Six months on, the COVID-19 pandemic is still exposing and widening deep fault lines in the global economy, public healthcare system and many other areas of human lives. If change is inevitable in a post-pandemic world, then how should the world change for the better? What are some lessons that the world needs to learn on its way to recovery?
On 19 August 2020, in The HEAD Foundation’s latest webinar in the “COVID-19 What Next…?” series, three international experts – World Bank Group’s economist Dr Mari Pangestu, infectious diseases expert Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman and Singapore’s former diplomat Prof Kishore Mahbubani – unravelled the multi-faceted challenges in rebuilding a better post-Covid-19 world and suggested some important measures to mitigate them. This session was hosted and moderated by Prof Tikki Pangestu, a Visiting Professor at the NUS’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to afflict lives, widen inequality and upend global supply chains, policymakers face a tall order to balance lives, livelihoods and social sustainability all at once. But amidst these challenges, the neglect for multilateral cooperation by country leaders has increasingly become another crisis in itself. In the webinar, the panellists weighed in on the implications of the prioritisation of economic interests over human lives and geopolitical tensions on the effort to contain the pandemic. Their message is clear – we are all in this together and only by helping one another can we set ourselves on a path to sustainable recovery.
The webinar presented many more inspiring ideas and interdisciplinary exchanges among the three experts, as well as their responses to the questions posed by the audience. We invite you to watch the full recording of the webinar to learn more.
The HEAD Foundation sincerely thanks the webinar panellists and attendees from 19 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Switzerland, UK, USA and Singapore, for your support and participation.
