Trade Beyond COVID-19: Building Resilience

28 Sep 2021 09:00h

Event report

Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Director General, WTO) opened the session discussing the challenges COVID-19 presented and the opportunities available for reshaping the global economy to be one which is greener, more inclusive, and overall, better. Okonjo-Iweala highlighted that throughout the pandemic, trade proved to be a source of resilience in terms of the availability of medical supplies, food, etc. H.E. Cyril Ramaphosa (The President of South Africa) also joined the call for a change in the usual trade operations, referencing Nelson Mandela’s call for fair trade and a change in the way trade is done for the better versus maintaining the existing ways.

Okonjo-Iweala stated that, currently, global merchandise trade is back at record levels with 16% growth in agricultural trade and 480% growth in textile cloth masks production, for example. However, the rebound is unequal across countries, just as the vaccination levels in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are significantly below those in more developed nations. President Ramaphosa joined in this call for the lessening of human self-centredness which has limited access to vaccines, costing the world millions of lives and contributing to the extension of the pandemic.

President Ramaphosa stated that less than 3% of adults are fully vaccinated in most developing countries and the unequal access to vaccines presents a huge risk to a global recovery. It is estimated that the unequal access to vaccines will contribute to over US$2 trillion being lost. Mr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Director General, WHO) discussed how the pandemic has exposed the fragility of global supply chains. The WHO Director General spoke of the many pledges from the G7 concerning vaccine access calling for a reduction in the various vulnerabilities surrounding an uninterrupted supply chain of delivering vaccines from manufacturer to those most at risk. Ms Gabriela Bucher (Executive Director, Oxfam International) also discussed the massive socio-economic impact of the pandemic which has exposed the harsh inequity of trade rules.

Ghebreyesus spoke of the calls being made for a de-linking of travel from global trade during a major health crisis in order to address the urgent supply gaps, and stressed that we need to provide the capacity for all countries to roll out vaccines. We need to lower the barriers to trade. Bucher went on to explain that while there are bottlenecks in the global supply chains, those bottlenecks do not justify for the inequality in the delivery of the vaccines to developing countries and called for greater efforts to be made by the WTO and others in order to save lives. The WHO Director General indicated the need to learn from this unprecedented pandemic and called for a pandemic treaty agreement that can pull all recommendations together and address all the highlighted problems. The agreement should address the issues which have arisen, such as the banning of exports and the restrictions in the sharing of IP for technology. Bucher mentioned the experience drawn from the HIV crisis, where it was shown that the transfer of technologies was possible and resulted in benefits for millions worldwide.

Mr Sierk Poetting (COO, BioNTech SE) joined the discussion on the limitations in vaccine distribution based on where the vaccines are currently produced. Poetting stated that there is an opportunity now to democratise access to health by building up capacity for local manufacturing of the vaccines. BioNTech has established partnerships to increase the tech transfer in order to improve the end to end production in less developed countries. Through those partnerships, more than 3 billion vaccines will be produced in 2021 and even more in 2022. BionTech will also co-locate with the WHO tech transfer hubs, with the current capacity to adapt vaccines to respond to a variant within 100 days.

President Ramaphosa stated that the World Bank expects global growth to accelerate to 5.5% in 2021 with growth projections in smaller countries being revised to 2.9%. The President called for a shift in focus from profit to saving lives, stating that trade is not a means to an end in itself, and should be used for improving lives. President Ramaphosa called for trade rules which would create better opportunities for industrialisation and transformation in developing economies, because the WTO is comprised of countries at different levels of development.

Ms Rebecca Grynspan (Secretary General, UNCTAD), in discussing how trade policies can help us prepare for future pandemics, touched on the critical requirement for a trade policy with rules that are reliable and stable, and which would be respected by all. During the pandemic, restrictions and apparent veiled forms of protectionism where displayed, where 14% of exports were lost in least developed countries because of non-tariff measures. Bucher called for greater collaboration in addressing the demographic groups that have been disproportionately negatively impacted during the pandemic.

Mr Paul Polman (Former CEO, Unilever, and Vice-Chair, UN Global Impact) stated that trade should rather solve poverty than create it. It starts with, for example, broken trust when climate change financing could not be delivered to the nations in need of it. Polman indicated that we cannot aim to incur a higher cost to the global economy by doing nothing, over paying a smaller cost to bring the vaccines to those in greatest need. Polman also stated that it is not only the right thing to do, but that it also makes economic sense. Humanity needs to be put ahead of simple interest and profit. Government policies need to be aligned with the market shifts. The rules need to be set for the market to deliver the wealth we all want. We need to invest in better markets and economies that are greener. The trade barriers on environmental technologies, along with the vaccines, need to be lowered, while the existing agricultural subsidies need to be reformed.

President Ramaphosa closed by saying that while the current global pandemic has presented the world with one of its greatest health and economic challenges ever, we can collaboratively rise to those challenges and build a more prosperous world. As Nelson Mandela said, it may seem impossible until it is done.

Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Director General, WTO) opened the session discussing the challenges COVID-19 presented and the opportunities available for reshaping the global economy to be one which is greener, more inclusive, and overall, better. Okonjo-Iweala highlighted that throughout the pandemic, trade proved to be a source of resilience in terms of the availability of medical supplies, food, etc. H.E. Cyril Ramaphosa (The President of South Africa) also joined the call for a change in the usual trade operations, referencing Nelson Mandela’s call for fair trade and a change in the way trade is done for the better versus maintaining the existing ways.

Okonjo-Iweala stated that, currently, global merchandise trade is back at record levels with 16% growth in agricultural trade and 480% growth in textile cloth masks production, for example. However, the rebound is unequal across countries, just as the vaccination levels in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are significantly below those in more developed nations. President Ramaphosa joined in this call for the lessening of human self-centredness which has limited access to vaccines, costing the world millions of lives and contributing to the extension of the pandemic.

President Ramaphosa stated that less than 3% of adults are fully vaccinated in most developing countries and the unequal access to vaccines presents a huge risk to a global recovery. It is estimated that the unequal access to vaccines will contribute to over US$2 trillion being lost. Mr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Director General, WHO) discussed how the pandemic has exposed the fragility of global supply chains. The WHO Director General spoke of the many pledges from the G7 concerning vaccine access calling for a reduction in the various vulnerabilities surrounding an uninterrupted supply chain of delivering vaccines from manufacturer to those most at risk. Ms Gabriela Bucher (Executive Director, Oxfam International) also discussed the massive socio-economic impact of the pandemic which has exposed the harsh inequity of trade rules.

Ghebreyesus spoke of the calls being made for a de-linking of travel from global trade during a major health crisis in order to address the urgent supply gaps, and stressed that we need to provide the capacity for all countries to roll out vaccines. We need to lower the barriers to trade. Bucher went on to explain that while there are bottlenecks in the global supply chains, those bottlenecks do not justify for the inequality in the delivery of the vaccines to developing countries and called for greater efforts to be made by the WTO and others in order to save lives. The WHO Director General indicated the need to learn from this unprecedented pandemic and called for a pandemic treaty agreement that can pull all recommendations together and address all the highlighted problems. The agreement should address the issues which have arisen, such as the banning of exports and the restrictions in the sharing of IP for technology. Bucher mentioned the experience drawn from the HIV crisis, where it was shown that the transfer of technologies was possible and resulted in benefits for millions worldwide.

Mr Sierk Poetting (COO, BioNTech SE) joined the discussion on the limitations in vaccine distribution based on where the vaccines are currently produced. Poetting stated that there is an opportunity now to democratise access to health by building up capacity for local manufacturing of the vaccines. BioNTech has established partnerships to increase the tech transfer in order to improve the end to end production in less developed countries. Through those partnerships, more than 3 billion vaccines will be produced in 2021 and even more in 2022. BionTech will also co-locate with the WHO tech transfer hubs, with the current capacity to adapt vaccines to respond to a variant within 100 days.

President Ramaphosa stated that the World Bank expects global growth to accelerate to 5.5% in 2021 with growth projections in smaller countries being revised to 2.9%. The President called for a shift in focus from profit to saving lives, stating that trade is not a means to an end in itself, and should be used for improving lives. President Ramaphosa called for trade rules which would create better opportunities for industrialisation and transformation in developing economies, because the WTO is comprised of countries at different levels of development.

Ms Rebecca Grynspan (Secretary General, UNCTAD), in discussing how trade policies can help us prepare for future pandemics, touched on the critical requirement for a trade policy with rules that are reliable and stable, and which would be respected by all. During the pandemic, restrictions and apparent veiled forms of protectionism where displayed, where 14% of exports were lost in least developed countries because of non-tariff measures. Bucher called for greater collaboration in addressing the demographic groups that have been disproportionately negatively impacted during the pandemic.

Mr Paul Polman (Former CEO, Unilever, and Vice-Chair, UN Global Impact) stated that trade should rather solve poverty than create it. It starts with, for example, broken trust when climate change financing could not be delivered to the nations in need of it. Polman indicated that we cannot aim to incur a higher cost to the global economy by doing nothing, over paying a smaller cost to bring the vaccines to those in greatest need. Polman also stated that it is not only the right thing to do, but that it also makes economic sense. Humanity needs to be put ahead of simple interest and profit. Government policies need to be aligned with the market shifts. The rules need to be set for the market to deliver the wealth we all want. We need to invest in better markets and economies that are greener. The trade barriers on environmental technologies, along with the vaccines, need to be lowered, while the existing agricultural subsidies need to be reformed.

President Ramaphosa closed by saying that while the current global pandemic has presented the world with one of its greatest health and economic challenges ever, we can collaboratively rise to those challenges and build a more prosperous world. As Nelson Mandela said, it may seem impossible until it is done.