WIREDGOV

EXPERT COMMENT

Since 1945, policy cooperation has been essential to managing international economic crises and improving long-term outcomes for the world’s population.

As well as being a human tragedy, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented economic shock for the world economy. Global output is estimated by the IMF to have fallen by 3.5 per cent in 2020, and all countries – big and small, rich and poor – have been hit.

There is now an increasingly clear route to bring the immediate crisis to an end by relying on a mass vaccination programme unprecedented in speed and scale. But implementation remains complex and risky, while the long-term consequences of the pandemic – impacts on health, acquisition of skills, and the accelerated spread of technology – remain highly uncertain.

International economic cooperation can play a crucial role in securing the smoothest possible immediate exit from the pandemic and in minimizing the risk that a similar crisis will happen again. It can also help minimise the long-term costs from the pandemic’s extraordinary legacy and maximise the benefits from national efforts to build back better.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.