Page 90 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

visible in various attempts by several nation states to source badly
needed medical equipment by any means possible. Even in the

EU, countries initially chose to go it alone, but that course of
action subsequently changed, with practical assistance between
member countries, an amended EU budget in support of
healthcare systems, and pooled research funds to develop

treatments and vaccines. (And there have now been ambitious
measures, which would have seemed unimaginable in the pre-
pandemic era, susceptible of pushing the EU towards further
integration, in particular a €750 billion recovery fund put forward

by the European Commission.) In a functioning global governance
framework, nations should have come together to fight a global
and coordinated “war” against the pandemic. Instead the “my
country first” response prevailed and severely impaired attempts

to contain the expansion of the first wave of the pandemic. It also
placed constraints on the availability of protective equipment and
treatment that in turn undermined the resilience of national
healthcare systems. Furthermore, this fragmented approach went

on to jeopardize attempts to coordinate exit policies aimed at
“restarting” the global economic engine. In the case of the
pandemic, in contrast with other recent global crises like 9/11 or
the financial crisis of 2008, the global governance system failed,

proving either non-existent or dysfunctional. The US went on to
withdraw funding from the WHO but, no matter the underlying
rationale of this decision, the fact remains that it is the only
organization capable of coordinating a global response to the

pandemic, which means that an albeit far from perfect WHO is
infinitely preferable to a non-existent one, an argument that Bill
Gates compellingly and succinctly made in a tweet: “Their work is
slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no

other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO
now more than ever.”

This failure is not the WHO’s fault. The UN agency is merely
the symptom, not the cause, of global governance failure. The

WHO’s deferential posture towards donor countries reflects its
complete dependence on states agreeing to cooperate with it. The
UN organization has no power to compel information sharing or

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