CLA to Mobilize a Collective Adaptive Response to COVID-19, Hurricanes Eta & Iota

COVID-19 followed by Hurricanes Eta and Iota created a humanitarian and economic crisis in Honduras in which the scale of the damage and economic loss far exceeded the resources of USAID/Honduras to fully address directly. Yet the achievement of USAID/Honduras’ development goals depends on the recovery of the economy to recuperate lost jobs and household incomes. This context has reinforced the urgency of not acting alone, but rather embracing CLA to act agilely and flexibly in mobilizing local systems to respond to these crises. For the USAID/Honduras Transforming Market Systems (TMS) Activity, an intentional, well-resourced, and systematic CLA approach, with an emphasis on building trust and a culture of openness with its partners, allowed TMS to effectively play the role of a convener and broker to mobilize a more coordinated public and private response to these crises. This collective response has resulted in 1,283 hotel workers who benefited from financial relief, 5,832 employees who received workforce training in in biosecurity protocols, 748 enterprises that adopted e-commerce and new distribution models, and 450 tourism enterprises that directly re-hired and/or maintained at least 2,466 employees through this extended crisis as a result of an “intelligent reopening” process.