From East to West, North to South: decoding of the Covid-19 global crisis by IFGR experts

Launched three weeks ago, our logbook “COVID-19: the latest news of the world” offers this week the crossed views of four of our experts for an analysis of the impacts and treatment of the crisis, from Asia to Europe, from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere.

This week, our logbook is enriched by four new contributions that question the capacity of countries to deal with the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and their differentiated responses. Nevertheless, the world that comes after will only be resilient if there is a new international solidarity to respond collectively to the global challenges of health, water, climate and the environment.

• Hamed Semega, High Commissioner of OMVS (Organisme de Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Sénégal), presents the first measures taken within its basin organization to face the crisis, both organizational and financial, and shares his fears about a global recession.
• Bernd Gundermann, architect and urban planner, gives us his point of view from New Zealand on both the use made of statistics and the risk that the state of emergency will become the new normality, within our democratic societies.

How our societies will leap forward after this feverish disruption? Just bouncing back shouldn’t be really an option. Mainstream politicians and many pragmatic folks might prefer this. However, they should consider that the pre-corona Pascal Bourdeaux, historian, specialist in South-East Asian religions, analyses the elements of comparison between the Asian (China, but also Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam) and European (European Union) situations and, as an extension, the representations that one makes of these situations. In his view, our complex societies are still vulnerable and it is in our interest to learn from each other.

• Pascal Bourdeaux, historian, specialist in South-East Asian religions, analyses the elements of comparison between the Asian (China, but also Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam) and European (European Union) situations and, as an extension, the representations that one makes of these situations. In his view, our complex societies are still vulnerable and it is in our interest to learn from each other.

Posters from Italy and Vietnam

• Mirdad Kazanji, Director of the Institut Pasteur of French Guyana, is helping us to better understand the conditions necessary for lifting the lockdown and which vaccines could be found. The global momentum in vaccine research is unprecedented, he says, and can give rise to much hope, even if the time for research cannot be matched by the time for social expectations.

Find all these contributions on our dedicated space “Covid-19: latest news from around the world as seen by IFGR”.

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