Global Impact Hubs
Description
Ann-Marie Slaughter:
"The problem is that great-power politics are locked in. Many folks in the U.S. government right now are more interested in standing up to China than they are in thinking about global survival.
The alternative is to look past all that and create what I call an “impact hub.” For example, let’s create a Gavi (the public-private partnership to increase global access to vaccines) for climate change. We have what we need to do it right: get the signatories of the Paris Agreement together, get funding, adopt standards, work those through mayors, governors and businesses as much as we possibly can and then ask smaller nation-states to get on board. Once that’s in place, China and the U.S. will face real pressure to join in.
With pandemics, it’s a little easier because we already have the World Health Organization as the nucleus of a potential impact hub, though it’s admittedly captured by the interests of powerful states. A group of WHO states might be able to pilot an impact hub focused specifically on preparing for and fighting pandemics.
With this alternative approach, we don’t wait for the big players — we just go do it, knowing that our younger folks are going to be with us. I’m not saying we should work against states — just that we should not necessarily start with them. Assume that governments are still important, but don’t wait for them. Let the great power rivalries play themselves out as they will; get the important work done other ways. I know that sounds naïve, but think about the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders or the Landmines Treaty — all begun and ultimately achieved by civic entrepreneurs who weren’t willing to wait."