Fake news

This April has been an exceedingly difficult month for so many all over the world. We know the reason, the visible reason. But behind it, there is a lot that remains unclear. And when the clarity is missing, some people just take advantage to launch their own campaigns, particularly those fellows who have ill intentions. That explains the large number of fake news that is spread through social platforms daily. Unfortunately, those fakes get lots of followers. And they are amplified by bots, internet robots. One of them is about the 5G telecommunications network. I wonder who might be behind the crusade against 5G. Who would gain by sabotaging that advanced system? The fact of the matter is that someone or some organisation is trying to undermine the credibility of the fifth-generation technology for cellular networks.

Let the planes fly

One of my messages is clear. International travel should restart as soon as possible. There are enough means to control the health condition of passengers before departure and upon arrival. And the airlines can organise the space inside the planes, to guarantee a minimum of safety. This is a sector that is in dire straits. It must be given a chance to come back. But I am convinced we will see some big changes soon. The airlines will have to rethink their business model. And, in some cases, we might watch some companies just moving out of the business. Their viability is far from being possible. And we cannot have public money being spent just to keep them in the skies.  

The transition ahead of us

Many of us are now getting tired of the lockdown. This is, therefore, a dangerous period, when people start looking for opportunities to escape the quarantine and become more critical of the authorities. They are also feeling the squeeze when it comes to their income. Many families have been living on small budgets. They are at the limit of what they can sustain. They want to go back to the economy. They think it should be possible if adequate protection measures are implemented. Long transition periods might be wise from a public health point of view but have serious political costs. Governments must be clear when explaining the way the transition is expected to work. That is a task that requires top attention.

The balance that must be found

There is fear and growing poverty, in most corners of the world. We witness uncertainty and despair. The pandemic is killing people and destroying livelihoods. These are the two critical dimensions that must be tackled as a matter of great priority. Both are very urgent matters. The wise leader is the one that can strike the right balance between them. And who knows how the balance should evolve. That means, among other things, that an absolute and prolonged lockdown, with no economy, is not a balanced approach. It is not even necessary if there are enough masks to go around and the appropriate human behaviours are followed.

I just learned, for instance, that Argentina has decided to close its commercial airspace up to September. That is too long and certainly not a sage decision. A country like Argentina, which is already in an awfully bad economic shape, should approach any drastic decision with lots of prudence. The same, elsewhere. I mention Argentina as just an example.

China prefers Donald Trump

It is now clear that the Chinese leadership would prefer Donald Trump. The messages we are getting from Beijing are that they believe that Joe Biden would be tougher on China than Trump. They now know the current President relatively well and they think that if there is an agreement on trade everything else will be manageable. They see Donald Trump as a transactional leader. He is aware of the Chinese geopolitical ambitions and must refer to them in his public speeches. But he can be satisfied with a trade agreement if he thinks the agreement is good for his electoral basis. And it is true he has a good personal rapport with President Xi Jinping. On the other side, the Chinese leadership see Biden as more ideological. He will be raising issues that are particularly unpleasant to the ears of the Chinese Communist bosses. Issues such as human rights, the special status and freedom in Hong Kong, the re-education camps in Xinjiang Province, the relations with Taiwan, and so on. These are extremely sensitive matters for Beijing. Trade is a small business when compared with any of these challenges. Therefore, they will try to do anything they can to make sure that Donald Trump gets re-elected.

Poor leadership

Europe is again building borders and walls. The leaders decided this week that the external borders of the Union will remain closed for another month or so. I see this decision as an inept response to the problem. Airports and land passage points could be equipped to check travellers’ temperatures and identify the individuals that might require further health scrutiny. Worse, the internal borders between the Member States continue to be blocked for people’s travel. And the governments cannot agree on a timetable and a phased approach to deal with that. There is no news about the matter, besides the closure. That is the best way to feed the nationalistic feelings. It is also one of the direct roads towards a fragmented Europe. Populists must feel excited.

I am shocked by the lack of coordination within the EU. I am also amazed by the timidity of the European institutions’ leaders. They are silent and so afraid of proposing anything. They have become the obedient functionaries of the national leaders and little else.

The world’s recovery, as well as the European one, calls for renewed cooperation, complementary and strategic alliances. We should be debating that in the G20 or a similar forum. All that is yet to be seen. There is no international conference being prepared to agree on a framework for action. No leader speaks on behalf of a greater project, of a different future, of anything else but of his or her own national square mile. It is disappointing and more, it is the wrong approach to build the post-covid world.

Some national leaders and some published opinion have now concluded we cannot depend on China or elsewhere when it comes to medical items, including masks. They put the blame on the Chinese and on the corporations that have established their workshops in the Far East or in India. That is an excuse. I do not accept it. The fact of the matter is that we forgot the concept of strategic health reserves. The national health services were not given enough means and attention. They have been undersupplied; the emergency stores were depleted. It is so much so that in Belgium some of the initial health supplies came from a big bank, that had understood early enough what was going on and created a substantial reserve of masks and so on. That happened with other governments as well. Politicians forgot the old and wise adage that one of the key roles of the government is to foresee impending crises and be prepared for them. To govern is to predict.

Well, the new adage, the one that is now being applied, is different: to govern is to react, a day at a time.

Bolsonaro and Trump

Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have been duly elected. The democratic procedures in their respective countries have been followed. At least, at a level that made their elections acceptable by their countries’ institutions. The point is that democracy is fine, but it can result in the election of fools. Bolsonaro and Trump are two daring fools. If you dare, if you know how to insult everybody else, you might get there. They have taught us that lesson. We should say thank you for that and then, make sure they are not re-elected.

The Sahel and its major challenges

The poor people in the Sahelian countries are now facing three major menaces to their survival: terrorism, covid-19, and hunger. All three are growing by the day. And I was listening to reports coming from the region, I thought the people are very resilient and combative. They do not give up. But the combination of these three threats is an immense challenge. I noticed that Africa was mentioned in today’s EU summit. The European leaders know what is going on in Africa, in particular in the Sahel region. But they must take the initiative in the international fora to mobilise exceptional support for the Continent. Medical assistance and food should be prioritised. They are much easier to deal with than the security dimensions. However, security cannot be ignored. It has become a major issue.

A war economy or just words?

You call it a war, but you keep acting as if there was no need to reorganise the entire production to win the war. When you are at war, your economy must become a war economy. If not, you are not a good leader and you cannot connect your words with the reality that must be put in place. 

They can't drink oil

      The collapse of the oil price has several major implications. It is an economic tsunami. For the oil-producing developing countries, in Africa and elsewhere, it means an extraordinary loss of revenue. That’s the case for Nigeria, Angola, Congo, South Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, and so on. It adds fuel to social instability in those countries. It brings, at least, a new level of poverty and hardship to their populations. For the developed countries, it carries serious capital losses for the pension funds and other sovereign funds that were heavily invested in oil corporations and all the other companies that deal with bits and pieces of the oil industry. For all of us, it discourages new investments in renewable sources of energy. The bottom rock oil price makes any renewable too expensive to contemplate at this stage. 

The oil consumption is at present very low, because of the lockdowns that are implemented all over. But also, because the United States has continued to pump vast amounts of oil. They are now the largest producer, with 12.3 million barrels per day. President Trump could have compelled the industry to reduce daily production. There was a recommendation to cut it by 2 million barrels per day. He decided not to act because he saw this branch of the economy as a key pillar of his political basis. There are 10 million oil and gas sector jobs in the US, plus many billionaires that inject money in the Republican camp.   Now, he is promising them billions of dollars in subsidies. Public money being wasted when the solution was to reduce exploitation. His political choice has a huge impact on the domestic taxpayers’ money and on the world economy. It is inexcusable.

They say that misfortunes never come alone. Indeed.

Preparing for a new world

It’s time to start thinking about the shape of the world that is emerging in front of us. This pandemic is a deeper and wider challenge than what the politicians want us to believe. Tomorrow’s world will not be just a resuscitation of yesterday’s living styles. Some people say it is a call for a new paradigm. I would say that it is more than a call. It’s a must. Too many people will be excluded if we do not change the way we look at human security and dignity.

The world is next door

During the weekend, I spoke with friends living in Africa, South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific, as well as in Rio de Janeiro. I also have many friends in other parts of the world, from San Diego where dear Christine leaves to Helsinki, and so on. Had I chatted with them too, and I would have gotten the same report. Large chunks of the world are either closed or on a go-slow situation. Even remote places like Bougainville, an Autonomous Region of Papua New Guinea, is on lockdown. This is just an incredible reality. The world is getting poorer by the day.  The debt levels, both public and private, are growing by the hour. Elections are being postponed in many corners of the planet, except for a few cases, including Mali, that voted again today in the second round of their legislative assembly.

In many developing countries, the lockdown approach can’t work. People need to go out every day because survival is a daily chore. Moreover, in their cities, they live in large numbers in small and unfit dwellings. Overcrowding is the rule. There is no way they can follow the instructions about hygiene and social distancing. Extreme poverty means extreme fragility. And the health services have no capacity to deal with the disease. It’s a major problem. People are afraid but they know they have no other choice but to keep on moving. Fate, my friends remind me, is the currency of the poor. It’s the only thing they have in abundance. And after listening to that, I feel so disturbed.  

The big fight ahead of us

Besides the public health dimension, the main risk associated with the current world crisis is called isolation. Peoples have moved behind national borders and felt that was the only way to get safe. Before this calamity, there was already a growing mistrust on regional associations and multilateral organisations. In a few countries, the politicians were getting dividends out of that distrust. They were throwing fuel at it. I am afraid we might see a lot more of that as we get into the next stage of this global challenge. That would destroy the multilateral system, the UN and its main agencies, and other entities such as the European Union. At least, it would contribute to further marginalise them, making them irrelevant, walking ghosts.

Our response must address that menace. We must find the words and the platforms that would make our voices heard. It´s not going to be easy. But we should not expect any easy times ahead of us. We must be prepared to fight for international cooperation. We must be able to win over the leaders that want to take advantage of the crisis to build new walls.

The US leadership

These days, for a European, to watch American TV is painful. And deeply troubling. The country is going through a major crisis, a very complex one, that combines serious health challenges with widespread economic hardship. Both challenges are immense. On top of that, there is a leadership tragedy. The President has lost the support of key State governors and of the country’s intelligentsia. The messages coming from the White House and from the key States are full of contradictions. There is no common direction. Many lives are lost every day, in the most developed country in the world, a good deal of them because there aren’t enough medical resources available, others because of poor policy guidance. The President’s press briefings look like boxing matches. He spends hours repeating the same simple sentences, the only ones he can articulate. It’s most unfortunate that the pandemic happens when the leadership in Washington is so incompetent and shallow.

I should not be writing about this, because I am not a US citizen. It is up to the country’s voters to decide whom they want next. But as we live in a period of global crisis, we tend to look in the direction of the US for leadership. That’s the reason why I write about the matter. We need the US to lead. And what we see leaves no room for optimism. One of the few positive things is to see the resolve of politicians like the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, or the Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, as well as the California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) and the Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (Republican). There are many more in action and doing the right things, but I just mention a few of them, in a balanced manner. The problem is the lack of clarity and support coming from the Federal government.

Another positive development concerns the medical research that is taking place in the US with a view to beat the virus. That research is done in collaboration with foreign institutes. That is certainly very encouraging. It brings together the best minds in the universities, philanthropic foundations and the private sector.

In the meantime, billions of dollars have already been spent in support of small businesses and individual workers. That is good but it is a short-term answer. The durable approach is to make the health system stronger, affordable to all, intensify the health education campaigns and re-open the economy as much as it is possible. For us, in addition to all that, we would like to see the US taking the lead in the UN Security Council, at the political level, and being much more engaged with WHO, at the technical level. The US must go back to the multilateral system. Its place is in the global scene, not simply in the Rose Garden.

Leading the international response

It is massively wrong to criticise the World Health Organisation (WHO) at this stage. We are still in unknown territory and unchartered waters as far as the Covid-19 pandemic is concerned. We don’t know what is going to happen in Africa and in other parts of the world, where the health systems are extremely weak. WHO has a technical presence in those countries and lots of experience in assisting them. As such, the wise thing to do would be to strengthen its operational capacity. That means that its authority must be recognised, and additional resources mobilised. To weaken and destabilise the organisation, as President Trump is doing, is unacceptable. We do not expect the current US President to provide the leadership it should, as head of the strongest State on earth. Donald Trump does not understand the world we live in and the role the US should be playing. But, at least, he should keep quiet as far as WHO is concerned.

The sad thing is that we are confronted with a devastating global calamity at a time there is no real global leadership. The US is getting more and more confused with its internal politics. The turmoil is amazing out there. Elsewhere, in the other regions of the world, there is no visionary leader, nobody of gigantic stature, capable to call the international action. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, is sometimes mentioned. She is indeed an example. But her country is too small and too far out for her to be able to play a global role. All the other potential leaders are too busy with their own national situation – or messing things up, as it is the case with Narendra Modi of India.

I see a role for the UN Secretary-General. But I also recognise that his voice must be amplified by the international media, for that role to be effective. And that is not very easy to achieve at the moment.

Time for exceptional leadership to step up

This is a time of great anxiety. It’s a global challenge. It would require global political leadership, men and women in decisive positions of authority that would come together and would address the crisis with a single voice. It is not enough to have the G7 or the G20 finance ministers talking about debt relief and access to tremendous amounts of theoretical money. It is also not enough to get statements from the IMF, the WB or the WHO. Even the UN Security Council, if it could agree on a resolution, that would be good but insufficient. We need the key heads of State and government to agree on a joint declaration that would be some guide of roadmap out of the crisis. It would send an exceptionally important message of togetherness, cooperation and hope.

Unfortunately, we are very far from such a common position. The world is leaderless and more fragmented than ever.

If we can’t have a global message, why don’t we try to agree on a common European position at the leadership level? Is it too difficult to formulate a joint way forward, that would be larger than just talking about the post-crisis recovery, something of a shared vision about the kind of European society we would like to build together, after such a unique test?

The moment calls for leadership that can unite people and envision tomorrow’s world.  

The complexity

In my part of the world, the debate is now moving towards the recovery issue. To be able to get back to normal life as soon as possible. People are worried about jobs and the economic impact of this astonishing crisis. It’s now clear that the new debt situation of the states, the firms and the families will reach gigantic proportions. Many will not be able to reimburse it. They fear poverty. In any case, the Gross Domestic Product will contract seriously, to dramatic levels if the lockdown goes on beyond mid-May. There will be a lot of pressure on governments in the next days and weeks for them to provide masks free of charge and to allow the economy to re-open. At the same time, people want to know that the hospital system is still able to respond and that enough money is invested in the vaccine research. All this will have a tremendous political cost. I can anticipate a lot of political malaise in some countries, particularly in France and Spain. That will add to the complexity of an extremely complicated crisis. 

Dreaming ahead

I have been asked that question, but I try not to respond to it. And then, they ask it again, my opinion about which country is likely to gain from the current dreadful crisis, in terms of geopolitics and dominance. They want me to say China, others they expect me to mention the possibility of an open confrontation between China and the US, and some people are ready for an answer that would foretell the end of the European Union. All this is very negative. There will competition after the crisis, as there has been before it, but I think it is too far-fetched to predict war or the demise of the EU.

Competition aside, the crisis underlines the need for a greater level of international cooperation and complementarity among the nations. We live in an extremely interconnected world, as we can see from the expansion of the pandemic to every corner of the planet. Unfortunately, some leaders are not getting the message. They have decided to fight a global threat through erecting national barriers. My hope is that this will be challenged once the crisis is over and that we will be able to make it clear that it is better to cooperate. That is certainly a debate that must take place at that time. We should not go back to the past.

Competition has been the model. We must go beyond that. Call it history. As we look into the future and learn from today’s difficulties and consider the next challenges, including the environmental one, we should be moving towards a new stage, that will put the emphasis on joint action and human cohesion. That could be one of the positive results of the present-day drama. It is idealistic, I accept the observation, but we must base ourselves on new dreams.  

The vision

In our part of the world, Easter time is about a renaissance. That’s a very appropriate moment to talk about the future. The public message must be inspired by prudent optimism. It´s good politics to describe the possible scenarios ahead of us. And give people more information about recovery plans. People appreciate being treated as adults, as responsible citizens. There is too much talk about the pandemic and not enough about the actions that will be supported during the recovery phase. Let’s move from fear to resilience. Leaders must share a vision that brings hope and shows to everyone they know what they intend to do, once the public health menace is under control. To narrate a vision will also help the leaders to sharpen their views on the policies that are required. A vision is not about wishful thinking. It is about what one sees as the situation after the crisis. It has a powerful positive effect on everyone, including on the leadership itself.

The Security Council and the pandemic

Yesterday, the UN Secretary-General addressed the Security Council on the Covid-19. It was the right move because the pandemic is not just a global health problem but also a serious threat to international peace and security, as well as a major humanitarian challenge for less developed States. I recommend an attentive reading Mr Guterres’s remarks. They are very thorough. The link is as follows:

https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/sgsm20041.doc.htm

China, Russia and South Africa adopted a very similar line of response to the Secretary-General. They basically stated that Covid-19 is a public health issue and therefore it should not be discussed in the Council.

That’s a very narrow approach. It’s terribly wrong. They know it, but their main concern was to avoid a political discussion that would give the UN some room for a more active and comprehensive role. That has confirmed a trend we know well: to keep away from the Security Council the most strategic issues the world is confronted with. And to marginalise the UN Secretariat when it is in their own interest, as major countries.

Optimism

It requires an enormous effort to be positive in today’s situation. We see the number of victims, we read the stories of their suffering, we watch the unemployment figures shooting to the stars, the immense level of poverty that goes along, we think of people we have known in Africa and elsewhere in the least developed economies, and wonder how can they survive on daily basis, we are told of perfectly viable companies going to the rocks, and all the rest, and we get depressed. But we must convince ourselves that sooner we will be able to contain the pandemic – to contain, as a first stage, before we eliminate it – and that normalcy will be invited back. We do not really know what type of normality that will be, people talk about a changed society, but as soon as people feel free to take care of their lives we might see a big leap forward, a renewed level of energy. I think we have here an opportunity to come out of it wiser. And that makes me feel a bit optimist.

The African situation

My friends all over Africa tell me that the pandemic is gaining ground in several countries. There are lockdowns in place in some cities. The big problem is that the national health structures have very limited capacity to deal with Covid-19. It all starts with the means of testing. And then, the treatment, the conditions in the hospitals, the shortage of medical staff at every level. There have been some figures about the number of cases. But the tally is far from being reliable.

Leading people in those countries are looking in the direction of China. For them, China could be a model and a source of help. They are also very surprised as they see European nations, developed societies, struggling to respond to the challenge. They can’t understand the difficulties the Europeans meet. They thought that a situation of that type would never happen in Europe. The European image is losing sharpness and light in the African circles. That is one of the consequences of the pandemic.

The ordinary African citizen, particularly those in the big metropolis, have very little space for social distancing. That notwithstanding, I have seen pictures of empty cities throughout the Continent. People know what is at play. And they try to take it as seriously as their living conditions allow them to do it. I have a deep admiration for them. They are, in many cases, the poorest of the poor, they must fight every day for their own economic survival, but they are showing a good measure of responsibility.

One of things that must be placed back on the agenda, once we start getting out of these troubling times, is the relationship between Africa and Europe. Both sides have a lot to gain from a stronger partnership. And, as I said several times, we can include the Chinese in the equation. They will gain a lot as well, if we are all together.

Boris Johnson and Covid-19

Wishing a speedy recovery to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK. He has been transferred this evening to intensive care because of the coronavirus. This sad moment sends a very strong message to the population. The coronavirus is a very threatening disease and people must follow all the official protocols the health authorities have adopted. The Prime Minister is a strong person, not old at all, and surrounded by the best medical care one can get. Notwithstanding all that, he is struggling. He has been sick for eleven days or so. If that can happen to the leader of the UK, we must pay a lot of attention to the virus. This is no small matter.

Bamako sunset

Thanks to a friend and the digital technology, I could watch the sun setting below the horizon of Bamako, the capital of Mali. The Niger River reflected the last rays of light of the day and sent me a message of beauty, tranquillity and vastness. Not far, the image showed one the arteries of the city, as busy as it is customary on a Sunday end of the afternoon. We talked about the virus – five registered deaths so far in the country. But we know how difficult it is to record the true cause of death in a country like Mali. Fine. The important point, for me, was to learn that life goes on as usual in the city and elsewhere. The UN mission, and the embassies, are following the prevention protocols. But the ordinary Malian is focused on what keeps him busy every day: to find enough resources to buy food and other basic needs; and to worry about the security of his family and his own, especially in the central and northern regions of the country. And those concerns are there to stay. People have very little time for the virus, as they had no time for the legislative elections that took place last weekend. The turnout in Bamako was around 10%. That says a lot. And it reminds us that we might live in a global village, but some corners of that village spend their time just trying to survive, virus or no virus.

Our daily dose of fear

In my area of the city there is one big supermarket. I go there every Thursday morning, for the weekly shopping. And sometimes, one more time, for some item that might be needed and was left out of the weekly list. During the last two or three weeks, I noticed that the number of people inside the supermarket is much smaller. Not because of any entry control, let me add. It all starts at the underground parking. Nowadays, it’s much easier to find a good spot for the car. I should add that most of those shopping on Thursday in morning are older customers, retired people. I am told they are afraid of spending time in the big shop. And today, as I was chatting over the phone with a friend, I got the confirmation that there are many people – and more so now, as the bad figures keep increasing – who are simply afraid of any contact, even a distant one, with other shopping fellows. And I said to myself that we are living in very strange times, when the simple act of moving along the wide aisles of a supermarket is seen as a dangerous exercise.  

What lies ahead is simply unique

The economic dimension of the crisis is huge. That’s now obvious to everyone, as the figures about unemployment and temporary layoffs become known. And that explains the gigantic size of the recovery programmes that have been announced. The amounts are just mind-boggling, difficult to imagine, because of the large number of zeros that follow the initial figure. Hundreds of billions, many of them close to trillion figures, or even above, as it is the case in the US. We are talking about funds that are simply not available. They will have to be printed.

It is a dramatic situation to many families and a move to extraordinary levels of indebtment by the States, the corporations and firms, and the families. Large amounts of debt, both public and private, were already a key feature in many countries. Our economies have been in the red for several years. But the previous debt levels will look as small fish when compared with the numbers in the next phase, the recovery phase. Most of that debt will be untenable and will have to be write off, sooner or later. That will cause major changes in wealth ownership. The point will be to manage such transition in a way that would avoid the ruin of key sectors of the economy, including the pension mechanisms, the banking and insurance systems, the bond and the property markets.

It is indeed a completely new ball game. We will have to play it and keep defining the rules as we move on. It will require an extraordinary level of international cooperation. That means wise leadership, plenty of foresight and political courage. Unfortunately, wise leadership seems to be a dimension that is seriously absent in the current international relations scenario. In my opinion, that’s one of the key risks that can seriously disrupt the next stage of our life in this small planet. These will be exceptional times.

Beyond the facts

Today I give everyone a break. There is no writing about the pandemic. No word about the crisis millions are facing. No mention of the economic collapse we are witnessing. Let’s be light today. It’s better for our own mental health.

The UN's appeal must be heard

The UN Secretary-General launched yesterday an appeal for funds to help the developing countries to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and to finance their socio-economic recovery. António Guterres stated very clearly that this pandemic is by far the deepest crisis the world has faced since World War II. It has many dimensions and all of them tremendously affect the weakest people in the poorest countries of the world. The amount he deems necessary is about $8 trillion US, meaning 10% of the global GDP.

I agree with the Secretary-General’s analysis, approach and amount he is looking for. But I am extremely pessimist as it regards to the response the richest countries will provide. Every country, in the better off regions of the world, is desperately looking for resources to deal with the impact of the Covid-19 within their own borders. The call for international solidarity is a distant call. It will not be heard. The developing world will be left to its own fate.

The developing countries that were better connected to the global economy will gradually re-establish those connections. It will take time for different reasons. The logistical chains of supply have been seriously disrupted, the demand in developed economies will remain weak for a good period and there will be an attempt to produce locally what was up to now imported from afar. International trade might take a new shape, to operate within smaller circles of nations.

The countries that were outside the global sphere of production and commerce will continue to struggle at subsistence level. Poverty will continue to be as widespread as it is now. The opportunities to go beyond the local level will not open. And we can easily guess that international cooperation and aid priorities will go further down in the multilateral agenda.

In both cases, food production for local consumption will become the central concern. Any assistance to the agricultural sector will make a difference. The other concern will be to maintain peace and security in societies that have been profoundly de-structured and further impoverished.

The media that matters is too busy with the Covid-19 progression in the most developed societies to give any serious echo to Antonio Guterres’s appeal. No media attention means additional hurdles in terms of money mobilisation. 

Independently of the success of this initiative, the Secretary-General did the right thing. He must be the moral voice of those who are too far from the wealthy and the powerful to be heard.