Contributor(s): Gordon Brown | Join us to hear from United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaking about his new book. When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe in 2020, it created an unprecedented impact, greater than the aftermath of 9/11 or the global financial crisis. But out of such disruption can come a new way of thinking, and in this new book Gordon Brown offers his solutions to the challenges we face in 2021 and beyond.

In the book, he states that there are seven major global problems we must address: global health; climate change and environmental damage; nuclear proliferation; global financial instability; the humanitarian crisis and global poverty; the barriers to education and opportunity; and global inequality and its biggest manifestation, global tax havens. Each one presents an immense challenge that requires an urgent global response and solution. All should be on the world’s agenda today. None can be solved by one nation acting on its own, but all can be addressed if we work together as a global community.

You can order the book, Seven Ways to Change the World, (UK delivery only) from our official LSE Events independent book shop, Pages of Hackney.

Meet our speaker and chair

Gordon Brown (@GordonBrown) is the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is Chair of the Global Strategic Infrastructure Initiative of the World Economic Forum and also serves as Distinguished Global Leader in Residence of New York University. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010.

Minouche Shafik is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to this, she was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. She is an alumna of LSE.

More about this event

The LSE School of Public Policy (@LSEPublicPolicy) equips its students with the skills and ideas needed to transform people and societies. It is an international community where ideas and practice meet. The School's approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance.

This event forms part of LSE’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative, a series of debates about the direction the world could and should be taking after the crisis.

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSECOVID19