Multilateral Development Agencies and Pandemics like Coronavirus

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim in 2016;

And, finally, we have to be better prepared for the threat posed by pandemics.

The Ebola crisis and Zika taught us once again we are not prepared for pandemics.

If a pandemic as fast-moving and lethal as the Spanish Flu of 1918 struck today, we could face the possibility of tens of millions of people dying and a loss of as much 5 percent of global GDP — or more than $3 trillion dollars.

Because pandemics tend to disproportionately impact the poor, managing pandemics is even more critical as we seek to end extreme poverty.

Ebola kick started a chain of actions that is bringing us closer to where we need to be. In trying to understand why we waited so long to provide resources for Ebola, we began to understand that there has to be an automatic mechanism for dispersing funds so that we can stop pandemics as early as possible.

What we have created is an entirely new pandemic insurance instrument linked to an entirely new pandemic bond.

We got the idea from innovations that we had made in disaster risk management and we are now looking to see if we can use these instruments for mitigating other kinds of risks.

One of the greatest inequalities in the world is the inequality of access to insurance. It is our responsibility to make these kinds of financial tools available for many more poor people.

Now, I want to be clear that the role of the World Bank Group is not to be the world’s first responders, to directly intervene in pandemics or in humanitarian response. Our role is to take the work upstream, to bring innovative financial tools that can reduce the likelihood of disasters happening in the first place.

You cannot impact the magnitude of a volcano or an earthquake through early intervention but you can impact the magnitude of pandemics.

For Discussion: How should multilateral development agencies like World Bank respond to pandemics like coronavirus? What are potential innovations that can be explored?

Related:

World Bank (February 3, 2020);

We are calling on all countries to strengthen their health surveillance and response systems, which is essential to contain the spread of this and any future outbreaks. We are closely coordinating with international partners to accelerate the international response to support countries to manage the global health emergency.

We are also monitoring the wider economic and social impacts of this crisis. We support China’s efforts to respond including its efforts to maintain resilience in its economy. We recognize that it is the poorest countries and most vulnerable populations that are often hardest hit by global disruptions like these. The World Bank Group stands ready to support all our client countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, to help manage the widening impact to their people of this crisis.