Identify and evaluate relevant climate-/COVID-19-/national development-related strategies and policies produced at the country level and evaluate them against the government’s COVID-19 strategy. Those strategies and policies include NDCs, NAPS, national development plans, LTSs, green growth strategies, other national climate change priorities, the national climate plan and national gender and climate policies/plans.

These documents and their objectives are inter-related and must therefore be considered holistically. For instance, transformation and decarbonization strategies articulated in NDCs and LTSs can be valuable inputs in setting strategic directions for an inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery. Because climate strategies reveal the government’s political will to pursue a green transformation, analysing those strategies will help to understand the government’s environmental and national development priorities and intentions.

When this step is completed, countries should be able to identify how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the national economy, including its economic, environmental and social dimensions (taking a gender and intersectional approach to the latter). This step should also help to define the actions that will be required to achieve a green recovery and how NDCs (or a national climate action plan) can contribute to this objective.