Ethiopia’s Prime Minister calls on developed countries to help Africa through Covid-19

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed calls on developed countries to help Africa through the coronavirus pandemic. The continent has low levels of healthcare spending and will struggle to implement social distancing measures. Ahmed calls for debt relief measures and additional financial aid packages from the IMF.

Read here (Project Syndicate, May 1, 2020)

Coronavirus is not an enemy rather a courier

‘The Dao philosophical and medicinal way of tackling Covid-19 has been effective in China and need to be widely adopted...

‘If we regard COVID-19 as an ecological crisis, it requires a brand new thinking, a comprehensive, organic thinking which treats COVID-19 as political, economic, philosophical, ethical, and psychological issue.

‘We recommend Dao thinking. According to Dao or process-relational thinking, everything is closely related to one another. The COVID-19 crisis is a result of many causes. This means that tackling COVID-19 should be carried out in a multi-faceted way. Therefore it will require everybody’s active participation, and everyone including scientists, economists, educators, philosophers, government officials, ordinary people should take some responsibilities. We should rethink our development model, our way of thinking, our way of living, our way of consumption, our way of production, our dietary habits, and our education system, etc. All of them are closely related to the cause and cure of COVID-19.’

Read here (MR Online, Apr 23, 2020)

Could it be time to swop fast car for slower, sturdier one?

Danny Quah, dean, and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, addresses the questions: How should the world change post Covid-19? Will we all just go back to business as usual? What lessons do we need to learn from this pandemic?

Upclose and personal: “Post-Covid-19, the new focus will concentrate more sharply on individual well-being and individual responsibility. Old political dogmas about individual rights and state surveillance and control need to be recalibrated. In a world of spillovers, individual rights are immediately social ones too. Covid-19 has shown how our economic world is rife with externalities, where we ourselves rise by lifting others around us."

Two paradigms: The overall tradeoff involves two paradigms of development. Comparing a highly souped-up car with a slower sturdier one, he concluded: “The critical trade-off is between driving an economic system to maximal efficiency and building in redundancies and resilience through spare back-up capacity. Government intervention is needed to repair the problems created by externalities in health systems.”

Read here (Straits Times, April 23, 2020)

Covid-19 crisis forces Penang to review PSP, Penang 2030 vision

‘The Penang government will review the Penang Structure Plan (PSP) 2030 and Penang 2030 vision as it grapples with fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘State Local Government, Housing Development and Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said that both documents are crucial to map out the future of Penang – however, current circumstances have affected their implementation.’

View here (New Straits Times, April 23, 2020)

‘There is a reason the rest of India cannot be Kerala’

This is not a Covid-19 story, however, it gives the social backdrop to the state’s successful response to the virus... ‘Modern India has been trying to be more like Mumbai. It is raising congested cities out of villages, shrinking homes, building amoeba-shaped golf courses for a few and calling it progress. Instead, maybe India should try to be a Kerala? Modern Kerala, which is misunderstood as a communist region, is in reality a post-capitalist state. A lot of things have gone into the making of its character. Mere policy cannot transform the rest of India into Kerala.’

Read here (Live Mint, April 19, 2020)

Three lessons from this pandemic by Dr Lim Mah Hui & Dr Michael Heng

‘There are three lessons to draw from this crisis.

‘First, the pandemic exposes the flaws of neoliberalism which deifies the free market and vilifies the state... Under this scenario, risks are socialised while profits are privatised. It weakens the capacity and readiness of society to respond to unanticipated nation-wide crisis.

‘Second, had the rich western countries cast off their ideological blinkers and used the opportunities after the GFC to invest in infrastructure, research and development, public goods, reduction of huge inequalities and other form of capital development, the whole world would have been in better conditions to deal with the unfolding situation.

‘Third, the crisis underscores the interdependence resulting from systematic integration over the past several decades. It is a cliché now to say that pathogen respects no border. It took only a few weeks for the virus to travel worldwide. A global solidarity is needed to tackle problem of this nature which unfortunately is not being displayed...

‘The world has to act in a concerted action. We are all in the same boat; a leak in one part will sink the boat no matter where the source.’

Read here (IPS News, April 1, 2020)

Coronavirus will change the world permanently. Here’s how

‘A global, novel virus that keeps us contained in our homes—maybe for months—is already reorienting our relationship to government, to the outside world, even to each other. Some changes these experts expect to see in the coming months or years might feel unfamiliar or unsettling: Will nations stay closed? Will touch become taboo? What will become of restaurants?

‘But crisis moments also present opportunity: more sophisticated and flexible use of technology, less polarization, a revived appreciation for the outdoors and life’s other simple pleasures. No one knows exactly what will come, but here is our best stab at a guide to the unknown ways that society—government, healthcare, the economy, our lifestyles and more—will change.’

Read here (Politico, March 19, 2020)