The Covid-19 pandemic has struck with unprecedented scale and severity, exposing cracks in health systems and political leadership worldwide. The state of emergency it has triggered has been seen in many preceding crises and the hurried – and often uncoordinated responses – in conditions of relaxed controls provide ripe ground for abuse and inefficiency.

CoST – the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative (CoST) is the leading global initiative improving transparency and accountability in public infrastructure. The pandemic has had an immediate impact on CoST programmes across 19 countries worldwide: CoST teams are working from home and all international travel has ceased. Programmes are respecting social distancing and mass events have been cancelled.

Despite the adverse scenario, examples of good practices have emerged worldwide. In a short period of time, CoST activities have been reshaped to this unprecedented new reality – an agility reflective of the flexibility of the CoST approach and the commitment of CoST collaborators in government, the private sector, civil society and the media.

In order to keep a public, open and ongoing record of the innovative good practice being deployed by its members worldwide, CoST has released the CoST Covid-19 Response: an open record of innovative good practices being to ensure emergency procedures are transparent, accountable and collaborative. Such innovation includes:

• New infrastructure data monitoring tools – as shown in Uganda where a dashboard has been added to the government’s e-procurement system to track projects during the pandemic

• Using the CoST approach in health-infrastructure delivery – in Honduras the President called for CoST application in the construction of 93 new health facilities

• Pioneering inventive means of trust building – including in Afghanistan where the construction industry and government are working closely together online to overcome industry concerns.

Access the CoST Covid-19 Response here.