In the words of Madeleine Albright
This piece was originally published on July 7, 2020 on LinkedIn.
There’s no denying the level of disruption that this pandemic has already created in our economies and societies. So why, asked Madeleine Albright in the latest session hosted by The Women’s Forum in partnership with The New York Times’ In Her Words, was the private sector not involved from the beginning? If we are going to start taking our global issues seriously in the contexts of Covid-19, climate change and Black Lives Matter riots — before, not after, they pose a serious risk — we have to ensure that our solution processes are holistic and inclusive from the start. This means involving the private sector and benefiting from their innovation, resources and research capacity. We have indeed proven to ourselves, more often than was necessary, that governments cannot act alone. Our global issues “know no borders”, said Albright, “And cooperation is essential.”
Within our borders, Albright noted, systemic change cannot occur without the rebuilding of trust. Authoritarian governments around the world are using the absence of it as an excuse to strengthen their hold, preying on pre-existing divisions and a breakdown in the social contract in times of crisis. Without national trust, there can be no international cooperation, and without the national respect of human rights and equal prioritisation of basic needs, how can we hope for a global recovery? Mussolini once said, ‘If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, no one notices.’ Well, said Albright, “There’s a lot of feather-plucking going on”, and we’re starting to notice.
Another thing we’ve noticed — a rather good thing, at that — is that countries, where the coronavirus was well controlled, are currently run by women. “Women have peripheral vision”, said Albright, and they tend to think about long-term consequences. These, among others, are capabilities that women (many more women) can bring to public service and to the private sector. It’s a gigantic waste of our human resources not to be involving women in the solution process. “I’m a groupie [when it comes to them],” said Albright, age 83. Clearly, though, she has more than a hippie dream in mind.
Watch the full video of Madeleine Albright speaking here.
