US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.
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GENEVA – No event since World War II’s end has had as profound a global impact as COVID-19. The pandemic has triggered a public health and economic crisis on a scale unseen in generations and has exacerbated systemic problems such as inequality and great-power posturing.
The only acceptable response to such a crisis is to pursue a “Great Reset” of our economies, politics, and societies. Indeed, this is a moment to re-evaluate the sacred cows of the pre-pandemic system, but also to defend certain long-held values. The task we face is to preserve the accomplishments of the past 75 years in a more sustainable form.
In the decades after WWII, the world made unprecedented strides toward eradicating poverty, reducing childhood mortality, increasing life expectancy, and expanding literacy. Today, international cooperation and trade, which drove the post-war improvement in these and many other measures of human progress, must be maintained and defended against renewed skepticism of their merits.
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