.Iran’s Bottom-up Efforts and Challenges Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Policy Responses. In The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa (1st ed., p. 240) Routledge

The global COVID-19 pandemic has lasted more than a year. Iran's unorthodox response to ‎the crisis could be understood as a bottom-up or popular response. It has a long history of ‎fighting against floods, earthquakes, storms, and other natural disasters. S mall popular, ‎civic, community, or jihadi groups enter the crisis field freely and provide a variety of ‎services. This article analyzes the dimensions of these activities, as well as their challenges, ‎using 26 semi-structured interviews with managers and activists from various groups. The ‎findings indicated that the activities included the following: 1) financing, purchasing, and ‎distributing food; 2) public health measures; 3) organizing ceremonies and gatherings; 4) ‎assisting healthcare workers; 5) promptly delivering specialized services and products for the ‎first time or on a large scale; 6) cultural, promotional, and educational measures; and 7) ‎empowerment of vulnerable, popular actors, and decision makers. Additionally, the most ‎significant challenges identified were: 1) a lack of knowledge; 2) poor coordination and ‎cooperation; 3) government dysfunction; 4) a lack of specialization and learning; and 5) a ‎lack of empowerment and supply of root response to
demands.‎

Keywords: Bottom-up response to crisis; Crisis Management; Civic engagement
Citizen-‎driven response to crises; Faith-driven engagement.‎