-emptive mode'? In other words: how do we increase the resilience of our societies?