After the Pandemic Vol IV: The Post-COVID-19 Governance Playbook

AFTER THE PANDEMIC THE POST-COVID-19 GOVERNANCE PLAYBOOK VOL IV | AUGUST 2020 A Bookazine Edition by

A Bookazine Edition by

AFTER THE PANDEMIC THE POST-COVID-19 GOVERNANCE PLAYBOOK VOL IV | AUGUST 2020

Published in collaboration with William and Mary’s Whole of Government Center of Excellence

Copyright © by Diplomatic Courier/Medauras Global Publishing 2006-2020 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. First Published 2006. Published in the United States by Medauras Global and Diplomatic Courier. Mailing Address: 1660 L Street, NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC, 20036 | www.diplomaticourier.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: 978-1-942772-07-1 (Digital) ISBN: 978-1-942772-06-4 (Print) LEGAL NOTICE. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form—except brief excerpts for the purpose of review—without written consent from the publisher and the authors. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information in this publication; however, the authors, the editors, Diplomatic Courier, and Medauras Global make no warranties, express or implied, in regards to the information and disclaim all liability for any loss, damages, errors, or omissions.

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4 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

A Global Affairs Media Network

AFTER THE PANDEMIC THE POST-COVID-19 GOVERNANCE PLAYBOOK VOL IV | AUGUST 2020

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ANA C. ROLD MANAGING EDITOR SHANE SZARKOWSKI ASSOCIATE EDITORS ADAM RATZLAFF MERCEDES YANORA GUEST EDITOR & FOREWORD KATHRYN H. FLOYD CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS ANDREA BONIME-BLANC GILLIAN DOBY REBECCA FARBER DEBORAH ALLEN HEWITT GABRIELLE HIBBERT KAREN ROLLINS JACKSON IYABO OBASANJO IAN M. RALBY CHRISTIE S. WARREN CYNTHIA A. WATSON TROY WIIPONGWII YU AMY XIA PUBLISHER DIPLOMATIC COURIER | MEDAURAS GLOBAL WASHINGTON, DC DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 5

CONTENTS EDITORS’ NOTE 08

11

REIMAGINING THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION AND WORK | THE EDITORS

FOREWORD

WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT APPROACHES DURING COVID-19 | KATHRYN H. FLOYD

FEATURES 15

WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT, THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, AND FUTURE PLAGUES | CYNTHIA A. WATSON

19

FUTUREPROOFING POST-PANDEMIC GOVERNANCE | ANDREA BONIME-BLANC

25

REVISITING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES AMID COVID-19 | CHRISTIE S. WARREN

29

THE UNMEASURABLE COSTS OF EXTREME POLICY RESPONSES | DEBORAH ALLEN HEWITT

32

BLOCKCHAIN AND COVID-19 IN INDIAN COUNTRY | GABRIELLE HIBBERT AND TROY WIIPONGWII

36

FIGHTING COVID-19 IN AFRICA MEANS IMPROVING GENERAL HEALTH SYSTEMS | IYABO OBASANJO

40

COVID-19 ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE, FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS MUST ADJUST | YU AMY XIA AND GILLIAN DOBY

44

LGBTIQ RIGHTS AND INTERSECTIONAL JUSTICE DURING COVID-19 | REBECCA FARBER

49

TOWARD A RURAL RENAISSANCE IN THE POST-COVID ERA | KAREN ROLLINS JACKSON

52

NAVIGATING MARITIME GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES AND THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY | IAN M. RALBY

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 7

WELCOME A NOTE BY THE EDITORS

COVID-19’S GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES AND LESSONS—AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE FUTURE

8 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

D

iplomatic Courier is extremely pleased to bring you the fourth volume in our “Chronicling COVID-19” series of bookazines. This is the penultimate volume, though we will be taking a short break from the series to focus on the Global Talent Summit and this year’s UN SDGs in Action Forum. We will return to publish our fifth and final volume of Chronicling COVID-19 in October. We are grateful that you’ve stuck with us so far!

In this fourth volume, we focused on governance strategies at play around the world. Where are the gaps? What can we learn from the successes and failures of our government and those around us? What does all this mean for the post-COVID-19 world? To answer these questions, we turned to our long-time collaborator William & Mary and the William & Mary Whole of Government Center of Excellence.

Experts from the university and beyond took on an ambitious array of governance questions. They examined challenges ranging from those faced by relatively small groups of indigenous people to the whole continent of Africa. They considered supply chain disruptions and how governments can or should respond. They explored questions of morality and efficacy in our policy responses as well as the role individuals and societies play in the success (and formulation) of those responses.

Once again, Diplomatic Courier has a multitude of aims in this volume.

We aim to better understand what we’ve done well and where we’ve fallen short in our responses to the pandemic. We aim to give experts a platform to show how we can do better in cases where we’ve fallen short, or how to take lessons learned from our successes and apply them elsewhere. Above all, we aim to illustrate how this pandemic provides us with an opportunity—albeit a costly one—to build a postCOVID-19 world that is better than where we stood at the start of 2020.

As we move into each successive volume of the Chronicling COVID-19 special series, it becomes increasingly evident that few of the problems the global community faces because of the pandemic are new. While most of those problems aren’t new, their scope and visibility now are far too great to ignore. A great challenge of our time is not only to control the pandemic and minimize damage to economies and public health, but to apply lessons the pandemic offers, to teach us toward building a better, more durable system.

We believe that our contributors in this and previous volumes are providing important pieces of the roadmap to doing just that, and we hope you can take something useful from your reading.

The Editors Washington, DC August 2020 DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 9

FOREWORD WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT APPROACHES DURING COVID-19

BY KATHRYN H. FLOYD

T

he phrase “Whole of Government” has been invoked by international organizations, governments, and others to describe how to combat the spread of COVID-19. Speaking on April 9, 2020, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), called on leaders around the world to embrace a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society response.” Meanwhile, the number of global cases has climbed to over 22 million infected people with more than 782,000 people deceased (as of publication). As virologists and other doctors race to develop a vaccine to turn this deadly tidal wave, local to international leaders are making creative adaptations to re-engineer societies to accept social distancing and face masks as we wait. Some are far more successful at this than others, bringing to mind the stark contrast between Iceland and the United Sates. Governance—how we exercise power to manage our economic and social resources in an attempt to keep moving forward—is a key component of Whole of Government responses to COVID-19.

Whole of Government strategies at the United States and abroad need to synchronize all the elements involved in a multi-faceted, long-term response to the novel coronavirus. Regardless of the emergency, a Whole of Government approach involves public, private, non-profit, and other organizations working under a shared mission toward a joint goal. Utilizing such an approach, a leader assembles and manages each piece of the complex puzzle from response to recovery to leverage the agencies’ specialized resources and authorities, assessing the current situation as it evolves and shifts. Ideally, preplanning is a vital part of this so that agencies are not interacting for the first time during a crisis. When done well, the value of the Whole of Government DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 11

approach is in its ability to provide a trusted framework and legitimate playbook for complex interagency operations.

The articles in this bookazine, a strategic partnership with Diplomatic Courier, bring to light important and enduring problems that have arisen during this crisis and will have far ranging impacts. Dr. Cynthia Watson urges governments make their decisions based on the scientific method to uphold the precious social contract that exists between the governed and those governing. Trust and faith in science, not political parties, will help guide us out of this.

During a crisis that is utterly overwhelming, Dr. Rebecca Farber emphasizes the need to protect marginalized groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Governance must apply to all our people, especially the vulnerable. One vulnerable group is the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population. Gabrielle Hibbert and Troy Wiipongwii confront the foundational laws and policies that create hostile inequalities, offer ways to improve the current health system, and recommend the inclusion of targeted digital strategies and blockchain strategies to improve life for AI/AN households.

The human brain struggles to focus on risk. Andrea BonimeBlanc rails against ineffective and irresponsible leaders, offering recommendations from the business world to help overcome the paralysis of a crisis.

In a crisis, there is a race to improve things so that livelihood and lives are saved. But benefits come at a cost. Deborah Hewitt steps back and considers the nuances of flexible vs. absolute policies that allow us to tailor to the specific situation at hand.

While our travel has been restricted, shipping and maritime commerce must go on. Dr. Ian Ralby highlights serious threats that exist to the global economy and to our supply chains that require clear governance so that our lives on land—however altered—continue to receive much needed shipments.

When this is over, we want to be alive. But in pursuit of a way of life, some people prioritize their perceived rights over personal responsibilities. Professor Christie Warren calls for individual reflection in light of constitutions and national emergencies and urges us to do what we should do.

Seeing no end in sight for the pandemic, Dr. Amy Xia and Gillian Doby look at the essential food supply chain and propose a 12 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

strategy that is robust, agile, embraces technology, and moves toward electronic ordering. We need to focus on making the process of direct-to-consumer simpler.

This crisis has opened the door to a rural renaissance where technology is an obvious right as we work from home and stay connected via the internet. Karen Jackson is watching the perfect storm roll into the parts of our country outside the cities, hoping that life beyond the skyscrapers will be redefined by affordable broadband connectivity and more.

Compared to other areas in the world, Africa is fairing fairly well. Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo examines what lessons can be learned from the population profile of the continent that has turned back Ebola and more.

The United States, and presumably others, know what needs to happen to arrest additional tragedy. Policies need to be federally supported, state managed, and locally executed. Science needs to lead us all, even when science must adapt to changing conditions and new information. A hallmark of any effective Whole of Government approach is clear, consistent communication and messaging by leaders, regardless of political party.

The resources of a nation and how that gets into the hands of people—the supply chain—must be retooled to assist with the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 medical supplies to the areas that need it most or areas where we can prevent an outbreak. All of that must happen before we consider reopening on any significant scale. When we emerge from this, we must undergo a period of significant soul-searching as nations struggling to govern and as human beings struggling to make sense of the world. What lessons did we learn, which groups did we fail to protect, and how did rights conflict with common sense? ***** About the author: Dr. Kathryn H. Floyd is the Director of William & Mary’s Whole of Government Center of Excellence. The Whole of Government Center provides training, education, and research on interagency collaboration to address complex national security and other public policy problems.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 13

WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT, THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, AND FUTURE PLAGUES

BY CYNTHIA A. WATSON

T

hose who live through the COVID-19 pandemic will retain many memories for years to come: new concepts such as “social distancing,” face masks as a fashion accessory, ubiquitous hand sanitizer stations, fewer opportunities for travel, and countless missed celebrations deemed too dangerous for even relatively small groups of people. Regardless of its duration, these snapshots of the experience will remain topics of conversation for the foreseeable future.

The effects on national security will also remain central to the memory of this crisis. Often, the public thinks of national security as a category of war or as problems pursued by those in the military charged with defending the country against threats to our survival. This pandemic, however, is reshaping that perception in an uncomfortable manner.

The Cold War ended 31 years before the current pandemic broke into the news last January. With the end of that fortyyear ideological siege, U.S. power appeared so unparalleled as to preclude any other country from threatening the nation’s homeland. U.S. security forces—both civilian and uniformed— served in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans, Liberia, and Colombia as the United States adopted its role as a stabilizer in troubled states. The 9/11 attacks undermined national confidence that the homeland was a refuge from global problems. Subsequent disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq amplified that uncertainty, as did the 2008 financial crisis, which closed out the discouraging first decade of the 21st century.

These threats, however, were relatively identifiable. Afghanistan was the safe haven for the brutalizer bin Laden who launched 9/11, while Iraq’s long-time dictator Saddam Hussein was (wrongly) thought to harbor nuclear weapons with which DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 15

to threaten our homeland and those of our allies. The 2008 financial crisis resulted from unsparing greed playing on the willful naivete of a financially illiterate society. Most citizens believed the government could and should prevent or resolve these problems. People often advocate a “whole of government response” to use the widest array resources to protect the national interest against obvious dangers.

The dangers of COVID-19, like the parallel threat of climate change, are different challenges to the nation because these dangers result from problems which may not have the human proximate cause, yet human behavior magnifies them dramatically. Understanding these threats relies on explanations from scientists, as those who feel the effects don’t necessarily see the causes with their own eyes. Unfortunately, society no longer considers scientific explanations to be a reliable basis for crafting appropriate responses. Instead, scientific illiteracy, coupled with political polarization, make the whole of government approach far less feasible than has been true at any other time in living memory. This is a grave danger not only for current crises, but for those to come.

Government officials should derive their decisions from expertise produced by the scientific method rather than partisan politics because governments have a social contract, at least theoretically, with their citizens. The scientific method requires a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and replicating the tests—and outcomes—by others in a replicable process to verify its validity. Personal desires or beliefs are not part of this replication, though they may infrequently coincide with the outcome of the methodology.

Public distrust of the scientific method is on the rise in the United States and has been for at least a decade. The antivaccine movement coincides with a tendency towards partisan polarization on topics relating to science and the scientific method. Accusations that science has not “proven” its case ignore constant and repetitive evidence to the contrary on vaccines, on climate change, and of late on the COVID-19 pandemic.

This distrust and attendant partisan polarization are part of why the U.S. government underperformed dramatically in this crisis. Government agencies proved unable to convince whole swaths of the country that wearing masks or physical distancing from sources of virus are essential to stopping the contagion’s spread. Public hearings over mask ordinances in many 16 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

locations devolved from discussions of health to furious proclamations not on public health but on citizens’ alleged Constitutional guarantees. The resulting proliferation of COVID-19 cases plagues health care providers and government agencies unable to curb the disease’s proliferation because distrust of the scientific evidence outweighed fear of the spread, even in the face of dramatic increase in fatalities.

Rebuilding faith in the scientific method as a basis for whole of government decisions is an essential step for the future, as challenges from non-traditional threats proliferate. Embedded in this issue is the need for politicians across the political spectrum and at all levels of government to recognize the fundamental menace created by political polarization associated with anti-scientific thought.

No political party has a monopoly on good governance or on being able to predict the future. Science does, however, provide rational arguments which offer long-term solutions. In a society of more than 330 million citizens, the reliability, trust, and equality that government must provide under its social contract requires us to respect the non-partisan confidence that all will have equal access to our government and its response to the growing number of threats that only thirty years ago were impossible to envision. ***** About the author: Cynthia Watson, PhD, has served both as faculty member and in many administrative positions at The National War College since arriving in 1992, currently serving as Dean of Faculty & Academic Programs while teaching and researching China topics in security. CHOICE named her 2002 book, U.S. National Security, as a Book of the Year the year after publication.

Disclaimer: Analysis is personal rather than U.S. Government or National War College policy.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 17

FUTUREPROOFING POST-PANDEMIC GOVERNANCE

BY ANDREA BONIME-BLANC

T

he tone from the top—whether in a country or a company—affects and suffuses the culture of the place and the wellbeing of its respective stakeholders.

The various tones from the top on pandemic crisis management that we are witnessing both in government and business at every level—global, national, local—reflect the good, the bad, and the ugly in leadership. We are now learning momentous lessons that should become fodder for rebooting and futureproofing ESG or what I like to call ESGT (plus technology) governance post-COVID-19.

Unlike any other global crisis of recent memory, COVID-19 presents a perfect storm of interdependent E (ecological, biological), S (health, safety, supply chain), G (geopolitical, corporate) and T (scientific, cyber, tech) issues intersecting, interconnecting, and impacting one another and of course the overall global economy in unprecedented ways. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill—let’s not let this unprecedented global pandemic governance and leadership crisis go to waste.

What we are seeing at the core of the COVID-19 management failures is a crisis of governance and leadership on all things ESGT. But there is also hope. It is heartening to see the example of transparent, inclusive, integrated, emotionally intelligent leadership taking place in several countries to the great benefit of their populations—I’m thinking of Germany, Iceland, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa. In stark contrast are the variously opaque, arbitrary, disjointed, negligent, or outright destructive examples other national leaders are setting—I’m thinking of the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, Iran and Turkey—to the great risk and detriment of their populations.

Similar observations can be made about corporate leaders and their crisis management or mismanagement of the pandemic. On the one hand, there are the good guys. They are doing everything DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 19

they can to protect shareholder value and stakeholder interests by not firing employees, providing health and other benefits, finding innovative ways of still doing business, not taking advantage of government handouts that they don’t need, etc. In this category, I’m thinking of companies like Salesforce, Marriott, Twitter, Uber, and a few others.

Then there are the corporate leaders who are cutting corners, firing people, leaving them without benefits or—if they are “necessary” workers—treating them poorly and forcing them to work in unsafe conditions without proper protective equipment. I’m thinking of some of the prominent food/meat processing companies like Smithfield Foods, warehouse-based businesses like Amazon and, quite shockingly, Disney—which is apparently firing 100,000 employees while maintaining $1.5 billion in reserve for executive bonuses due later this year. That doesn’t even count the 100 plus publicly traded companies that claimed Small Business Administration “loans” and now have to return them. To see how companies are treating their stakeholders, check out this ongoing compilation Just Capital has created.

And make no mistake about it—how both national and corporate leaders treat their respective stakeholders in this crisis will have serious and long-lasting implications for the reputation, trust, and survival of these leaders post-COVID19.

Early COVID-19 Governance Lessons: Responsible Versus Irresponsible Leadership

In my book, Gloom to Boom: How Leaders Transform Risk into Resilience and Value, I offer a typology of leadership (see Figure 1 below) based on how seriously and effectively a leader considers and/or incorporates key ESGT risks and opportunities into their mission, vision, values and strategy.

20 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

What do the best ESGT leaders do? Whether they are national leaders, governors, mayors or corporate leaders, the enlightened and responsible leaders exhibit the best in crisis governance: Transparency, communication (early and often), accurate information fact and science driven policymaking, the use of true experts and deep expertise, broad stakeholder care, non-partisanship, coordinated strategic planning, coordinated tactical execution.

On the other hand, what do more ineffective, ESGT irresponsible leaders have in common? They exhibit the opposite of good crisis governance: opacity, miscommunication (infrequent, haphazard, irrelevant), opinion or ideologically based policymaking, the disdain, rejection or manipulation of experts and expertise, serving narrow stakeholder interests, partisanship, uncoordinated or nonexistent strategic planning, and disjointed tactical execution. See a comparison of these styles in Table 1 below.

We all should study carefully how responsible leaders are addressing this crisis. We should also examine what irresponsible leaders can teach us about what not do in the face of future crises.

Living in Turbulent Times As I discuss in Chapter 1 of Gloom to Boom, we are living through an unprecedented time of dramatic tectonic change which I synthesize into the “ten megatrends of our turbulent times” (see Table 2 on the following page). Global and local risks and crises are not a matter of “if,” they are absolutely a matter of “when”. We need only consult some of the “bibles” of global risk assessment to understand the deep and broad global risks the world is facing in a wide variety of areas—environmental, social, governance or geopolitical, technological and economic. We need only consult the work of the University of Cambridge Centre for the Study DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 21

of Existential Risk or the World Economic Forum list of top ten most likely and top ten most impactful global risks (see Table 3 below) to realize that large crises are no longer unusual events— complex global/local crises are the new normal.

Here’s the thing: COVID-19 is but one manifestation of what is to come. The World Economic Forum Global Risks 2020 Report lists “Infectious Diseases” as the tenth most impactful global risk. What about all of the others listed (the top five of which are climatechange related)? What if one or more were to occur simultaneously?

Indeed, more are already underway, just a little slower to manifest themselves than COVID-19. What if we suffered a material cyberattack in the midst of Coronavirus? That wouldn’t manifest itself slowly, that would be an immediate gut punch to the world system.

Corporate governance (as well as national governance) needs to be rebooted and futureproofed to meet the new normal of our turbulent times. What does this mean? Below are my immediate prescriptions for corporate boards to think about and adopt as soon as possible. The future is today (or maybe even yesterday) and 22 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

most boards of directors are woefully unprepared—both structurally and substantively—to deal with the new normal of global interconnected material risk.

The recommendations below while mostly geared at businesses can also be applied at other entities beyond business—nonprofits, universities, even government agencies: 1. Practice Lean-in Governance—no more “friends and family” board members, no more rubber stampers—independent highly qualified, diverse members; and, no more imperial CEO’s— consider splitting CEO/Chairman roles 2. Restructure the Board and Reboot—Make changes to your board now—not five years from now. Ask: • Who’s on your board? Only CFO and CEOs? Add a Chief Risk Officer, General Counsel, Chief Ethics/Compliance Officer, Technologist, Sustainability/ESG or Talent expert.

• Does your board reflect your customer base? If not, why not?

• What’s on your board agenda? If ESGT is not on it—make sure it is…regularly.

• If you don’t have a non-traditional committee for risk, ESG, technology issues, create one now to include strategic ESGT issues, risks, opportunities.

3. Hire Only High Integrity Emotionally Intelligent CEOs—hold them accountable through performance management for a holistic and ESGT integrated business strategy.

4. Turbocharge Strategic Risk and ESGT/Sustainability Governance—these are no longer once in a while “nice to haves”—these are critical to your business surviving and thriving in a turbulent world.

5. Incorporate Preparedness into the Permanent Board Agenda— crisis management, business continuity, data protection, must be on the agenda, scenario planning must include the board and a board committee must oversee these topics regularly.

It is sometimes difficult to focus the human mind on risk (especially long-term risk) but it is the urgent job of corporate and government leadership to adapt and change with the times or the times will leave them in the dustbin of history. If the COVID-19 pandemic punch to the global gut doesn’t do it, then all hope is lost. I personally refuse to think that humanity is that stupid. ***** About the author: Dr. Andrea Bonime-Blanc is the Founder and CEO of GEC Risk Advisory, a global ESG and cyber strategist, board member, life-member of the Council on Foreign Relations, international keynote speaker and author of several books and articles.

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REVISITING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES AMID COVID-19

BY CHRISTIE S. WARREN

C

OVID-19 has sparked discussions about our rights and the extent to which the government can and should control our behavior Compulsory masking, social distancing, and self-quarantines are new and uncomfortable restrictions for many in the United States, where we are accustomed to wearing what we want, spending time with whomever we choose, and wandering freely in our quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But what are our responsibilities, both individual and collective, in the face of global emergencies? So far, a significant part of the public debate has focused on constitutional rights and how they protect individual freedom to choose how to respond. Not all constitutions create the culture of entitlement that the U.S. Constitution does, though. Ours does not include a duty to engage in public service in times of public calamity, as Venezuela’s does. Nor does it require us to cooperate to prevent and mitigate disaster, as Thailand’s does, or to engage in humanitarian action when health and life are endangered, as is the case in Colombia. U.S. citizens are not constitutionally required to refrain from acting in ways that are detrimental to the welfare of others, as Ghana’s constitution states.

International and regional laws, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the United States became a party in 1992, are also worth looking at. Individual rights provided under the ICCPR and other regional and international frameworks, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, set forth an array of individual rights that may only be suspended in times of public emergency.

But political leaders can declare public emergencies to further political and populist agendas. Although principles of proporDIPLOMATIC COURIER | 25

tionality and necessity are supposed to guide the suspension of rights, government leaders are often given deference when determining public interest and their obligations to protect the population.

Since March 1, 2020, more than 80 countries, including the United States, have declared states of public emergency. International organizations have expressed concern about using COVID-19 as a pretext for silencing political opponents and limiting the rights of vulnerable groups. In Africa, more than a dozen people have been killed during enforcement of COVID-related curfews.. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban asserted authority to rule indefinitely by decree. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police to shoot anyone who resists lockdown. [In India, Singapore and Turkey, journalists have been threatened with imprisonment for disseminating information about COVID-19 that the government deems “fake news.� In El Salvador, hundreds of prison inmates have been stripped naked and packed into cells, and in Peru, rights and movement have been suspended. In the United States, critics charge that the pandemic has been used as an excuse for enacting legislation curtailing travel, immigration, asylum, visas and citizenship rights.

International and regional laws permit derogation of certain individual rights during national emergencies, but safeguards are required. Restrictions must be legally and scientifically based. The should also be strictly necessary, neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, and proportionate to the degree of emergency. Notice of intent to derogate must be filed with relevant oversight bodies. As of May 4, 2020, only ten countries had filed notices of their intent to derogate from provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, eleven countries with the American Convention on Human Rights, and sixteen countries with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In the rest of the countries where states of emergency were being declared, formal notice and reporting requirements have not been followed. Some observers argue this is in part because the optics of derogation can send the politically unpopular message that governments intend to crack down on individual rights.

COVID-19 will not be our last global emergency. Can the response to mandates to adjust behavior change as long as we insist that constitutions do not impose individual duties of care towards others and international law continues to be able to be manipulated for political and populist gains?

26 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

We might do well to look internally for the answer to this question. Although other societies focus more on community, as opposed to individual, values and encourage self-examination in the face of conflict and emergency, the U.S. constitutional culture privileges rights and entitlements. In the context of pandemics, this focus might be misplaced. Laws are not meant to substitute for social and moral responsibility.

COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to revisit our culture of individual rights and reconsider our shared human obligations to each other. The law is not necessarily dispositive in this calculus. Sometimes what we have the right to do is not what we should do. ***** About the author: Christie S. Warren is Professor of the Practice of International and Comparative Law and founding Director of the Center for Comparative Legal Studies and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding at Williams & Mary Law School. She served as the 2010-2011 UN Senior Mediation Expert in Constitutional Issues and the 2016-2017 Fulbright-Schuman Distinguished Chair at the European University Institute.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 27

THE UNMEASURABLE COSTS OF EXTREME POLICY RESPONSES

BY DEBORAH ALLEN HEWITT

A

bsolutes are rarely the appropriate response to complex issues, even when life and death are involved.

This is because there are extreme costs to extreme policies. Benefit-cost analysis is a common tool used in policy setting and decision-making. This generally leads to less extreme policies. For example, speed limits are not set at 0 despite the thousands of lives that could be saved due to the enormous economic cost of such a policy.

Putting a value on human life is one of the most difficult aspects of benefit-cost analysis, but it must not prevent us from considering and developing alternatives to absolute lockdown policies.

In the rush to protect the physical health of at-risk groups of our population from COVID-19, absolute measures have been implemented without consideration for their extremely high cost.

These policies include stay home alone, school closures, and prohibitions against visitors at senior residences and hospitals.

These measures cost a significant deterioration in the mental health of many as well as a loss in a little piece of our humanity as social beings.

According to an article published in April by the Journal of the American Medical Association, many COVID-19 preventative measures have been disadvantageous from a mental health standpoint. It cites the negative consequences of economic stress, social isolation, constant exposure to news focusing on the virus, lack of religious and community support, and reduced availability of non-critical medical care as increasing the potential for a mental health crisis.

Researchers at NYU Langone Health and UMass Medical School have also found that COVID-19 responses such as school closures and home confinement have likely traumatized many DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 29

children, particularly those with pre-existing mental health conditions, anxiety, mood problems, or developmental issues.

According to a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, school closures were likely not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Based on evidence from other countries and previous pandemic responses, they found that the closures might have led to even worse medical outcomes as well as emotional and economic effects.

Additionally, the fact that humans are social creatures has been overlooked, putting those who benefit most from social interaction at greatest risk of increased mental and physical health deterioration. Where is the humanity in preventing a mother from holding her newborn baby, as cited in the New York Times? What of the elderly occupants at memory care residences, kept in isolation away from family members who are likely their only connections to reality? What of the tens of thousands who succumbed to COVID-19 or other conditions who were unable to have loved ones at their deathbed? And what of their family members who could not share final words or expressions of love at their children’s or parents’ passing?

These real-life experiences took place across the nation. They have been heartbreaking beyond measure. We ask, “Who was saved by these prohibitions? Wasn’t there an alternative?” Any benefit was overwhelmed by the unmeasurable loss of something we as humans value most: of being together in those moments which can never be regained.

How Benefit-Cost Analysis Suggests We Can Do Better As we move forward in this crisis, and in any similar future crisis, time must be taken to consider the costs as well as benefits of policies. In particular, there needs to be some allowance for individual decision-making where the consequences of the decision apply only to those involved, such as family members or small groups. For example, immediate relatives of patients facing imminent death or mothers giving birth could be given the opportunity to be with their loved one, so long as they follow an established protocol to protect others. They could be required to enter the hospital through a designated entrance, shower just prior to and after being in the hospital, wear full PCP while in hospital, and self-quarantine following the visit. The one or two direct family members who attend their loved-one’s birth or death would incur minimal personal cost (risk) for an unmeasurable gain of being there during one of life’s irreplaceable moments.

To reduce the trauma and sense of alienation felt by school 30 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

children denied the company of their peers, and the economic impact on families, parents could be allowed to form small, 5 to 10 student pods. All involved would agree to socialize only with other pod members, and parents would rotate hosting and facilitating the on-line instruction of the children. This would allow parents to be fully engaged in their own work 4 days of the week as well as allowing the children to retain a sense of belonging to a group. These benefits clearly overwhelm the minimal costs of increased risk of exposure.

Flexible vs. Absolute Policies Policy-makers during pandemics should work with scientists and social workers to develop options that preserve the mental as well as physical health of our population and important aspects of our social human nature. This will require moving away from the absolute measures taken to save lives at all costs. It will require more flexibility, such as offering a range of precautions tailored to specific scenarios, especially where the larger group is not affected. Let us consider the quality of life for those that are saved and the quality of death for those that are not. ***** About the author: Dr. Deborah Allen Hewitt is Clinical Professor Emerita of Economics at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business, William & Mary. She has worked for five U.S. Departments, including Health and Human Services and the U.S. Treasury. She has served on numerous boards, including the Respite Program at the United Methodist Church of Williamsburg, VA, a daily program for challenged seniors.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 31

BLOCKCHAIN AND COVID-19 IN INDIAN COUNTRY

BY GABRIELLE HIBBERT AND TROY WIIPONGWII

T

he U.S. government has a storied tradition of neglect, erasure, and genocide of vulnerable communities such as the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population. COVID-19 has magnified challenges involving drastic underfunding, inefficient coordination of resources, and heightened socio-economic disparities within Indian healthcare systems. Some health experts have proposed an enhanced digital strategy utilizing blockchain to minimize inequities within AI/AN populations.

32 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

Historical and Contemporary Issues Impacting AI/AN Community Health and Wealth The epoch of European settlement that led to drastic declines in indigenous populations and the foundation of detrimental social determinants of health created rampant food insecurity and poverty. Due to the litigation of the Dawes Act of 1887, self-governance and the potentiality for healthier socio-economic living conditions disbarred the growth of economic and social opportunities in AI/AN communities. Trends in unemployment and regulations in tribal activities amassed another emergent disparity.

With 50% of the workforce concentrated within the casino and hospitality industries, many experienced immediate job loss due to COVID-19, which starved tribal revenue.

AI/AN healthcare System The healthcare delivery system used by AI/AN communities is called the IHS/Tribal/Urban (I/T/U) System. Integral legislation that includes the Snyder Act of 1921, Transfer Act of 1954, Indian SelfDetermination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) of 1975, and Indian Healthcare Improvement Act (IHIA) of 1976 shaped the Indian Healthcare System (IHS). The funding process of the IHS, which is authorized through ISDEAA, stem from the Snyder and Transfer Acts, which funnel through the congressional appropriations budget. Additionally, Urban Indian Organizations (UIO) are funded through Title V of the IHIA. Although the evolution of policy resulted in improved delivery of healthcare to the AI/AN communities there exist numerous challenges from this complex system.

Problems with Health Service Delivery Underfunding is the largest problem facing Indian healthcare.

IHS funding is discretionary which is subject to external political shocks that may impact funds. Funds allocated to UIO account for less than 1% of U.S. health expenditures, while urban indians account for 71% of the AI/AN population. A survey conducted in March of 2020 identified that 84% of UIO were forced t0o reduce services. Tribal governments receive additional funding through grants and third-party revenue. However, according to Rear Admiral Michael Weahkee, Director of IHS, during a natural disaster or market shock like COVID-19, small tribes are too underfunded and understaffed to apply for grants resulting in a reduction of revenue by as much as 80%. As a result of ISDEAA, IHS requires an extensive, redundant bilateral amendment process with tribes to distribute funds allocated through the Paycheck Protection Program and the Healthcare Enhancement Act. DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 33

Potential Solutions from Leaders Leading organizations have proposed several solutions for improving Indian healthcare. Among these are suggestions for improving grant processes, increased funding, and mutual aid projects. Some key proposals are discussed below.

Francys Crevier, Director of the National Council of Urban Indian Health, proposed that Congress allot $80 million to UIO to help renovate buildings. This solution points to ending massive underfunding of UIO. Weahkee suggested that potential solutions to the grant process and distribution of funds could include: 1. Appropriating funds directly to the IHS, authorizing the agency to place funds directly into existing contracts.

2. Enabling direct transfers from the Center for Disease Control or the National Institutes of Health.

Finally, the Decolonizing Wealth Project worked to distribute $1 million in mutual aid to AI/AN community members. This solution offset inefficiencies within the CARES Act.

Blockchain Use-cases to Enhance Leadership Solutions Blockchain can create opportunities for increased security, transparency, efficiency, speed of delivery and traceability of assets recorded on the blockchain. Two blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and tokenization, can be utilized to enhance the proposed solutions above.

The tokenization of grants, such as the pilot conducted by the Treasury Department could ensure that the terms of grants are secure and followed. The primary benefit to federal agencies included improved decision making through better transparency, quality, and timeliness of financial information. The primary benefit to grant recipients included reduced redundant reporting to grantmaking entities and auditors. Payment efficiency presented as a secondary benefit. This use-case could improve direct payments to tribal governments and UIO from U.S. agencies and reduce operational inefficiencies identified by Weahkee and Crevier.

Crypto/digital currencies also provide an opportunity for the peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer of funds to individuals and organizations. Members of Congress urged Mnuchin to use blockchain to deliver treasury payments instead of direct-deposit and paper checks. Speed and not needing a bank account were the two 34 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

primary justifications, however; the scale of the project made it unlikely. One impediment to this project is the need for the US to create a digital dollar and infrastructure for digital wallets. However, mutual aid projects such as Decolonizing Wealth are capable of using existing cryptocurrencies and ancillary technologies.

In particular, due to a large number of un/underbanked marginalized Americans, the use of cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency wallets, a software or hardware tool similar to an online bank account, can be used to receive and store aid directly and quickly.

With growing access to bitcoin atm’s and cryptocurrency debit and credit cards, recipients of crypto delivered aid can convert the cryptocurrency into USD without access to a bank account.

The delivery of P2P mutual aid can also benefit the AI/AN communities not recognized by the federal government, which limits resources available to them.

The systemic issues present in AI/AN communities have made AI/ AN individuals particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 with per capita cases in some tribes exceeding the combination of 7 states in May 2020. The I/T/U system has allowed for better healthcare, but continued underfunding and contractual inefficiencies still persist. Several proposed solutions to the delivery of healthcare services included better grant processes and mutual aid funding.

Better grant processes and mutual aid solutions could provide secondary benefits through increasing funding; which was additionally highlighted as needed to improve indian health. Blockchain can be used to improve the transparency and efficiency of the grant process through tokenization. Moreover, it can improve the efficiency, speed, and access of mutual aid by using cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets to extend banking solutions to un/ underbanked AI/AN individuals.

About the authors:

*****

Gabrielle Hibbert is a blockchain researcher at the Williams & Mary Blockchain Lab. Her research interests include development finance, decentralization, and policy. She currently resides in Boston where she is slated to complete her master’s degree in Sustainable International Development and Management.

Troy Wiipongwii is a social impact entrepreneur and the Principle Investigator for the William & Mary Blockchain Lab. His focus is on blockchain and distributed ledger technology’s impact on vulnerable communities both within the United States and abroad. He is a Data Science PhD student.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 35

FIGHTING COVID-19 IN AFRICA MEANS IMPROVING GENERAL HEALTH SYSTEMS

BY IYABO OBASANJO

W

hile reports indicate rising morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in Africa, the rates remain low compared to other regions of the world. High levels of poverty and the fact that all diseases eventually settle among the poor and disenfranchised generates the fear of mass death of Africans from the novel virus. Huge densely populated slums are pervasive in larger African cities and achieving constant 6ft distancing and adequate handwashing protocols are close to impossible in such areas. Yet despite these challenges, the continent may escape this devastation as it has other factors going for it.

36 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

Africa’s Relative Youth Insulates it from COVID-19 Africa is the continent with the youngest age distribution. The population in low-income areas of cities tends to be younger, able-bodied, and relatively healthy. However, COVID-19 causes severe ill-health and death with increases in the age of infected persons, resulting in a disproportionate toll on older populations.

Median Age Per Continent Additionally, a recent paper showed that the viral load for COVID-19 is lowest among those 0 to 20 years old.

Lower viral loads mean that the ability to spread the disease from this age group is lower. This means that if your population skews younger, the risk of spread is reduced. Thus, based on the age distribution, it is likely that the slums and African countries will be relatively spared.

Healthier Populations Suffer Less From COVID-19 COVID-19 preys on patients with underlying chronic health conditions. For the global poor, having a treatable chronic non-communicable disease means death. This population cannot afford basic treatment or sometimes even to get a diagnosis. Thus, many living in extreme poverty never get diagnosed for such diseases and such diseases are never recorded by the health systems , and the disease rate or such diseases in African countries is through estimation from surveys. Given the high death rate from treatable chronic diseases, people living in extreme poverty who are exposed to COVID-19 will be less likely to have the levels of pre-existing conditions that leads to complications.

In African countries, COVID-19 started to spread mostly among people that can afford to fly, meaning that its impact has been predominantly among the middle classes and up These wealthier individuals are more likely to have underlying conditions. Examples include the Chief of Staff to the Nigerian President, Abba Kyari who had diabetes and Nelson Mandela’s daughter. The virus has visited government houses, government ministers, religious ministers, and other elites but has gained a major foothold amongst the vast majority who are poor. This is not however a cause for joy as the slower DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 37

spread of the disease among the poor is caused by high death rates due to a lack of routine healthcare availble treat underlying conditions. The elite who are unable to travel on health tourism due to the global COVID-19 flight restrictions are feeling the impact of infection severely, as they now have to use the health systems they generally avoided and are getting the same high death rate it produces.

A study on morality rates from COVID-19 in China found significantly higher rates of death among those with various pre-existing health conditions.

COVID-19 Fatality Rates with Pre-existing Conditions A comparison of Nigeria and the U.S. shows lower level of incidence of cancers but high mortality rate in Nigeria. African countries generally have lower incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases such as cancers but higher mortality from such diseases.

Pervasive levels of Infectious Diseases Improves Immune Response Most young people living in areas of high poverty and poor sanitation have immune systems that have survived many infectious diseases and are therefore primed to combat diseases effectively. There are indications that immunizations against one disease primes the immune system to fight other diseases in the same way. The cross benefit of immunization has been preliminarily found for COVID-19 with immunization against tuberculosis and measles. Tuberculosis is extremely interesting in that it is also a disease of the lungs and only low-income countries globally still immunize the general population against the disease and have the vaccine on their vaccination sched38 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

ule. Both immunization and prior exposure and survival to other infectious diseases are the basis for an immune system that acts more effectively against other infectious agents. Most of our immune system is adaptive, which means it reacts and changes based on what it is exposed to. Those who are exposed to more infectious diseases and survive thereby would have immune systems that function well against new infectious diseases they are exposed to.

Improving Health Systems is Key to Fighting Pandemics Because COVID-19’s mortality rate increases with age and among those with underlying health conditions, Africa may have a population profile that reduces the devastation of the spread of COVID-19. As the virus spreads among lower income classes, it will encounter mostly younger people with fewer incidences of pre-existing conditions. But health systems that allow infectious diseases to run rampant in the population and cannot effectively manage cases of chronic treatable diseases have already failed the population and entrance of COVID-19 further adds to the overall stress on the health systems. Instead of diverting resources to COVID-19, shoring up health systems to make them more effective in saving lives will result in improved health outcomes regardless of the pandemic ravaging at any time. ***** About the author: Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo teaches Public Health courses at William & Mary. She has a PhD in Epidemiology with a minor in Immunology from Cornell University received in 1996. She has published a memoir and a textbook on Global Public Health.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 39

COVID-19 ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE, FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS MUST ADJUST

BY YU AMY XIA AND GILLIAN DOBY

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in supply chain adjustments on a global scale that may result in long-term alterations across industries. These adjustments are the result of rapid and significant supply chain changes on the sides of both supply and demand. On the supply side, companies continue to face labor shortages, supply interruptions, transportation disruptions, and other restrictions. On the demand side, consumers are showing panic purchasing patterns and there has been significant growth in electronic orders.

40 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

It is especially important to have strategies in place for food supply chains to survive and recover from the pandemic for several reasons.

First, food supply chains have been particularly shocked by supply and demand changes during the pandemic. Second, the frequency and necessity with which consumers purchase food makes it an essential industry for the stability of society. Third, safeguarding food security is a significant humanitarian driver. In this paper, we analyze the challenges of food supply chain and propose a multi-component strategy to deal with its recovery from the pandemic.

Challenges and Opportunities for Food Supply Chains The pandemic will continue. The COVID-19 pandemic is projected to last between 18 and 24 months, with larger waves of infection yet to come. It is, therefore, important for both consumers and suppliers to plan for the continuing effects of COVID-19 on different areas of supply, demand, and the overall economy. The recovery will be a long process even once the outbreak has been contained and we may never be able to fully return to the pre-COVID-19 operations. In fact, we foresee a “W� shaped recovery with waves of supply chain disruptions as supply and demand adjust following the outbreak. As such, we need to not only handle the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in the short term, but also have mid-term and long-term strategies to prepare and succeed while the market gradually reaches the new equilibrium.

Food supply chains are particularly challenging. Food supply chains have faced a variety of challenges over the course of the COVID-19 outbreak, limiting their overall operations. In addition to underutilized supply chains resulting from restaurant and hotel shutdowns, transportation disruptions have arisen from attempts to reduce potential infection points. These include efforts made to limit the number of truck drivers in one vehicle and restricted cross-border activities, which not only reduce the speed and but also limit the quantity of food transportation.

Despite these challenges, several opportunities have appeared in three areas: the accelerating shift to online ordering, the change in consumer loyalty, and the switch to local replenishment. Since the pandemic stresses the importance of health and safety, online ordering presents an increasing appeal to consumers in addition to the convenience it offers. The change in consumer loyalty is a valuable opportunity for brands who can guarantee product availability after consumers have faced many stockouts. Finally, local replenishment is a way to reach consumers using shorter supply channels with fewer failure points. Localization will also avoid potential complications with long distance transportation and unstable international trade DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 41

policies. Companies that take advantage of these opportunities will likely be in stronger positions following the pandemic.

Our Proposed Strategy To handle the challenges presented by the outbreak and take advantage of the opportunities, we propose a four-component strategy focusing on improving supply chain Robustness, Agility, Technology, and Electronic ordering, or, in short, the RATE strategy to deal with food supply chain recovery from the pandemic.

Robustness: Maintenance of a comprehensive supply network for each category of food is needed to meet customer demand during the pandemic. An updated sourcing system should be built to construct a product profile with multiple suppliers and resources utilizing global, long distance, and local productions within each category.

Thus, the supply network is robust enough to handle and adapt to sudden changes without stockouts. This is particularly important for the staple food items such as rice, pasta, flour, and canned foods.

Stockouts of these items can cause consumer panic and severely impact customer service level, resulting in the loss of customers in the long-term.

Agility: Food supply chains will have to deal with changes to methods, locations, and services in addition to demand frustrations as consumers determine their new needs for food consumption and demand. Supply agility is essential in response to the dynamics of demand and supply. In order to enhance agility, companies need to frequently check their order profiles and inventory levels and follow the waves of demand to adjust them. Additionally, supply channels should be shortened to include more small quantity local orders.

Technology: Data-based analytic models should be adopted to analyze supply and demand risks and to follow the demand dynamic.

Technologies such as machine learning and AI systems can be used in this context. In risky operations with threats to worker safety, robots can be used to replace human labor to maintain stable and sanitized operations. In practice, meat packing companies such as Tyson Foods have already invested in robotic butchers to reduce the required manual labor for their products. They are now focused on advancing the technology and transitioning quickly for worker safety during and after the pandemic. Additionally, as food supply chains expand and update to increase agility and robustness, blockchain technology connected with Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to enhance security in tracking material flow and quickly build trust with smaller and newer suppliers.

42 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

Electronic ordering: Food supply chains should take advantage of the accelerating shift towards electronic ordering by expanding the capacity and range of products available for online order and delivery. Apps should be re-designed and updated to enhance functionality and convenience. For example, the Walmart App is connected with Walmart’s online grocery service to ensure timely and convenient pickup services. Additionally, we have seen partnerships adding delivery services to on-site operations, such as the Costco and Instacart partnership, that can quickly and efficiently meet the personalized demand of customers. Electronic ordering is likely a continuing trend in food distribution. Every entity of the food supply chain will be responsible for innovatively coping with this development.

Although the COVID-19 outbreak has caused widespread changes in supply chain operations, the disruptions also bring an opportunity for companies to develop a robust, convenient, and direct-to-consumer supply network that can cope and thrive with market dynamics in the long run. Food supply chains with a deliberate strategy can meet the fluctuations during the COVID-19 pandemic and flourish after the long recovery. ***** About the authors: Yu Amy Xia is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics at Mason School of Business, William & Mary. She is currently a Dean’s Research Fellow of Mason and a Mellon Faculty Fellow. Her recent research interests include supply chain management, sourcing planning, risk management, and blockchain technology.

Gillian Doby is a 2021 MBA Candidate specializing in supply chain management at Mason School of Business, William & Mary. Ms. Doby has a background in supply chain management and data visualization for humanitarian organizations. She has worked on data improvement projects for the World Food Program’s logistics unit with a focus on writing reports and building dashboards to track project progress.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 43

LGBTIQ RIGHTS AND INTERSECTIONAL JUSTICE DURING COVID-19

BY REBECCA FARBER

A

s governments roll out social and economic plans to instantiate a “New Normal” during the COVID-19 pandemic, advocacy groups have asserted that country-level responses must include measures to protect marginalized groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people. Worldwide, LGBTIQ people already face high rates of violence, economic precarity, workplace discrimination, structural barriers to healthcare, and everyday stigma. LGBTIQ people are also not a monolithic group, and their issues intersect 44 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

with other social identities, such as race, immigration status, social class, and geopolitical location. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has released guidance for countries on maintaining essential health services in the context of COVID-19, there is no mention of the specific needs of LGBTIQ people. Nor have the World Bank or public health responses explicated LGBTIQ people in prominent reports on gender and reproductive justice, respectively, during the COVID-19 pandemic. What precarities arise for LGBTIQ people amidst a global recession and pandemic, as employment opportunities collapse and healthcare resources and needs transform? And how can governments protect LGBTIQ people from vulnerabilities exacerbated during this, and any future, pandemic?

In some countries, violence and stigma against LGBTIQ people have increased amidst COVID-19, as LGBTIQ people might be blamed by religious and government leaders for the pandemic, a trend that also emerged with Ebola and HIV/AIDS. During lockdown, some LGBTIQ people have been unequally targeted and brutalized by police for curfew violations. These trends map on to a broader history of police brutality against LGBTIQ people, especially those of color. In fact, Global Pride incorporated Black Lives Matter messaging into its events this year. Governments must stop scapegoating and instead monitor and ensure the protection of LGBTIQ people’s human rights by condemning such hate and violence.

LGBTIQ people have also experienced gaps in access to essential medical and psychosocial services, as clinics reach capacity, HIV/ AIDS testing is reduced, and vital support groups can no longer safely meet in person. Disruptions in supply chains may cause barriers and create shortages for people accessing hormones, antiretroviral medications, condoms, and other essential medicine. Gaps in health services are also compounded by social factors such as immigration status and health insurance access. National policies currently differ on whether people living with HIV/AIDS can receive longer supplies of antiretrovirals in order to avoid interruptions and minimize trips to the pharmacy. LGBTIQ people may also face greater risk factors and vulnerabilities related to COVID-19, especially with higher tobacco use and disproportionate rates of HIV/AIDS. These intersections have yet to be tracked, measured, or fully understood.

Transition-related medical care, including access to hormones and surgical aftercare, must not be deprioritized, cut, or scaled down during the pandemic. These services are not cosmetic, aesthetic, or auxiliary, but are a social determinant of health and should be demarcated as vital health services. Longer term, it is imperative that governments prioritize free public healthcare and social protections, devoting particular attention to the needs of LGBTIQ people. Even in DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 45

countries such as Thailand—which serves as a model for universal healthcare and is home to a prominent population of transgender people—gender-affirming services are not yet included in government insurance. A gender-inclusive COVID-19 response necessitates that governments ensure that LGBTIQ people have access to clinically- and culturally-competent healthcare during and after the pandemic.

In addition, LGBTIQ people without permanent employment, or those who are engaged in the informal sector, may suffer from economic precarity and homelessness during COVID-19. Sex workers, who already face marginalization and stigma, are especially impacted by lockdown measures with the loss of the social infrastructure upon which their livelihoods depend. As a result, they may struggle to afford basic needs, while also experiencing greater surveillance and violence from police authorities. Governments must prioritize paid sick leave, unemployment benefits, and expand discussion and consideration of Universal Basic Income to account for workplace discrimination and economic vulnerabilities that LGBTIQ people and sex workers already face.

There is also much we do not know about the needs of LGBTIQ people amidst COVID-19 simply because population data are not collected by governments or other social institutions. When LGBTIQ people are not named in, included in, or disaggregated from data and reports, resources and funding cannot be suitably or appropriately allocated for disease prevention, treatment, or other social programs. While critical feminists and global health scholars have called attention to the pitfalls and politics embedded in population data, a lack of scientific evidence and data can also hinder clinical encounters, health outcomes, and resource distribution for LGBTIQ people.

In targeting the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on sex and gender, approaches that only name “women, girls, and vulnerable populations” collapse and elide LGBTIQ people without addressing their specific issues. Such an exclusion is incongruous and in conflict with the stated goals of “monitoring and addressing the inequitable gender, health, and social effects of COVID-19.” As the WHO also makes clear that it is necessary to “[a]ddress the particular needs of marginalized populations, such as indigenous peoples, migrants and refugees, sex workers and the homeless, among others,” the failure to include and directly address the needs of LGBTIQ people is a glaring omission.

Health activists, civil society, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have attempted to fill the gaps, producing their own rapidresponse surveys and data, while LGBTIQ people themselves strate46 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

gically create their own networks and share information with each other. NGOs worldwide continue to gather research, build programs, and distribute vital resources and services for LGBTIQ people—often in the absence of governmental and global institutional supports. Yet addressing such intersecting issues will involve more resources than what these groups and individuals can sustainably provide.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes not only the vast injustices, violence, and invisibilities that LGBTIQ people face worldwide, but also the great potential to reach out and collaborate, organizing social structures that include people across a range of social identities.

Despite the World Bank focusing only on “women and girls” in its COVID-19 gender policy brief, it has begun to address LGBTIQ marginalization in other resources; this focus is important to incorporate in other documents and assessments. Similarly, the United Nations Human Rights office has started to identify health and humanitarian policies for LGBTIQ people. It is necessary to include LGBTIQ people in mainstream research and advocacy, and collect and disaggregate data based on sex, gender, and sexuality in order to identify and create targeted interventions.

It is past due time that institutions and stakeholders name and explicate the specific needs of people made vulnerable during COVID-19; this includes asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, precarious workers, the elderly, indigenous groups, those with disabilities, and LGBTIQ people. To center sexual health and gender justice during and after COVID-19, governments and global institutions must devote more resources to address LGBTIQ people’s intersecting vulnerabilities and precarities. This focus will clarify the systemic gaps that threaten the human rights of all people, strengthening our multisectoral approaches to global justice and building a stronger social fabric for everyone. ***** About the author: Dr. Rebecca Farber is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at William & Mary. Her research examines the intersections of globalization, gender, health, and labor. She has focused on how the growth of medical tourism, or health-related travel, in Thailand rearticulates and reconstructs the lives of local people, particularly Thai transgender women, in complex new ways.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 47

TOWARD A RURAL RENAISSANCE IN THE POST-COVID ERA

BY KAREN ROLLINS JACKSON

S

eemingly invincible institutions are finally being forced out of their comfort zones and, as a matter of survival, breaking with arcane traditions and pedagogy by institutionalizing models and technology platforms previously eschewed. The difference this time is COVID-19 has forced these institutions to rip off the bandaid and adopt telework, telemedicine, and distance learning.

This time they cannot accommodate the normal scaling, piloting, or eventual roll back when technologies did not work as planned or were too hard to use. We have all seen it before, but this time, even the most imperfect deployment, implementation, or adoption models are being driven forward with gusto.

There is no doubt that the rate of change precipitated by the onset of COVID-19 has been unmatched by any other single economic event in recent history. However, if you take a look back at previous periods of significant economic shift, the Industrial Revolution of the late-1700s exhibited (albeit over a much longer time span) many of the same core characteristics of the COVID-shift we are experiencing today. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, work models and, consequently, societal patterns morphed. What had historically been an agrarian economy that placed a premium on personal space, individualism, self-reliance, and agricultural activities as the primary income source was transformed into a more fastpaced lifestyle marked by a massive societal shift of urbanization (that eventually led to overcrowding) so people could work in factories. These industries were fueled by technologies and machinery that stripped away the uniqueness and quality of hand-manufactured products and replaced them with standardized and mass produced goods that have remained a mainstay of the modern economy.

In both the Industrial Revolution and the COVID shift, technology played a central role. The injection and adoption of auDIPLOMATIC COURIER | 49

tomated platforms and processes into otherwise traditional markets and established protocols has enabled, and in some cases driven opportunities for efficiencies and a redefinition of workforce composition. This technological change has also required new skills that have led to the reevaluation and realignment of educational requirements and delivery options.

New entrepreneurial opportunities will emerge as markets are redefined and consumer expectations create the demand for new products and services.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, necessity has proven the viability of remote work so convincingly that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Shopify have already announced that an increasing number of their positions will permanently become remote. And it is not just the employers who are interested. On the Indeed platform alone, searches for remote work opportunities have doubled.

Assuming the social implications follow new norms as they have in the past, rural and urban areas alike are on a precipice. Rural areas see a potentially unparalleled recovery driven by remote work opportunities and a modified return to a pre-industrial agrarian lifestyle. Urban areas face a future marked by unpredictable levels of outmigration due to reduced dependency on proximity and corporate offices. Neither areas can afford to falter in their response, nor are they truly prepared to face the challenge. Ensuring this future will require mustering the resources appropriately and effectively to overcome the remaining technological challenges facing rural areas such as affordable broadband connectivity.

If there is a bright spot to be found in the COVID-19 story, it is that a foundation has been laid for a rural renaissance.

As a result of shifting societal norms, we might just be able to fundamentally pivot the future of rural communities that have been plagued by outmigration and exclusion from significant economic development activity for decades. Geographic boundaries have essentially been erased, employers and employees alike are embracing new work models that allow job functions to be done remotely. Technologies exist to facilitate this new norm and quality of life has been widely redefined using characteristics that are uniquely suited to rural communities. Although COVID-19 may appear the perfect storm, there are opportunities as well. The question is, will rural areas take shelter from the storm or dance in the economic rain? ***** 50 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

About the author: Karen Rollins Jackson is President of Apogee Strategic Partners, LLC and currently serving as Interim Executive Director of New College Institute in Martinsville, VA. She served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology from 2014 to 2018, where she was the senior advisor for cutting edge industries including cyber, autonomous systems, and smart communities.

DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 51

NAVIGATING MARITIME GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES AND THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

BY IAN M. RALBY

A

t the best of times, most people pay almost no attention to the maritime domain, but these are not the best of times. While travel for the global population has been restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic, maritime commerce has continued to flow.

The maxim, “no shipping, no shopping” continues to hold true, even while the dynamics of commerce shift and shops move online. Despite the continued importance of maritime shipping, most “maritime” news the public is exposed to involves beaches 52 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

as hot spots for infectious spread and coverage of cruise ships stuck at sea with sick and dying passengers onboard. Yet the world’s oceans—which account for 90% of world trade, among other things—have been full of activity and, not surprisingly, new challenges. Changes in trade volume, routes, labor considerations, fishing access, sanctioned activity, and criminal dynamics have all contributed to increased complexity in the maritime domain during the pandemic. To handle this increased complexity and protect our increasingly fragile global economy, we need to reevaluate and adapt how we govern the maritime space.

Changes in Shipping Since the onset of the pandemic, there have been at least five significant changes to maritime shipping: a drop in trade volume due to a recession, route disruption as shipments that normally move as air cargo are transferred to ship, a decline in crude oil shipments concurrent with major increases in on-the-water oil storage caused by the drops in both demand and price, a growing number of vessel defaults and maritime bankruptcies, and a major problem with crew changes on vessels. As of mid-July 2020, the International Transport Federation estimated that 300,000 seafarers were stuck on ships at sea, unable to swap out with an additional 300,000 seafarers stuck on shore. Some ships have even been abandoned by their owners for financial reasons, leaving entire crews at sea without the means of getting to port. This deadlock, caused by pandemic-related travel restrictions, creates a serious vulnerability for global shipping as a humanitarian crisis looms on the water. That crisis, in turn, will disrupt the 90% of world trade that happens at sea, potentially precipitating humanitarian crises on land as well.

Changes in Development Beyond shipping, fish account for as much as 70% of dietary intake of animal protein in coastal communities, and, from an economic standpoint, fishing accounts for more than a quarter billion jobs worldwide. While large-scale commercial fishing can involve vessels that stay out at sea for months or even years, artisanal fishing—which is a major source of both food and livelihood for millions of people—involves regular returns to shore. During the pandemic, the global seafood supply chain has seen at least a 10% decline, but in many places “stay-athome” orders and prohibitions against inter-island transportation have effectively stopped artisanal fishing. This healthfocused measure therefore poses a major economic and food security challenge for coastal communities. Furthermore, the DIPLOMATIC COURIER | 53

“blue economy” boom of the last few years—focused on the sustainable, inclusive, and environmentally responsible portion of the wider maritime economy—has suffered disproportionately. On the one hand, the marine environment has seen noticeable improvement from decreased activities, but on the other hand, these more localized development economies lack the resilience to withstand the precipitous decline in opportunity.

The sudden absence of coastal tourism, combined with ongoing restrictions on activities, a major contraction in investment funds, and a general decline in the economy, creates a challenging picture for the prospects of maritime development.

Changes in Security On top of the setbacks to both shipping and maritime development, maritime insecurity is becoming a more noticeable problem. Recent months have seen a rise in high-profile flouting of sanctions in the maritime space. Coal and sand shipments in North Korea have garnered some attention, but the movement of fuel and goods between Iran and Venezuela has been among the more flagrant recent examples of sanctions busting. Given the political nature of these issues, a law enforcement effort by one country to interfere with such sanctioned activity could have blowback for the wider maritime industry, making for a challenging balance of considerations. At the same time, more traditional criminal activity appears to have also increased during the pandemic. Piracy and armed robbery at sea, particularly in Southeast Asia and the Gulf of Guinea, have spiked to record levels, involving record numbers of hostages. Additionally, drug trafficking remains a major issue, and while the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have had a number of high-profile drug busts in the Caribbean, drugs continue to move in high quantities around the world. Even in that space, though, the directional flow of drugs is changing as markets shift—drug busts in the Caribbean now also involve the movement of drugs coming from North America as well as from the south. Finally, with the reprioritization of needs, new commodities have entered the criminal marketplace. Smuggling and counterfeiting of personal protective equipment is an emerging criminal space that will need new attention.

The Need for Governance Addressing these new challenges in shipping, development, and maritime security will require renewed attention and likely new approaches to maritime governance. Only through effective, legally grounded mechanisms for securing and developing 54 | AFTER THE PANDEMIC

the maritime domain will states be able to exhibit the agility needed to cope with the evolution of the operating environment. No matter the context or the country, it is difficult to get the pantheon of maritime agencies to work together in a whole-of-government fashion to oversee the maritime domain.

To minimize the impact of the pandemic on the global economy and supply chains that are vital to everything from necessities to luxury goods, however, traditional governmental attitudes must be overcome.

Paradoxically, the current challenges may provide opportunities for innovation on maritime governance. The designation of certain agencies during the pandemic, such as the navy, as “essential,” while other agencies, like fisheries, remain home, makes maritime oversight impossible. How can the navy enforce fisheries violations if it cannot confirm whether a vessel is licensed because fisheries is closed? Creating “virtual interagency cells” for round-the-clock maritime governance could help create functional mechanisms for dealing with the pandemic that are repeatable, documentable, and fit to provide timely information to key decision-makers. Such cells, initiated under these difficult circumstances, could later be adapted for long-term resolutions of key interagency challenges. Similarly, new approaches to maritime domain awareness and incorporation of new technology could increase the odds of successful maritime interdiction and reduce concerns about wasted fuel and man hours. Even new approaches to regulatory and policy development, born of current urgency, could help diminish the detrimental impact of slow legislative processes in the future.

Regardless of the approach, all governments must recognize that the current maritime concerns—most notably the crewing challenges in the shipping industry—pose serious threats to the global economy and vital supply chains. Action must be taken to govern the maritime domain and thereby safeguard our reliance on commerce. Ultimately, our life on land, during and after this pandemic, requires good maritime governance. ***** About the author: Dr. Ian Ralby is CEO of I.R. Consilium, a family firm specializing in maritime and resource security. He spent three years as a Maritime Crime Expert for UNODC and four years at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. Dr. Ralby holds a JD from William & Mary and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

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CHRONICLING COVID-19 What the COVID-19 pandemic has done— as most crises do—is magnify socio-economic inequities. It’s no news that we live in an age of paradoxes: we produce enough food to feed the entire world, but people still go to bed hungry. Healthcare innovators are extending our lifespan, but people still die from preventable diseases. Online education has never been more robust and abundant, but it remains inaccessible to those without a device or data plan. At all levels, this pandemic is testing what kind of a society we want to be. “Life After the Pandemic” is an anthology of essays that chronicle our society’s response to the challenges exposed so that we don’t just go “back to normal” but back to better.

In this fourth volume, we focused on governance strategies at play around the world. Where are the gaps? What can we learn from the successes and failures of our government and those around us? What does all this mean for the post-COVID-19 world? To answer these questions, we turned to our long-time collaborator William & Mary and the William & Mary Whole of Government Center of Excellence. www.diplomaticourier.com