World health, solidarity and multilateral diplomacy under serious test

In the Extraordinary G20 Leaders' Summit Statement on COVID-19 it is clearly reaffirmed that "Global action, solidarity and international cooperation are more than ever necessary to address this pandemic". Why ? G20 answered : "The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities. The virus respects no borders".

Diplomacy is obliged to work under these stressful conditions.For doing that, it has to be fully involved in catalysing changes at the deepest level of beliefs, assumptions, and values, as well as behaviours of nations.

The COVID-19 has already illustrated the fact that even a single dramatic/tragic event could easily change the face of life on this planet as we know it. Diplomats have to be prepared to move in several directions at once, both responding to whatever opportunities present themselves for positive and effective work for global health, and also by being pro-active in turning existing challenges into real opportunities.

A perspective

What multilateral diplomacy practiced under the auspices of the UN and WTO can offer is to give people a perspective of what is possible, help them do what they can do to fight an invisible enemy , to do it faster and better and consolidate their capacity to use appropriate tools and skills. In short, multilateral diplomacy should be able to motivate, catalyze, inspire, instruct, facilitate, encourage, support, assist and demonstrate.

In this regard, a persuasive test on solidarity as practiced through the instrumentality of multilateral diplomacy will be visible in September this year, when the most significant world organization will start the 75^th session of the UN General Assembly during which 193 Member States will consider a report prepared by the UN Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Director General of the WHO, in which they have to address, inter alia, the challenges and opportunities of inclusive approaches to strengthening health systems in the context of universal health coverage.

This report and its consideration cannot be any more a routine exercise. "Business as usual" approach while discussing global health issues must be past history. Multilateral diplomacy must find specific answers to the fundamental question about how to identify ways and means to give tangibility to the ideal of global solidarity in a world characterized by unprecedented vulnerabilities, perplexities and discontinuities. Bilateral diplomacy is already deeply affected ( many embassies are closed to the public), while multilateral diplomacy is under terrible stress, functioning on line, with all imaginable and non-imaginable difficulties.

This will be a formidable test in the diplomatic process which may succeed if , at last, the world community of nations demonstrates its political capacity to overcome temporary disagreements and contradictions and work together in harmony for the benefit of humanity. This success is essential for future general trust , as , to quote again Henry Kissinger, "Sustaining the public trust is crucial to social solidarity, to the relation of societies with each other, and to international peace and stability".

Trust is not a spontaneous phenomenon, and an imperative prerequisite for its authentic birth is a genuine good faith understanding between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to fight together, in a spirit of solidarity, the COVID-19, as a common enemy threatening human life at the planetary level.

A moderate optimism can be expressed on this promising ideal.