International civil servants are not immune from coronavirus. Nor are they above exploiting the crisis for their own gain. Case in point: the statement issued by G-20 heads of state after their virtual meeting at the end of March.
G-20 leaders wanted to reassure the world that they are coordinating their countries’ responses to the deadly illness. Unfortunately, the statement also heavily promotes an expensive, inefficient and statist approach to taking on and defeating the virus – one that could waste valuable time.
There is no mistaking the government-centric approach of this bureaucracy-heavy plan. The World Health Organization is front and center, but the plan also ladles out an alphabet soup of other international organizations that feed at the public trough and are ever eager to proclaim their relevance.
The statement asks for taxpayer funds so that civil servants from international organizations as well as the individual G-20 countries can ” quickly work together and with stakeholders to close the financing gap in the (WHO’s) Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan. We further commit to provide immediate resources to the WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, on a voluntary basis.”
Completely ignored is the fact that the WHO has been heavily politicized and perhaps overly influenced by Beijing. Worse, the organization has already made a number of missteps in dealing with the pandemic. Intentionally or not, it has misled the public from the get-go.