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With borders closed and global travel constrained, trade will help us find a way out of the pandemic.
This content was published on February 15, 2021 - 11:08 February 15, 2021 - 11:08 Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala See in another language: 1
There has never been more of an imperative for multilateralism than COVID-19. All of humanity faces a common foe, a pathogen that has no respect for borders and rides roughshod over treaties and territories, tariffs, and trade routes. And the multilateral trading system is critical to fighting it, getting health products and practitioners to where they are needed, as soon as they are needed, in the most efficient way. Yet today's global public health crisis is bookended by crises of trade.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the former chair of GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. Previously she served as the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Envoy (ACT-Accelerator) and as the Africa Union COVID-19 special envoy. Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria's finance minister and briefly as foreign minister.
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At the outset of the pandemic a year ago, fearing scarcities of critical medical equipment, countries sparked a wave of protectionism that has since hampered the world's ability to fight the virus. Demand for basic but essential products like masks, gloves, and surgical gowns rose to unprecedented levels, in some cases by several thousand percent. In response, around one hundred countries and territories imposed export restrictions to safeguard these supplies for their own use, according to the International Trade Center. Many hoarded supplies in excess of their needs.
Rules not respected
Though several countries have since removed export restrictions and liberalized trade at least for some medical supplies and products, there are still restrictions impeding trade and access to these products. Many World Trade Organization (WTO) members did not respect rules that require notification, transparency, and temporariness of export restrictions, although notification has improved over time. The same pattern repeated with hospital equipment. In addition, supply chain disruption was another constraining factor. As a consequence, trade clogged or slowed at the precise moment when frictionless trade was not only an economic imperative but a moral and public health imperative, as well.
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