Post-COVID-19 World: Statesmanship Required to Create a New Normal

SINCE the end of the Cold War, a global rivalry has ensued between the world’s unipolar camp represented by American primacy and a multipolar camp represented by the emerging economies, in particular member countries of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), with tacit backing from many countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

- MONEEF R. ZOU’BI

Only an event as momentous as 9/11 – although momentarily – accomplished a unification of peoples in the face of the global terrorism threat that the event represented.

Then, just as the world was drifting apart politically and economically, with the divide between the unipolarists and the multipolarists ever widening, the war against COVID-19 broke out.

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to all that we humans are one big community. Human beings may have different dreams, however, we all go to bed under the same sky every night. Challenges will be numerous in a post-COVID-19 world. Now, severe food and water insecurity, alongside unprecedented economic upheavals, is leading to a spike in unemployment around the world.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres is an unhappy man right now. The collective and positive sentiment that prevailed globally when the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015 is no longer present. This is demonstrated by the absence of joint international actions to stand up to COVID-19, aside from the efforts of some stakeholders, businesses, organizations, and researchers to mitigate the risk and impact of this unprecedented global emergency.

This notwithstanding, in March 2020 Gutteres called for an immediate ceasefire in all world conflict zones, opening up of the windows of diplomacy, and bringing hope to places where the most vulnerable human beings face COVID-19.