Abstract Health systems continue to experience many shocks and emergencies with devastating consequences on populations health. Shocks/Emergencies include, among others, pandemics, state fragility, wars, and natural disasters. Although recovery from emergencies was examined in the literature, there is limited knowledge in the context of health systems including the optimal recovery approaches, or their impact on health systems. To fill this knowledge gap, a literature search was conducted on Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and websites of major organizations working in global health. A narrative summary was done with presenting the main findings into themes when applicable. This review concluded that recovery is a great opportunity to build the health system back better, increase system resilience, and feed into sustainable development. Interventions across the health system building blocks is a good choice including governance and leadership with local government’s stewardship; development and implementation of Human resources for health policies and reforms, and health financing policies; and delivering essential health services. The review also reported the following enablers for recovery: government’s commitment and political will, effective coordination, national recovery strategies and plans, and phasing in Interventions. Furthermore, a framework was developed for health systems recovery which can be used to inform the design of future recovery programmes.
Hassan Sarsour (Tue,) studied this question.