Reinvigorating multilateral cooperation during the Covid-19 crisis: Opportunities and difficulties

Authors

• Görlich
• D.
• Stein-Zalai
• J.

Publication Date

Key Words

Related Topics

• The Covid-19 pandemic makes clear how interconnected our world is and how crucial effective international cooperation is to manage global health crises and other global challenges such as climate change.
• The Covid-19 crisis and its socioeconomic impact are likely to reinforce previous tendencies towards nationalism, protectionism and increasing inequality, which make fruitful international cooperation even more difficult.
• The G20 has an organisational structure and instruments to enable effective multilateral cooperation in response to the Covid-19 crisis: continuous dialogue, flexibility as well as the capacity to set norms, initiate policies and supply top-level political impetus.
• Most importantly, the G20 need to lend decisive and extensive support to international organizations, in particular the WHO, to support their crisis management activities.
• The G20 also need to step up their support for the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030 as they offer a holistic and widely accepted framework ideally suited to lead the recovery of our economies and societies towards a more resilient, livable post- Covid-19 world.