Wanted: Committee to Save the World. Coronavirus pandemic requires a global response especially as threat spreads to poorer countries. But the Kissinger question haunts,"Whom should we call?" 1/n
US leadership has been tragically inadequate to its own crisis; Europe too focused on its own; China’s initial mistakes encumber its leadership role. And with these ruled out, so too are G-7, G-20 etc. 2/n
For obvious reasons--resources, expertise, reach--IMF, World Bank (& regional development banks) & WHO must take leadership where governments cannot; they must coordinate amongst themselves; and they must be guided by developing countries. 3/n
Ironically, because of vacuum, multilaterals can be ahead of membership. But they must be bold, pushing their members & limits of current rules. Global coordination necessary for same reason as domestically: health and economic/financial crisis must be jointly addressed. 4/n
IMF, using all available & new tools, must make dollar liquidity freely available to poorer countries as @Brad_Setser (cfr.org/blog/addressin…) argued, & must push central banks, esp. US & China, to do the same. New & large SDRs, esp. to poorer countries, must be issued. 5/n
World Bank (& regional banks) must commit TODAY to spend unlimited amounts (even hundreds of billions of dollars) to buy all medical supplies (test kits, ventilators, masks, vaccines) on cost-plus basis from any private supplier anywhere in the world. 6/n
This would be like an Advance Market Commitment, that brought the world the pneumococcal and meningitis vaccines. Purchases could be distributed freely in accordance with needs around the world. 7/n
If advanced countries can borrow virtually costlessly today because of low interest rates, so too can the World Bank (and regional banks) with its triple-A rating. 8/n
WHO must be implementing agency for managing the health dimensions of the crisis in developing countries. Its resources must be augmented. They must be used to train medical personnel to be deployed all over the world, & supervise & accelerate testing, vaccine discovery etc. 9/n
IMF, World Bank and others will need to go beyond their usual mandates. They were created after WWII for one global order. That global order is about to be transformed by a pandemic of a kind we haven’t seen since 1918. So, they must change too. 10/n
This is also a critical moment for private philanthropies & their reputations (Gates, Chan-Zuckerberg, Bezos etc.). They can step up & be part of global response, providing resources & expertise for spending TODAY, when need is greatest. Or not. 11/n
Are current leaders of IMF, Bank, WHO, philanthropies up to the task? Unclear. Perhaps global statesman (Obama, Merkel, T. Shanmugaratnam) must lead these leaders. Too scary to contemplate world w/o Committee to Save It. If not now, when? If not this, what? If not them, who? n/n
