Preventing an unwanted guest

Social cohesion is about the well-being of people, focusing mainly on safeguarding the rights of citizens.

In this regard, well-being includes civil and political rights as well as social rights, namely: good education, an advanced health system, affordable housing, access to employment and a robust social welfare system.

In Malta, we take most social cohesion policies for granted. Our children go to school as a matter of right, there is access to health and social services with relative ease, while employment opportunities are on offer most of the time. This way of life is more or less also shared by our partners in the EU.

However, COVID-19 has taught us that we cannot take this peace of mind for granted, as it can be drastically disrupted in a few days, with one’s way of life completely altered.

Our capacity to respond adequately was tested like never before. On one hand, the health services secured the health of our people from day one, with top class medical interventions. On the other, the social welfare system provided real-time measures that kept workers in employment, parents able to stay at home to care for their kids, vulnerable persons working from home, while also providing a secure income to those who became redundant.

Concurrently, the social partners acted with prudence and pragmatism, while civil society behaved with discipline and maturity.

At the global level, the effort to contain the spread and find a vaccine for the virus is beyond belief. The whole world is focused on one thing only, to rid itself of this pandemic. However, while finding a vaccine is the obvious thing to do, the old dictum that prevention is better than cure is equally relevant to consider at this point.

Well-being cannot be secured solely by limiting it to having curative services and corrective measures in place when a virus visits our shores or borders. COVID-19 has clearly showed that it can lock us up at home for weeks, preclude us from meeting our loved ones, close our schools and disrupt our economies to an extent never witnessed before. This level of disruption cannot just be corrected after it happens, but it has to be prevented from happening again.

This basically means that our post COVID-19 policies have to focus on prevention strategies as much as curative ones. Some crises come uninvited and without warning like the coronavirus did, though some scientists had in fact earlier warned that SARS and MERS were a prelude of what would come in the future.

Notwithstanding this, other threats can be as devastating as COVID-19 and some have been looming in the background for a number of years, while the world’s response has at best been lukewarm.

Climate change has been negatively impacting the earth’s atmosphere and humanity’s way of living for far too long to keep ignoring the inevitable effects. Eighteen years out of the last two decades have been the warmest years for centuries, with extreme weather events being experienced across the globe, including our islands.

These changes are already affecting our trade, transport, agricultural produce and even employment, while a great deal is still unknown about the health effects of climate change and how the general well-being of people will be affected. The impact also varies according to region and state of development but what is sure is that no one is spared.

With this in mind, we need to act wisely at the global level and ensure that the recovery from COVID-19 is based on sound decisions, ensuring care for our natural environment and the need for sustainable development. Accelerating the ecological transition, such as less use of private transport and the rapid rethinking of our growth model such as investment in green jobs, is critical. Re-investing in public services, enhancing the common good such as our heritage and open spaces and above all putting solidarity at the heart of the economy, need to be the new post COVID-19 pillars for social cohesion worldwide.

In spite of the challenges that the transition to a green economy brings, an increasing number of progressive Governments and civil-society groups are supporting the EU Commission’s Green Deal. Malta is firmly supporting the proposal that the European Green Deal needs to be embedded in the recovery plan for the EU Member States. Consistent with the Paris Agreement, it is a roadmap which aims at making the EU’s economies sustainable by 2050.

Let the Coronavirus be an eye opener for us all to ensure that we commit to a lifestyle which is focused on what really matters and is of value for our wellbeing. It is a defining moment in history, and we need to be on the right side of history for our benefit and for those who come after us.