Global Order - A Podcast

Pandemics do not affect everyone equally. Who gets sick, who survives, who provides care, and whose needs are prioritized are shaped by the inequalities that already exist in society. Past and current Ebola outbreaks in Africa have made this painfully clear, with women bearing a disproportionate share of deaths, caregiving responsibilities, and economic and social disruption.

Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng just concluded her time as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. She joins us for a conversation about Ebola through an intersectional and human rights lens. We explore how gender, race, poverty, disability, and political and socioeconomic conditions are shaping vulnerability during infectious disease outbreaks and the often-overlooked role of women and community caregivers in pandemic response.

If pandemic vulnerability is shaped by inequality, what would it take to build pandemic responses that protect not only populations, but also the people who are most often left behind?

Global Order is a project of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, hosted by Dr. Matthew Kavanagh. Global Order is produced by The Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng Network. Our producers are Pheello Mofokeng and Herriet Hita. Content was researched and produced by Sanjana Mukherjee, Anmol Mathur, and Rhea Shetty. Kgomotso Mashego does our graphics and Oliver Aplin is our communications manager.

You can find out more at https://ghpp.georgetown.edu/globalorder/

We are living in an age of polycrisis, where pandemics, climate change, conflict, and widening inequality are converging to undermine collective well-being and societal resilience. Yet the systems of multilateral cooperation and global governance designed to help us navigate these crises are increasingly struggling to deliver.

COVID-19 exposed just how fragile these systems are. The world developed vaccines in record time, but failed to ensure equitable access. Institutions mobilized, but too slowly. And years later, countries are still negotiating the rules that will govern the next pandemic.

Helen Clark is the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She joins us for a conversation about the state of global governance of pandemics, what COVID-19 revealed about the global governance systems, the future of the global pandemic architecture, the contentious negotiations over the Pandemic Agreement, and how inequality shapes our vulnerability to pandemics.

At a moment of deep geopolitical fragmentation, can multilateralism still deliver when the next crisis arrives?

Global Order is a project of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, hosted by Dr. Matthew Kavanagh. Global Order is produced by The Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng Network. Our producers are Pheello Mofokeng and Herriet Hita. Content was researched and produced by Sanjana Mukherjee, Anmol Mathur, and Rhea Shetty. Kgomotso Mashego does our graphics and Oliver Aplin is our communications manager.

You can find out more at https://ghpp.georgetown.edu/globalorder/

The numbers are stark. Nearly a quarter of the world's nations are sliding toward authoritarian rule and autocracies now outnumber democracies. This has serious implications for the health and wellbeing of people across the planet. At the same time for forty years, even as elections spread across the globe, more and more of the decisions that actually shape lives were lifted out of democratic reach.

In this moment of global disruption, it seems these forces matter--they are reshaping the health of people today and the policy options available.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS, former head of Oxfam International, and a long-time democracy activist. She joints us to reflect on democracy, health, inequality, and power drawing from her experience in Uganda’s pro-democracy struggle to her work leading the global response to HIV/AIDS. We discuss how political systems shape health outcomes, what happens when wealth and political power become concentrated in the hands of a few, and whether the international system itself needs to be democratized.

Global Order is a project of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, hosted by Dr. Matthew Kavanagh. Global Order is produced by The Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng Network. Our producers are Pheello Mofokeng and Harriet Hita. Content was researched and produced by Sanjana Mukherjee, Anmol Mathur, and Rhea Shetty. Kgomotso Mashego does our graphics and Oliver Aplin is our communications manager.

You can find out more at https://ghpp.georgetown.edu/globalorder/

The numbers are stark. Nearly a quarter of the world's nations are sliding toward authoritarian rule and autocracies now outnumber democracies. This has serious implications for the health and wellbeing of people across the planet. At the same time for forty years, even as elections spread across the globe, more and more of the decisions that actually shape lives were lifted out of democratic reach.

In this moment of global disruption, it seems these forces matter--they are reshaping the health of people today and the policy options available.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS, former head of Oxfam International, and a long-time democracy activist. She joints us to reflect on democracy, health, inequality, and power drawing from her experience in Uganda’s pro-democracy struggle to her work leading the global response to HIV/AIDS. We discuss how political systems shape health outcomes, what happens when wealth and political power become concentrated in the hands of a few, and whether the international system itself needs to be democratized.

Global Order is a project of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, hosted by Dr. Matthew Kavanagh. Global Order is produced by The Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng Network. Our producers are Pheello Mofokeng and Herriet Hita. Content was researched and produced by Sanjana Mukherjee, Anmol Mathur, and Rhea Shetty. Kgomotso Mashego does our graphics and Oliver Aplin is our communications manager.

You can find out more at https://ghpp.georgetown.edu/globalorder/

The rules that governed geopolitics for eighty years are unraveling, and what replaces them will decide the health and wellbeing of people around the world. Global Order, from Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, brings host Professor Matthew Kavanagh together with the people working to shape what comes next, on health, power, and the systems that govern life and death.