In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic and the myriad crises it spawned may finally start to recede. But even in that best-case scenario, a tsunami of new challenges – from the failure of climate action to the erosion of social cohesion – is within sight. Addressing them will require leaders to adopt a different governance model. When our institutions are well governed, we pay little attention to them.
The pandemic has made global aging impossible to ignore as COVID-19-related mortality rises sharply with age. The intersection of the pandemic and this new demographic reality has exposed a gap in our global governance architecture. There is no single international institution responsible for safeguarding the rights and advocating for the interests of the world’s fastest-growing age group – those 65 and over.
The COVID-19 pandemic underscores just how tightly interwoven humanity has become. A single infected animal somewhere in China set in motion a chain reaction with effects that, nearly a year later, are still reverberating in every corner of the planet. This should not be particularly surprising. The history of pandemics tracks our unification as a species. The Black Death travelled on new trade routes forged between Europe and Asia in the Middle Ages.
Both by design and proximity, China has had an immense influence on the Southeast Asian region.
