Tribune. In a column published in The world, President Macron recently called with other great leaders for more solidarity and multilateralism in the face of the persistent threat of Covid-19. Multilateralism, explains this forum, “Shape a world order (…), which is based on cooperation, the rule of law, collective action and common principles ”. We could not agree more, especially since the reality of the pandemic has only shown a sorry lack of dialogue and action at the multilateral level. The acquisition by rich countries of twice as many vaccines as they need is a telling example of this failure. Even though the overall vaccine production capacity is close to saturation, only a very small quantity of vaccines remains accessible to countries with limited resources. Another, more unexpected example is the spectacle given by the European Union, multilateral by definition, of a veritable cacophony throughout the pandemic, characterized by divergent national health strategies on containment measures, the closure of borders, school closures or social distancing measures.
At the same time, the pandemic is raging, with more 12,000 deaths per day and the cumulative number of deaths and infections worldwide reaching 3.5 million, and 168 million. The shocking images from India must remind us that the crisis is global: the death rate is increasing at an alarming rate in other countries of South Asia, Latin America and Africa. While European countries appear to be emerging from their third wave of infection and vaccinating their populations, most countries around the world are on a whole different trajectory.
Complacency
We fear that an unwelcome form of appeasement is instilling itself among the leaders of Western countries, who, almost out of the woods, would forget their duty of solidarity with less endowed countries. The severity as well as the global nature of the crisis and the obvious interdependence of public health issues should, on the contrary, push them to adopt multilateral solutions on a global scale.
For the past eight months, we have had the privilege of serving on the Independent Pandemic Preparedness and Response Assessment Panel, which released its findings on May 12. This panel had been mandated by the World Health Assembly to analyze national, regional and global responses to the crisis due to Covid-19, and to issue recommendations to the international community in order to prevent future pandemics and to limit them. socio-economic consequences.
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