World now needs to think: global good
The international community, such as it is, has finally turned to handling the Covid-19 pandemic as a global crisis, given that it transcends territorial boundaries. This is a necessary step, but it faces a single enormous problem: closing the “jurisdictional gap”.
Last week, on March 26, the Group of 20 (G20) countries met to discuss the pandemic, and leaders agreed to take all necessary measures to contain it and to protect people.
The group supported strengthening the World Health Organisation’s mandate in the fight against pandemics, including the delivery of medical supplies, diagnostic tools, treatments, medicines and vaccines. These are all necessary for providing treatment of transnationally communicable disease.
During last week’s summit Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke, appropriately, about the need to place health and human welfare at the top of global priorities.
He insisted on sharing the benefits of medical research development and promoting new crisis management protocols and procedures. He situated these in the context of an interconnected global community — that is not a cliché. The leaders of the world’s largest economies collectively committed themselves to injecting more than $5-trillion into the global economy, to counter the social and financial effects of the pandemic.
This was not the only thing that emanated from last week’s G20 meeting, but it can help us discuss a key component of the provision of treatment for the Covid-19 virus — as a global public good.
When the idea of addressing multidimensional global crises was first put forward through the concept of global public good, in 1999, it identified three main “gaps” that needed to be “closed” (these were jurisdiction, incentive and participation). For the sake of this discussion, we can focus on the “jurisdiction” gap, for the obvious reason that the Covid19 pandemic does not stop at national borders.
Traditionally, each country necessarily focuses on its national state of affairs (within its jurisdiction), and their incentive is to protect the people within their jurisdiction and shore up the economy. What the global public good approach put forward was in effect policy harmonisation. In other words, back of the border states of affairs (within national jurisdictions) required closer collaboration on research & development, knowledgesharing, treatment and general responses to crises.
What we have witnessed is that for the most part countries have tried to follow practices that seem to have worked in other jurisdictions — with some notable exceptions. These are essentially political. One good example is Iran, where (by last weekend) there had been an estimated 38,309 infections with 2,640 reported deaths. While the Iranian government should, within its jurisdiction, be held responsible for containing the virus and treating the ill, it does not help that that country faces strict economic sanctions — driven geopolitically by the US.
As for the US itself, Covid-19 was, at least for the first 10 weeks of the year, treated rather dismissively by President Donald Trump. So, while we have thousands of people affected in Italy, Iran, Spain, South Korea and China, the US woke up to the severity of the crisis rather late.
All of this throws into high relief the issue of closing the “jurisdiction gap”. It is hard to imagine the US accepting advice from, or following rules or practices emanating from other jurisdictions. Likewise, the US has expressed reopening its economy to be its main incentive, while other countries are giving primacy to saving lives first. You have to be a real knuckledragger to imagine a working economy or “markets” without people.
The problem with approaching the Covid-19 virus as a global crisis — which, surely, it is — lies in the dissonance among jurisdictions. The G20 has to be lauded for its approach, but each of its members has returned to their countries and must now focus on harmonising policies and practices to ensure that the global public good approach to the Covid-19 virus contains the disease as fast as possible, and for as long as it is necessary.
Given the rise of nationalism around the world, that may not be easy, but I will leave the final words to Inge Kaul, one of the editors of the 1999 volume on global public good and international co-operation in the 21st century.
She made the following point in 2017: “There is a growing list of global challenges, from climate change and the spread of communicable diseases and antimicrobial resistance to excessive financial volatility, illicit trade, cyberattacks, terrorism and forced migration. In some areas, the world is coming close to reaching thresholds of irreversibility, as with climate change and the loss of biodiversity.”
Global leaders have to accept that the virus that causes Covid19 does not care for jurisdictional boundaries. It is, truly, a deadly global communicable disease, and requires a truly (harmonised) global approach — notwithstanding the great diversity and priorities of people around the world.
WHAT WE HAVE WITNESSED IS THAT FOR THE MOST PART COUNTRIES HAVE TRIED TO FOLLOW PRACTICES THAT WORKED IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS
Lagardien, a visiting professor at the Wits University School of Governance, has worked in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank, as well as the secretariat of the National Planning Commission.