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Multilateralism in the Time of a Global Pandemic

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Tuesday, 12 May 2020

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On the 11th of May webinar on 'Importance of Multilateralism in the Time of a Global Pandemic' presented by Hon. Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Foreign Secretary, Govt. of India and moderated by Prof Joe Thomas, SCCN Advisor. The webinar was being organized by MIT World Peace University in association with TERRE Policy Centre as a part of the webinar series on SDGs.

Mr Shringla starts with presenting that there are many dimensions to the multilateralism of today. These will together international affairs, public health and economics as countries will seek to coordinate their efforts in managing and containing the spread of the virus.

Pointing to the origin of health diplomacy in the EU in pooling resources and data on public health, he said that there is a lot of hope in diplomatic efforts as this is not the first time we have faced an epidemic of such proportions and need to learn our lessons from history.

The importance of health diplomacy to India is crucial where efforts have been made in procurement of equipment as well as its production, reaching near self-sufficiency in production of N-95 masks at the present moment. Its large scale production of medicine has meant that with health diplomacy, it could leverage its position as supplier of medicine including paracetamol and hydroxychloroquine. India has also been a supplier of medical professionals over the world and thus it has been at the forefront of management efforts and diplomatic ties.

In terms of initiating coordination efforts, PM Modi has been a primary initiator in diplomatically bringing together SAARC and international organisations, especially to gather support for such organisation to go out of their agenda and fight COVID-19.

It was critical that to bring home Indians from foreign countries under the Vande Bharat mission, there is a need to have diplomatic ties with other countries and ensure international guidelines and conventions are studied and followed bilaterally.

Therefore, as put importantly by Prof Joe Thomas, this talk explores the link between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, Good health and well-being with SDG 17, partnerships to meet the goals. This was the 4th talk in the series of webinars partly organized by the TERRE Policy Centre which explore the Impact of COVID-19 on the United Nations developed Sustainable Development Goals.