This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.
   License: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/
   international.
   --------------------------------------------------------------


To revive multilateralism, the G7 must make a clean break with the past
By:   []
Date: None

After four years of discord and obstruction during the Trump presidency, there is a distinctly upbeat mood around the G7 meetings this year. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has committed to strengthening global cooperation, heralding what his treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has called “a revival of multilateralism”.

Tangible signs of that revival have certainly appeared over the past five months: world leaders have agreed to issue new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), curtail corporate tax avoidance, launch negotiations over a patent waiver to increase production of COVID-19 vaccines, and renew climate commitments.

But this ‘progress’ has not turned around the fortunes of the poorest countries that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, both in terms of excess deaths and economic damage, and which are now facing a hazardous combination of debt distress and fiscal asphyxiation. A series of half-baked wins is nothing to celebrate if it feeds complacency in the face of ongoing tragedy.

Among the three big items on the agenda at this year’s G7 meeting – ending the pandemic, boosting the economic recovery, and addressing climate change – there is plenty to be keeping participants awake during their Cornish stay.

Beyond vaccine scarcity

The opportunity to follow a multilateral path for global vaccination was missed early in the pandemic when the World Health Organization’s proposal for a COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) to share vaccine technology and know-how was rebuffed. Instead, around $100bn in public investment went to pharmaceutical companies to get vaccine development off the ground, enabling the privatisation of what should have been a global public good.

In an effort to reverse this move, South Africa and India initiated a proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in October 2020 to temporarily waive the trade related intellectual property rights for pandemic-related products – including vaccines – to enable an expansion of production. This proposal has garnered the support of the majority of countries at the WTO as well as an impressive roster of public figures from across the world. Until recently however, it had been blocked by most G7 countries, who at the same time have engaged in vaccine hoarding.

Although some countries, notably the US, have since reversed this opposition, the danger of delay and defer – familiar from similar negotiations that took place over a waiver for HIV treatment – will leave the full vaccination of the poorest countries decades away, at an estimated cost to the global economy of more than $9trn. G7 leaders need to commit to an accelerated timetable for completing these negotiations and scaling up manufacturing across regions.

An economic recovery for all

In the absence of a coordinated global recovery strategy and a multilateral mechanism to address debt distress, prospects of recovery across much of the developing world have been left in the very visible hands of powerful creditor countries in the G20. Debt suspension rather than cancellation has been the favoured response, and in amounts that show little appreciation for the deep economic stress the pandemic has caused. Crucially, the debt suspension mechanisms don’t include all countries facing debt distress, many of whom are also climate vulnerable; and they don’t compel private creditors to participate, meaning cash-strapped countries are continuing to pay vulture funds while being unable to boost public spending. G7 leaders will need to address these shortcomings if they want to take ‘Building Back Better’ from the press briefing to the fields and streets of the Global South.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/revive-multilateralism-g7-must-make-clean-break-past/