Ex-UN official: Global teamwork needed to tackle COVID-19

Global cooperation is needed for tackling COVID-19 and further economic recovery, said a former United Nations official.

Shamshad Akhtar, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations and former executive director of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, made the remarks during the Global Think Tank Webinar.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. Hence an unprecedented crisis requires unprecedented support and unprecedented action and response," Akhtar said, as she noted the pandemic is causing significant loss of life, disrupting livelihoods, and threatening the development and prosperity of many countries across the globe.

"The IMF has indicated that the global GDP has contracted by 4.9 percent this year. In developed countries, particularly the United States, the number is double the average level. If we also take a look at the disruption to the small and medium-sized businesses and the industrial and global value chains, the number will be phenomenal. Another shocking thing is that labor markets are extremely tight and stressed. In the first quarter we lost 130 million jobs. And in the second, the number is over 300 million."

In today's world, with deepening interconnectedness supported by the large multimodal transportation networks, it is not surprising that the virus spread beyond borders, Akhtar said.

In this special time, global governance must be reintegrated to deal with the tensions between isolationism versus internationalism, realism versus idealism, competition versus interdependence. Public health policy and public health infrastructure development, learning exchanges and better risk management of cross-border mobility, as well as medical cooperation are critical elements in the fight against the pandemic, she said.