During a conversation with one of the architects of the upcoming US B20—a keen and experienced mind—I witnessed firsthand the difficulty faced by seasoned policymakers. Even when fully aware of both business needs and the complexity of intergovernmental negotiations, it remains an arduous task to build a common agenda capable of demonstrating real progress.
Choosing topics based on the lowest common denominator runs the risk of yielding nothing truly useful to advance international cooperation on the real challenges of our time. We might be able to settle for this if the primary losers of this inability to work in concert were not the very people these leaders are charged with governing.
It is striking, for example, that the subject of global health—a crucial issue concerning every human being, rich or poor—cannot be the subject of discussion at the level of the G20, the G7, or even APEC. None of these formats have included a health ministerial meeting in their annual agenda, whereas classic topics—finance, development, or tech—are featured.
The United States, the traditional guarantor of international cooperation and having just confirmed their withdrawal from the WHO, are certainly not strangers to this curiosity. How can a basis for discussion be built if scientific consensus itself is called into question, as is the case with vaccines? Or if the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is instrumentalized within a logic of confrontation and mutual accusation?
Consider when the latest UN declaration on the fight against non-communicable diseases, having been the subject of long negotiations to reach a consensus, is rejectedin extremisby the world’s leading pharmaceutical power. Or when the subject of access to health is challenged by an approach to development issues that is subordinated to pure national interests.
Yet, common challenges in the field of health are not lacking: non-communicable diseases linked to lifestyles, diseases linked to aging, cancer and its multiple forms, illnesses related to environmental degradation, the development of antimicrobial resistance, mental health at all stages of life, etc. Not to mention access to medicines, vaccines, basic care, and infrastructure.
Curiously, however, another subject seems to garner consensus: food security, which is judged worthy of ministerial meetings in the three formats mentioned (G7, G20, and APEC). Is this because 800 million people in the world still suffer from food insecurity, or that 50 million of them are in a situation of absolute emergency? The reason is far more pragmatic: governments have an objective interest in maintaining agricultural commodities at a reasonable price level, in a global context of fighting inflation. In the United States, this is one of the keys to themidterms.
This is the only hope remaining for policymakers: to manage, on every subject—particularly health—to identify an interest shared by all. Then, perhaps, we will be able to put the subject on the agenda and seek solutions. What are the stakeholders waiting for? Imagination! As my American interlocutor told me, we have truly entered a new era; yet to invent a new world, one needs creativity!