WHAT
HAPPENS
NEXT
Six leaders on what
the pandemic era will
mean for the world
in the years to come
THE GREAT RESET
LILY COLE
What we learn from this crisis
will be different for everyone.
But for me, it starts with
understanding why it hap-
pened in the fi rst place. This
means acknowledging the
links between environmental
degradation and emerging
diseases, and recognizing
that the climate crisis is a
public-health concern.
We also need to rethink
an economic model that
TONY BLAIR
The key political challenge of today is the
technological revolution. We’re experiencing the
21st century equivalent of the Industrial Revolu-
tion, and politics is slow to catch up. COVID-19
will only accelerate it. Companies will digitalize
faster; innovation will be spurred by the necessity
of fi nding new ways to work and by cutting costs.
The impact, along with the huge hangover bill
for dealing with the virus and the loss of economic
activity, will be to produce a lot of hardship with
the burden falling often on the most vulnerable.
Pre-existing injustices will seem even more
unacceptable, releasing pent-up anger and
possibly even social unrest. So governments will
struggle. Populists will have plenty to play with.
And social divisions will become more raw.
It will require political leadership that can ana-
lyze, understand, explain and point the way. Hope-
fully this is the politics that emerges from the
COVID nightmare. Yet the absence of global coor-
dination during the crisis has been truly shocking.
And damaging. Think how much faster we could
have developed things like rapid, on-the-spot tests
if the world had worked together.
I have always been an optimist. For the fi rst
time in my political life, however, I am doubtful.
Still hopeful but troubled.
Blair is a former Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom
NGOZI
OKONJO-IWEALA
Amid the catastrophic ruin
left by the pandemic, I believe
there are reasons to be
positive. I have hope that the
post-COVID world could yet be
fairer and more equitable.
The pandemic has brought
into clearer focus the need
to do things differently. Our
decade will be pivotal for
determining whether we can
keep the impact of climate
change to a manageable level.
This can be achieved only if
businesses, governments and
civil society pull together to
make the investments that
will determine the shape of
our future. COVAX, the inter-
national effort to develop and
equitably distribute COVID-19
vaccines across the globe, is a
sterling example of this kind of
collaboration.
If we seize the opportunity
now, in years to come we will be
able to look back at 2020 and
talk about how humanity turned
the corner and built a fairer
world. There is no alternative.
Okonjo-Iweala is chair of Gavi,
the Vaccine Alliance
