Central to the research process was the Zimbabwe Futures 2030 roundtable series, complemented by additional interviews and research. Participants at the three roundtables, held in Harare and Bulawayo in the first half of 2019, discussed the necessary policies and business strategies to enable and support the effective implementation of the Mnangagwa administration’s Transitional Stabilisation Programme, Vision 2030, and other longer-term national development plans.

This process was conducted by the Chatham House Africa Programme, the Zimbabwe Business Club and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS); and in partnership with the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries for a roundtable in Bulawayo. The project was supported by KAS and the Dulverton Trust.

China has been a major market for elephant ivory for centuries. However, the Chinese government recently enacted bans on imports and exports of ivory (2015) and on the domestic ivory trade (2017). These bans appear to have come in response to intensive influence campaigns and public shaming from domestic and foreign activists, who cited declining elephant populations and highlighted China's role. However, this shaming-narrative is at odds with conventional wisdom regarding Chinese policy-making: China typically resists international pressures and its authoritarian government is thought to be largely insulated from domestic efforts by civil society groups. This article reconciles Beijing's ivory policy with these conventional beliefs about policy-making in China. I argue that the Chinese government saw unique benefits to banning the ivory trade, under growing international scrutiny, as doing so enhanced Chinese soft power while having very little impact on its sovereignty or development. Non-government organizations (NGOs) operating both inside and outside of China played a role as well: NGOs in China helped to shift Chinese public opinion towards favouring the bans, while those operating abroad led public relations efforts to publicize Chinese demand for ivory to foreign audiences. Efforts by the latter group of NGOs intensified pressure on the Chinese government to rein in the ivory market, while increasing the soft power benefits that banning ivory would bring to Beijing.

Africa’s media landscape has undergone a significant change over the last decade as digitalization and new forms of media consumption have weakened state control of information. Social media has provided an opportunity for African citizens and journalists to take agency over how the continent is presented to the wider world, and many emerging African voices bring clarity to this digitally disrupted marketplace. But significant external support is required to make these efforts sustainable.  

There is no one ‘African’ story. African media remains as diverse as the 55 states in the African Union, with each national media ecosystem dependent on patterns of culture and governance - most importantly the power gap between those in leadership and their voters.

Journalists from Egypt, Eritrea and Cameroon - states in the 2019 global top 10 for putting their colleagues in prison - have different perspectives from those in other more liberal African countries.

This is most visible in traditional media where a business model based on advertising revenue has allowed African media houses to grow. But it is susceptible to manipulation from state and business actors holding outlets to ransom in exchange for editorial influence or control – a particularly acute problem in states where business and political elites are closely intertwined, and a middle-class consumer base to fund market-driven advertising has yet to develop.

Those African countries with relatively open borders, stronger passports and a more vibrant civil society also tend to have a more diverse and vibrant media environment. Open borders allow for easier movement, granting journalists the opportunity to travel, benchmark and participate in exchange programs.

The power of online networking

The advent of the social media age has begun to disrupt the links between governance and media health, as the large operations required by ‘serious’ media organizations have been replaced by mobile phone cameras and social media timelines.

Many African journalists are at the forefront of this innovation, unrestricted by historical perceptions of how journalism should be presented, and free to disrupt and change the established narratives to better engage with their ever-growing audiences.

And, far from replacing journalism, social media has actively empowered African journalists and media professionals. Instead of acting as sources for international media outlets as in the past, African journalists can publish their work on their own platforms, enabling greater ownership of how issues in their localities are globally framed. This local voice is often the key to avoiding the endemic oversimplifications and generalisations that have coloured much external coverage of the continent.

Obviously, these changes bring risks. Individual uploaders are largely free to publish what they like, and misinformation can - and often has - lead to devastating consequences, evident in recent violence across central Mali, South Africa and the middle belt of Nigeria.

But journalists on the African continent have an increasingly important role in preventing the spread of misinformation, not only as purveyors of news but also as fact-checkers, able to discern the difference between valid opinion and dubious rhetoric on social media, while new pan-African digital networks and discussion groups enable journalists to share knowledge, expertise, and story ideas, or quickly verify information from across the continent.

It is now possible to quickly find authentic voices for TV, radio or online commentary through digital platforms, present on the ground and able to speak with real authority. Many online networks also include Africa-focused journalists from outside the continent, and any biased or incorrect coverage of the African continent can be ‘called out’ and heavily critiqued, with challenges shared and solutions generated. While journalists remain independent, their working practices and professional standards are being shaped by the discourse in the groups like never before.

Online networking has also exposed the existence of lingering cultural differences between journalists of different national backgrounds, such as a hesitancy to discuss sensitive issues – the health of leaders for instance – for fear of being targeted by the authorities, or the level to which government statements are uncritically accepted.

While journalists search for truth, how they go about it is still very dependent on the state of democracy in their country. Though the cross-fertilisation of best practices and critical scrutiny can only improve the quality of journalism on the continent, in many places there remains a long way to go.

Drive for better resources

Across the world, digital media has struggled to create models which can provide news free at the point of access while also successfully monetizing content. This is even more palpable on the African continent, as the subscription-based models employed as a remedy elsewhere are not feasible on such a large scale in countries without a well-established middle-class.

African media needs resources to keep operating at a time when revenue is dwindling, and talented journalists are decamping to join the marketing, communication and sales sectors in search of better wages. Structures to support more in-depth investigative journalism are vital in Africa because that seems to be the only thing those in power still truly fear.

This means more training opportunities, fellowships, and exchange programs to allow the exchange of ideas and expertise. And, as social media has given a platform to talented local voices from across Africa, then an international community which truly wants to understand the nuances of the continent must hire them.   

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck the Sahel and West Africa at a time when the region is already under severe pressure from violent insecurity and the effects of climate change on its land, food and water resources.

By the end of April, there had been 9,513 confirmed coronavirus cases across the 17 countries of the region, and some 231 deaths, with the highest overall numbers recorded in Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso. Low testing rates mean than these numbers give only a partial picture.

The Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA) forecast in early April that almost 17 million people in the Sahel and West Africa (7.1 million in Nigeria alone) will need food and nutritional assistance during the coming lean season in June–August, more than double the number in an average year. The combined impact of violent insecurity and COVID-19 could put more than 50 million other people across the region at risk of food and nutrition crisis.

Rippling across the region

The effects of the collapse in global commodity prices, currency depreciations, rising costs of consumer goods and disruptions to supply chains are rippling across the region. And for major oil-exporting countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Chad and Cameroon, the wipe-out of foreign currency earnings will hammer government revenues just as the cost of food and other critical imports goes up. It is likely that the number of people who suffer the direct health impact of the coronavirus will be far outstripped by the number for whom there will be harsh social and economic costs.

In recent years, valuable protocols and capacities have been put in place by governments in West and Central Africa in response to Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks.

But inadequate healthcare funding and infrastructure across this region compound the challenge of responding to the spread of the COVID-19 infection – which is testing the resources of even the world’s best-funded public health systems.

Over many years, however, the region has steadily built up structures to tackle humanitarian and development challenges, particularly as regards food security. It has an established system for assessing the risk of food crisis annually and coordinating emergency support to vulnerable communities. Each country monitors climate and weather patterns, transhumance, market systems and agricultural statistics, and terrorist disruption of agricultural productivity, from local community to national and regional level.

The system is coordinated and quality-controlled, using common technical data standards, by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), a regional intergovernmental body established in 1973 in response to a devastating drought. Collective risk assessments allow emergency support to be mobilized through the RPCA.

For almost three months already, countries in Sahelian West Africa have been working with the World Health Organization to prepare national COVID-19 response strategies and strengthen health controls at their borders. Almost all governments have also opted for domestic curfews, and variations of lockdown and market restrictions.

Senegal has been a leader in rapidly developing Africa’s diagnostic capacity, and plans are under way to speed up production of test kits. Niger was swift to develop a national response strategy, to which donors have pledged €194.5 million. While the IMF has agreed emergency financial assistance to help countries address the urgent balance-of-payments, health and social programme needs linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, signing off $3.4 billion for Nigeria, $442 million for Senegal and $130 million for Mauritania.

Steps are also now being taken towards the formulation of a more joined-up regional approach. Notably, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has been chosen by an extraordinary session of the Economic Community of West African States to coordinate the regional response to COVID-19. As Africa’s biggest economy and home to its largest population, Nigeria is a critical hub for transnational flows of goods and people. Its controversial August 2019 land border closure, in a bid to address smuggling, has already painfully disrupted regional agri-food trade and value chains. The active engagement of the Buhari administration will thus be crucial to the success of a multifaceted regional response.

One of the first tough questions the region’s governments must collectively address is how long to maintain the border shutdowns that were imposed as an initial measure to curb the spread of the virus. Closed borders are detrimental to food security, and disruptive to supply chains and the livelihoods of micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs that rely on cross-border trade. The impact of prolonged closures will be all the more profound in a region where welfare systems are largely non-existent or, at best, highly precarious.

Nigeria, in particular, with more than 95 million people already living in extreme poverty, might do well to explore measures to avoid putting food further beyond the reach of people who are seeing their purchasing power evaporate.

In taking further actions to control the spread of the coronavirus, the region’s governments will need to show faith in the system that they have painstakingly developed to monitor and respond to the annual risk of food crisis across the Sahel. This system, and the critical data it offers, will be vital to informing interventions to strengthen the four components of food security – availability, access, stability and utilization – in the context of COVID-19, and for charting a post-pandemic path of recovery.

Above all, careful steps will need to be put in place to ensure that preventing the spread of the coronavirus does not come at the cost of even greater food insecurity for the people of the Sahel and West Africa. The region’s governments must prioritize the flow of food across borders and renew their commitment to strategic coordination and alignment.

Economic containment has garnered repeated attention in the discourse about the United States' response to China. Yet, the attributes of economic containment as a distinct strategy of Great Power competition remain unclear. Moreover, the conditions under which a leading power can employ economic containment against a challenging power remain theoretically unelaborated. This article first suggests that economic containment refers to the use of economic policies to weaken the targeted state's material capacity to start military aggression, rather than to influence the competitor's behaviour over a specific issue. Then, this article suggests that economic containment becomes a viable option when the leading power has the ability to inflict more losses on the challenging power through economic restrictions, and this ability is largely determined by the availability of alternative economic partners. When the leading power cannot effectively inflict more losses on the challenging power due to the presence of alternative economic partners, it is better off avoiding economic containment. The author substantiates these arguments through case-studies of the United States' responses to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The article concludes by examining the nature of the United States' recent economic restrictions against China.

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

This week the UK will start negotiating its future relationship with the European Union. The government is trying to convince the EU that it is serious about its red lines and is prepared to walk away from negotiations if the UK’s ‘regulatory freedom’ is not accepted – a no-deal scenario that would result in tariffs between the EU and the UK. Yet at the same time the story it is telling the world is that Britain is ‘re-emerging after decades of hibernation as a campaigner for global free trade’, as Boris Johnson put it in his speech in Greenwich a few weeks ago.

The EU is understandably confused. It’s a bit odd to claim to be campaigning for free trade at the exact moment you are creating new barriers to trade. If Britain were so committed to frictionless trade, it wouldn’t have left the EU in the first place – and having decided to leave, it would have sought to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU, like that of Norway, rather than seek a basic trade deal like Canada’s. 

As well as creating confusion, the narrative also absurdly idealizes free trade. Johnson invoked Richard Cobden and the idea that free trade is ‘God’s diplomacy – the only certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace since the more freely goods cross borders the less likely it is that troops will ever cross borders’. But the idea that free trade prevents war was shattered by the outbreak of the First World War, which brought to an end the first era of globalization.

We also know that the domestic effects of free trade are more complex and problematic than Johnson suggested. Economic liberalization increases efficiency by removing friction but also creates disruption and has huge distributional consequences – that is, it creates winners and losers. In a democracy, these consequences need to be mitigated.

In any case, the world today is not the same as the one in which Cobden lived. Tariffs are at a historically low level – and many non-tariff barriers have also been removed. In other words, most of the possible gains from trade liberalization have already been realized. Johnson talked about the dangers of a new wave of protectionism. But as the economist Dani Rodrik has argued, the big problem in the global economy is no longer a lack of openness, it is a lack of democratic legitimacy.

The UK should therefore abandon this confusing and misleading narrative and own the way it is actually creating new barriers to trade – and do a better job of explaining the legitimate reasons for doing so. Instead of simplistically talking up free trade, we should be talking about the need to balance openness and economic efficiency with democracy and a sense of control, which is ultimately what Brexit was all about. Instead of claiming to be a ‘catalyst for free trade’, as Johnson put it, the UK should be talking about how it is trying to recalibrate globalization and, in doing so, make it sustainable.

In the three decades after the end of the Cold War, globalization got out of control as barriers to the movement of capital and goods were progressively removed – what Rodrik called ‘hyper-globalization’ to distinguish it from the earlier, more moderate phase of globalization. This kind of deep integration necessitated the development of a system of rules, which have constrained the ability of states to pursue the kind of economic policy, particularly industrial policy, they want, and therefore undermined democracy.

Hyper-globalization created a sense that ‘the nation state has fundamentally lost control of its destiny, surrendering to anonymous global forces’, as the economist Barry Eichengreen put it. Throughout the West, countries are all struggling with the same dilemma – how to reconcile openness and deep integration on the one hand, and democracy, sovereignty and a sense of control on the other.

Within the EU, however, economic integration and the abolition of barriers to the movement of capital and goods went further than in the rest of the world – and the evolution of the principle of freedom of movement after the Maastricht Treaty meant that barriers to the internal movement of people were also eliminated as the EU was enlarged. What happened within the EU might be thought of as ‘hyper-regionalization’ – an extreme example, in a regional context, of a global trend.

EU member states have lost control to an even greater extent than other nation states – albeit to anonymous regional rather than global forces – and this loss of control was felt intensely within the EU. It is therefore logical that this led to an increase in Euroscepticism. Whereas the left wants to restore some barriers to the movement of capital and goods, the right wants to restore barriers to the movement of people.

However, having left the EU, the UK is uniquely well placed to find a new equilibrium. The UK has an ideological commitment to free trade that goes back to the movement to abolish the Corn Laws in the 1840s – which Johnson’s speech expressed. It is difficult to imagine the UK becoming protectionist in any meaningful sense. But at the same time, it has a well-developed sense of national and popular sovereignty, and the sense that the two go together – which is why it was so sensitive to the erosion of them through the EU. This means that Britain is unlikely to go to one extreme or the other.

In other words, the UK may be the ideal country to find a new balance between openness and integration on the one hand, and a sense of control on the other. If it can find this balance – if it can make Brexit work – the UK could be a model for a wider recalibration of sustainable globalization. That, rather than fetishizing free trade, is the real contribution the UK can make.

A version of this article was originally published in the Observer.

Illicit finance not only threatens financial stability and inclusion but also provides support for terrorism and is a primary incentive for human trafficking, the illegal wildlife trade and narcotics smuggling. Frequently, actors capitalize on loopholes and inefficiencies resulting from the lack of a coordinated response to financial crime and an underpowered global system for tracking illicit financial flows. Enhanced public-private partnerships, in addition to investment in tackling financial crime from governments, international bodies and private industries, are necessary to develop regulatory frameworks, effective responses and valuable coordination between law enforcement, policymakers, regulators and financial institutions. But how should businesses structure their efforts so that their business interests are protected and the work they do is of use to others fighting financial crime?

This webinar will explore solutions to enable public-private partnerships to work together to combat financial crime. What do successful partnerships need from each side to ensure that the work being done is efficient and effective? How can the industry’s internal effectiveness impact the ‘real-world’ victims? And what barriers impede public-private partnerships operating as a force for good? 

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members and giving circles.

Not a corporate member? Find out more.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has demonstrated the wide-ranging and immediate impact a systemic shock can have on the global economy including the financial loss caused by the emergency shutdown of many retail operations, the loss of income for individuals who are forced to stay indoors and the major disruption to supply chains. The longer term impacts are still being realized and depend heavily on the ability of industry and the government to respond effectively to the direct economic shock caused by the pandemic.

Systemic shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic demand immediate responses, but should also encourage governments and industries to re-examine their recovery processes, their resilience and their forward planning. In this webinar, the panellists will discuss the short and long-term impacts of the current crisis and explore how industry can help ensure that the global economy is able to recover from, and build resilience to, future systemic shocks. How do business leaders move from making decisions to reimagining a ‘new normal’ and reforming their practices? What are the critical decisions that businesses should consider when planning for this 'new normal'? And how far can these decisions be based on expected changes to governmental or intergovernmental regulation of different sectors?   

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members and giving circles.

Not a corporate member? Find out more.

With the IMF forecasting a 6.1% fall in advanced economy GDP in 2020 and world trade expected to contract by 11%, there is intense focus on the question of how and when to re-open economies currently in lockdown.

But no ‘opening up’ plan has a chance of succeeding unless it commands the confidence of all the main actors in the economy – employees, consumers, firms, investors and local authorities.

Without public confidence, these groups may follow official guidance only sporadically; consumers will preserve cash rather than spend it on goods and services; employees will delay returning to work wherever possible; businesses will face worsening bottlenecks as some parts of the economy open up while key suppliers remain closed; and firms will continue to delay many discretionary investment and hiring decisions.

Achieving public confidence

Taken together, these behaviours would substantially reduce the chances of a strong economic bounce-back even in the absence of a widespread second wave of infections. Five key steps are needed to achieve a high degree of public confidence in any reopening plan.

First, enough progress must be made in suppressing the virus and in building public health capacity so the public can be confident any new outbreak will be contained without reverting to another full-scale lockdown. Moreover, the general public needs to feel that the treatment capacity of the health system is at a level where the risk to life if someone does fall ill with the virus is at an acceptably low level.

Achieving this requires the government to demonstrate the necessary capabilities - testing, contact tracing, quarantine facilities, supplies of face masks and other forms of PPE (personal protective equipment) - are actually in place and can be sustained, rather than relying on future commitments. It also needs to be clear on the role to be played going forward by handwashing and other personal hygiene measures.

Second, the authorities need to set out clear priorities on which parts of the economy are to open first and why. This needs to take account of both supply side and demand side factors, such as the importance of a particular sector to delivering essential supplies, a sector’s ability to put in place effective protocols to protect its employees and customers, and its importance to the functioning of other parts of the economy. There is little point in opening a car assembly plant unless its SME suppliers are able to deliver the required parts.

Detailed planning of the phasing of specific relaxation measures is essential, as is close cooperation between business and the authorities. The government also needs to establish a centralised coordination function capable of dealing quickly with any unexpected supply chain glitches. And it must pay close attention to feedback from health experts on how the process of re-opening the economy sector-by-sector is affecting the rate of infection.  

Third, the government needs to state how the current financial and economic support measures for the economy will evolve as the re-opening process continues. It is critical to avoid removing support measures too soon, and some key measures may have to continue to operate even as firms restart their operations. It is important to show how - over time - the measures will evolve from a ‘life support’ system for businesses and individuals into a more conventional economic stimulus.

This transition strategy could initially be signalled through broad principles, but the government needs to follow through quickly by detailing specific measures. The transition strategy must target sectors where most damage has been done, including the SME sector in general and specific areas such as transport, leisure and retail. It needs to factor in the hard truth that some businesses will be no longer be viable after the crisis and set out how the government is going to support employees and entrepreneurs who suffer as a result.

The government must also explain how it intends to learn the lessons and capture the upsides from the crisis by building a more resilient economy over the longer term. Most importantly, it has to demonstrate continued commitment to tackling climate change – which is at least as big a threat to mankind’s future as pandemics.

Fourth, the authorities should explain how they plan to manage controls on movement of people across borders to minimise the risk of new infection outbreaks, but also to help sustain the opening-up measures. This needs to take account of the fact that different countries are at different stages in the progress of the pandemic and may have different strategies and trade-offs on the risks they are willing to take as they open up.

As a minimum, an effective border plan requires close cooperation with near neighbours as these are likely to be the most important economic counterparts for many countries. But ideally each country’s plan should be part of a wider global opening-up strategy coordinated by the G20. In the absence of a reliable antibody test, border control measures will have to rely on a combination of imperfect testing, quarantine, and new, shared data requirements for incoming and departing passengers.  

Fifth, the authorities must communicate the steps effectively to the public, in a manner that shows not only that this is a well thought-through plan, but also does not hide the extent of the uncertainties, or the likelihood that rapid modifications may be needed as the plan is implemented. In designing the communications, the authorities should develop specific measures to enable the public to track progress.

Such measures are vital to sustaining business, consumer and employee confidence. While some smaller advanced economies appear close to completing these steps, for many others there is still a long way to go. Waiting until they are achieved means higher economic costs in the short-term. But, in the long-term, they will deliver real net benefits.

Authorities are more likely to sustain these measures because key economic actors will actually follow the guidance given. Also, by instilling confidence, the plan will bring forward the consumer and business decision-making crucial to a strong recovery. In contrast, moving ahead without proper preparation risks turning an already severe economic recession into something much worse.

In the last 100 years, global economic crises from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the 2008 financial crash have contributed to significant political changes in Europe, often leading to a rise in popularity for extremist parties and politics. As Europe contends with a perceived crisis of democracy - now compounded by the varied responses to the coronavirus outbreak - how should we understand the relationship between externally-driven economic crises, political upheaval and democracy?

The panellists will consider the parallels between the political responses to some of the greatest economic crises Europe has experienced in the last century. Given that economic crises often transcend borders, why does political disruption vary between democracies? What can history tell us about the potential political impact of the unfolding COVID-19-related economic crisis? And will the unprecedented financial interventions by governments across Europe fundamentally change the expectations citizens have of the role government should play in their lives?

This event is based on a recent article in The World Today by Hans Kundnani and Pepijn Bergsen who are both researchers in Chatham House's Europe Programme. 'Crawling from the Wreckage' is the first in a series of articles that look at key themes in European political discourse from the last century. You can read the article here. 

This event is open to Chatham House Members. Not a member? Find out more.

Donald Trump is impulsive. His sudden decision to stop funding the World Health Organization (WHO) just days after calling it 'very China-centric” and 'wrong about a lot of things' is the latest example. And this in the midst of the worst pandemic since Spanish flu in 1918 and a looming economic crisis compared by some to the 1930s. 

But the decision is not really just about what WHO might or might not have done wrong. It is more about the ongoing geopolitical wrangle between the US and China, and about diverting attention from US failings in its own response to coronavirus in the run-up to the US presidential election.

It clearly also derives from Trump’s deep antipathy to almost any multilateral organization. WHO has been chosen as the fall guy in this political maelstrom in a way that might please Trump’s supporters who will have read or heard little about WHO’s role in tackling this crisis. And the decision has been widely condemned in almost all other countries and by many in the US.

What is it likely to mean in practice for WHO?

Calling a halt to funding for an unspecified time is an unsatisfactory halfway house. A so-called factsheet put out by the White House talks about the reforms it thinks necessary 'before the organization can be trusted again'. 

This rather implies that the US wants to remain a member of WHO if it can achieve the changes it wants. Whether those changes are feasible is another question — they include holding member states accountable for accurate data-sharing and countering what is referred to as 'China’s outsize influence on the organization'. Trump said the funding halt would last while WHO’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic was investigated, which would take 60-90 days. 

The US is the single largest funder of WHO, providing about 16% of its budget. It provides funds to WHO in two ways. The first is the assessed contribution — the subscription each country pays to be a member. In 2018/19 the US contribution should have been $237 million but, as of January this year it was in arrears by about $200 million.

Much bigger are US voluntary contributions provided to WHO for specified activities amounting in the same period to another $650 million. These are for a wide variety of projects — more than one-quarter goes to polio eradication, but a significant portion also is for WHO’s emergency work. 

The US assessed contribution represents only 4% of WHO’s budget. Losing that would certainly be a blow to WHO but a manageable one. Given the arrears situation it is not certain that the US would have paid any of this in the next three months in any case. 

More serious would be losing the US voluntary contributions which account for about another 12% of WHO’s budget—but whether this could be halted all at once is very unclear. First Congress allocates funds in the US, not the president, raising questions about how a halt could be engineered domestically.

Secondly, US contributions to WHO come from about ten different US government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health or USAID, each of whom have separate agreements with WHO. Will they be prepared to cut funding for ongoing projects with WHO? And does the US want to disrupt ongoing programmes such as polio eradication and, indeed, emergency response which contribute to saving lives? 

Given the president’s ability to do 180 degree U-turns we shall have to wait and see what will actually happen in the medium term. If it presages the US leaving WHO, this would only facilitate growing Chinese influence in the WHO and other UN bodies. Perhaps in the end wiser advice will be heeded and a viable solution found.

Most of President Trump’s criticisms of WHO do not bear close scrutiny. WHO may have made mistakes — it may have given too much credence to information coming from the Chinese. China has just announced that the death toll in Wuhan was 50% higher than previously revealed. It may have overpraised China’s performance and system, but this was part of a deliberate strategy to secure China’s active collaboration so that it could help other countries learn from China’s experience. 

The chief message from this sorry story is that two countries are using WHO as a pawn in pursuing their respective political agendas which encompass issues well beyond the pandemic. China has been very successful in gaining WHO’s seal of approval, in spite of concerns about events prior to it declaring the problem to the WHO and the world. This, in turn, has invited retaliation from the US. 

When this is over will be the time to learn lessons about what WHO should have done better. But China, the US, and the global community of nations also need to consider their own responsibility in contributing to this terrible unfolding tragedy.

This article was originally published in the British Medical Journal 

With the IMF forecasting a 6.1% fall in advanced economy GDP in 2020 and world trade expected to contract by 11%, there is intense focus on the question of how and when to re-open economies currently in lockdown.

But no ‘opening up’ plan has a chance of succeeding unless it commands the confidence of all the main actors in the economy – employees, consumers, firms, investors and local authorities.

Without public confidence, these groups may follow official guidance only sporadically; consumers will preserve cash rather than spend it on goods and services; employees will delay returning to work wherever possible; businesses will face worsening bottlenecks as some parts of the economy open up while key suppliers remain closed; and firms will continue to delay many discretionary investment and hiring decisions.

Achieving public confidence

Taken together, these behaviours would substantially reduce the chances of a strong economic bounce-back even in the absence of a widespread second wave of infections. Five key steps are needed to achieve a high degree of public confidence in any reopening plan.

First, enough progress must be made in suppressing the virus and in building public health capacity so the public can be confident any new outbreak will be contained without reverting to another full-scale lockdown. Moreover, the general public needs to feel that the treatment capacity of the health system is at a level where the risk to life if someone does fall ill with the virus is at an acceptably low level.

Achieving this requires the government to demonstrate the necessary capabilities - testing, contact tracing, quarantine facilities, supplies of face masks and other forms of PPE (personal protective equipment) - are actually in place and can be sustained, rather than relying on future commitments. It also needs to be clear on the role to be played going forward by handwashing and other personal hygiene measures.

Second, the authorities need to set out clear priorities on which parts of the economy are to open first and why. This needs to take account of both supply side and demand side factors, such as the importance of a particular sector to delivering essential supplies, a sector’s ability to put in place effective protocols to protect its employees and customers, and its importance to the functioning of other parts of the economy. There is little point in opening a car assembly plant unless its SME suppliers are able to deliver the required parts.

Detailed planning of the phasing of specific relaxation measures is essential, as is close cooperation between business and the authorities. The government also needs to establish a centralised coordination function capable of dealing quickly with any unexpected supply chain glitches. And it must pay close attention to feedback from health experts on how the process of re-opening the economy sector-by-sector is affecting the rate of infection.  

Third, the government needs to state how the current financial and economic support measures for the economy will evolve as the re-opening process continues. It is critical to avoid removing support measures too soon, and some key measures may have to continue to operate even as firms restart their operations. It is important to show how - over time - the measures will evolve from a ‘life support’ system for businesses and individuals into a more conventional economic stimulus.

This transition strategy could initially be signalled through broad principles, but the government needs to follow through quickly by detailing specific measures. The transition strategy must target sectors where most damage has been done, including the SME sector in general and specific areas such as transport, leisure and retail. It needs to factor in the hard truth that some businesses will be no longer be viable after the crisis and set out how the government is going to support employees and entrepreneurs who suffer as a result.

The government must also explain how it intends to learn the lessons and capture the upsides from the crisis by building a more resilient economy over the longer term. Most importantly, it has to demonstrate continued commitment to tackling climate change – which is at least as big a threat to mankind’s future as pandemics.

Fourth, the authorities should explain how they plan to manage controls on movement of people across borders to minimise the risk of new infection outbreaks, but also to help sustain the opening-up measures. This needs to take account of the fact that different countries are at different stages in the progress of the pandemic and may have different strategies and trade-offs on the risks they are willing to take as they open up.

As a minimum, an effective border plan requires close cooperation with near neighbours as these are likely to be the most important economic counterparts for many countries. But ideally each country’s plan should be part of a wider global opening-up strategy coordinated by the G20. In the absence of a reliable antibody test, border control measures will have to rely on a combination of imperfect testing, quarantine, and new, shared data requirements for incoming and departing passengers.  

Fifth, the authorities must communicate the steps effectively to the public, in a manner that shows not only that this is a well thought-through plan, but also does not hide the extent of the uncertainties, or the likelihood that rapid modifications may be needed as the plan is implemented. In designing the communications, the authorities should develop specific measures to enable the public to track progress.

Such measures are vital to sustaining business, consumer and employee confidence. While some smaller advanced economies appear close to completing these steps, for many others there is still a long way to go. Waiting until they are achieved means higher economic costs in the short-term. But, in the long-term, they will deliver real net benefits.

Authorities are more likely to sustain these measures because key economic actors will actually follow the guidance given. Also, by instilling confidence, the plan will bring forward the consumer and business decision-making crucial to a strong recovery. In contrast, moving ahead without proper preparation risks turning an already severe economic recession into something much worse.

The pressure of the coronavirus pandemic is adding to a widely held misconception that trade in food products is bad for the environment due to the associated ‘food miles’ – the carbon footprint of agricultural products transported over long distances.

This concept, developed by large retailers a decade ago, is often invoked as a rationale for restricting trade and choosing locally-produced food over imports. Consuming local food may seem sensible at first glance as it reduces the carbon footprint of goods and generates local employment. 

However, this assumption ignores the emissions produced during the production, processing or storage stages which often dwarf transport emissions. Other avenues to address the climate change impact of trade are more promising.

Demystifying food emissions

In the US, for example, food items travel more than 8,000 km on average before reaching the consumer. Yet transport only accounts for 11 per cent of total emissions with 83 per cent – mostly nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) emissions – occurring at the production stage.

US Department of Agriculture data on energy use in the American food system echoes this finding, showing that processing, packaging, and selling of food represent ten times the energy used to transport food.

In practice, it may be preferable from an environmental perspective to consume lamb, onion or dairy products transported by sea because the lower emissions generated at the production stage offset those resulting from transport. Similarly, growing tomatoes under heated greenhouses in Sweden is often more emissions-intensive than importing open-grown ones from Southern Europe.

Seasonality also matters. British apples placed in storage for ten months leads to twice the level of emissions as that of South American apples sea-freighted to the UK. And the type of transport is also important as, overall, maritime transport generates 25 to 250 times less emissions than trucks, and air freight generates on average five times more emissions than road transport.

Therefore, air-freighted Kenyan beans have a much larger carbon footprint than those produced in the UK, but crossing Europe by truck to import Italian wine might generate more emissions than transatlantic shipments.

Finally, one should take into account the last leg of transport. A consumer driving more than 10 km to purchase 1 kg of fresh produce will generate proportionately more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than air-freighting 1 kg of produce from Kenya.

Shifting consumption towards local foods may reduce GHG emissions in sectors with relatively low emissions intensities but, when non-carbon dioxide emissions are taken into account, this is more often the exception than the rule.

Under these circumstances, preventing trade is an inefficient and expensive way of reducing GHG emissions. Bureau et al. for example, calculate that a global tariff maintaining the volume of trade at current levels until 2030 may reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 3.5 per cent. However, this would be roughly seven times less than the full implementation of the Paris Agreement and cost equivalent to the current GDP of Brazil or 1.8 per cent of world GDP.

By preventing an efficient use of resources, such restrictions would also undermine the role of trade in offsetting possible climate-induced production shortfalls in some parts of the world and allowing people to access food when they can’t produce it themselves.

Reducing the climate footprint of trade

This is not to say that nothing should be done to tackle transport emissions. The OECD estimates that international trade-related freight accounted for over 5 per cent of total global fuel emissions with shipping representing roughly half of it, trucks 40 per cent, air 6 per cent and rail 2 per cent. With the projected tripling of freight transport by 2050, emissions from shipping are expected to rise between 50 and 250 per cent.

Furthermore, because of their international nature, these emissions are not covered by the Paris Agreement. Instead the two UN agencies regulating these sectors – the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization – are responsible for reducing these emissions and, so far, significant progress has proven elusive.

Regional or bilateral free trade agreements to further stimulate trade could address this problem by exploiting comparative advantages. Impact assessments of those agreements often point towards increases in GHG emissions due to a boost in trade flows. In the future, such agreements could incorporate – or develop in parallel – initiatives to ensure carbon neutrality by connecting carbon markets among contracting parties or by taxing international maritime and air transport emissions.

Such initiatives could be combined with providing additional preferences in the form of enhanced market access to low-carbon food and healthier food. The EU, as one of the chief proponents of bilateral and regional trade agreements and a leader in promoting a transition to a low-carbon economy could champion such an approach.

This article is part of a series from the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum, designed to promote research and policy recommendations on the future of global trade. It is adapted from the research paper, Delivering Sustainable Food and Land Use Systems: The Role of International Trade, authored by Christophe Bellmann, Bernice Lee and Jonathan Hepburn.

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck the Sahel and West Africa at a time when the region is already under severe pressure from violent insecurity and the effects of climate change on its land, food and water resources.

By the end of April, there had been 9,513 confirmed coronavirus cases across the 17 countries of the region, and some 231 deaths, with the highest overall numbers recorded in Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso. Low testing rates mean than these numbers give only a partial picture.

The Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA) forecast in early April that almost 17 million people in the Sahel and West Africa (7.1 million in Nigeria alone) will need food and nutritional assistance during the coming lean season in June–August, more than double the number in an average year. The combined impact of violent insecurity and COVID-19 could put more than 50 million other people across the region at risk of food and nutrition crisis.

Rippling across the region

The effects of the collapse in global commodity prices, currency depreciations, rising costs of consumer goods and disruptions to supply chains are rippling across the region. And for major oil-exporting countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Chad and Cameroon, the wipe-out of foreign currency earnings will hammer government revenues just as the cost of food and other critical imports goes up. It is likely that the number of people who suffer the direct health impact of the coronavirus will be far outstripped by the number for whom there will be harsh social and economic costs.

In recent years, valuable protocols and capacities have been put in place by governments in West and Central Africa in response to Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks.

But inadequate healthcare funding and infrastructure across this region compound the challenge of responding to the spread of the COVID-19 infection – which is testing the resources of even the world’s best-funded public health systems.

Over many years, however, the region has steadily built up structures to tackle humanitarian and development challenges, particularly as regards food security. It has an established system for assessing the risk of food crisis annually and coordinating emergency support to vulnerable communities. Each country monitors climate and weather patterns, transhumance, market systems and agricultural statistics, and terrorist disruption of agricultural productivity, from local community to national and regional level.

The system is coordinated and quality-controlled, using common technical data standards, by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), a regional intergovernmental body established in 1973 in response to a devastating drought. Collective risk assessments allow emergency support to be mobilized through the RPCA.

For almost three months already, countries in Sahelian West Africa have been working with the World Health Organization to prepare national COVID-19 response strategies and strengthen health controls at their borders. Almost all governments have also opted for domestic curfews, and variations of lockdown and market restrictions.

Senegal has been a leader in rapidly developing Africa’s diagnostic capacity, and plans are under way to speed up production of test kits. Niger was swift to develop a national response strategy, to which donors have pledged €194.5 million. While the IMF has agreed emergency financial assistance to help countries address the urgent balance-of-payments, health and social programme needs linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, signing off $3.4 billion for Nigeria, $442 million for Senegal and $130 million for Mauritania.

Steps are also now being taken towards the formulation of a more joined-up regional approach. Notably, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has been chosen by an extraordinary session of the Economic Community of West African States to coordinate the regional response to COVID-19. As Africa’s biggest economy and home to its largest population, Nigeria is a critical hub for transnational flows of goods and people. Its controversial August 2019 land border closure, in a bid to address smuggling, has already painfully disrupted regional agri-food trade and value chains. The active engagement of the Buhari administration will thus be crucial to the success of a multifaceted regional response.

One of the first tough questions the region’s governments must collectively address is how long to maintain the border shutdowns that were imposed as an initial measure to curb the spread of the virus. Closed borders are detrimental to food security, and disruptive to supply chains and the livelihoods of micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs that rely on cross-border trade. The impact of prolonged closures will be all the more profound in a region where welfare systems are largely non-existent or, at best, highly precarious.

Nigeria, in particular, with more than 95 million people already living in extreme poverty, might do well to explore measures to avoid putting food further beyond the reach of people who are seeing their purchasing power evaporate.

In taking further actions to control the spread of the coronavirus, the region’s governments will need to show faith in the system that they have painstakingly developed to monitor and respond to the annual risk of food crisis across the Sahel. This system, and the critical data it offers, will be vital to informing interventions to strengthen the four components of food security – availability, access, stability and utilization – in the context of COVID-19, and for charting a post-pandemic path of recovery.

Above all, careful steps will need to be put in place to ensure that preventing the spread of the coronavirus does not come at the cost of even greater food insecurity for the people of the Sahel and West Africa. The region’s governments must prioritize the flow of food across borders and renew their commitment to strategic coordination and alignment.

It is becoming widely accepted that we have transitioned, or are now transitioning, from an international liberal order to a different reality. Whether that reality is different solely in terms of power dynamics, or also in terms of values and institutions, is up for discussion. The growing body of literature on ‘post-liberalism’ is used as an entry-point for this article, which aims to explore how the post-liberal transition applies to cyberspace. We explore how power dynamics are evolving in cyberspace, as well as how established norms, values and institutions are contested. The article then looks at the emergence of cyber diplomacy as a consequence and response to the post-liberal transition. As it will be argued, if cyberspace was a creation of the liberal order, cyber-diplomacy is a post-liberal world practice. What role it plays in shaping a new order or building bridges between different political visions, and what it means for the future of cyberspace, will constitute key points of discussion.