The return of 'global public goods'

LONDON — As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdowns are accompanied by an unseasonably warm spring, the international nature of the challenges facing humanity could scarcely be more stark. Appropriately, then, the pandemic has coincided with a comeback into the public domain of a concept that first gained prominence in the ‘90s — that of “global public goods.” The phrase has been prominent at recent global development forums. During the European Commission’s COVID-19 pledging summit, it was used repeatedly by world leaders to insist on equitable access for any future coronavirus vaccine developed with their funding. At the launch of the World Health Organization’s Access to COVID-19 Tools, or ACT, Accelerator on April 24, U.N. chief António Guterres used the phrase four times in less than five minutes. And it was a common refrain at this week’s World Health Assembly. But what exactly are global public goods? And does the return of this term to the global development lexicon indicate a real change, or just popular rhetoric? The strict economic definition, often used by specialists, refers to goods that are “nonrival,” meaning they can be used by more than one party at the same time; “nonexcludable,” meaning it is hard to exclude people from accessing the good; and cover issues that are “transborder in nature,” according to the World Bank. That might include work on the prevention of climate change, for example. But often in the development world, the term has been used more generally, as a catch-all to describe a project or practice that is seen as beneficial for the planet, such as biodiversity or marine habitats. Researchers specializing in the field prefer to describe these as “global common goods” or “global functions.” “Pure global public goods are a very rare thing. Lots are more good for some people than others.” --— Charles Kenny, senior fellow, Center for Global Development Explanations vary on the rise of the term in development discourse. Jonathan Glennie, senior fellow at the Joep Lange Institute, cited the “transformation of ambition” represented by the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. The preceding international targets, the Millennium Development Goals, are often viewed as a narrower top-down approach, but the “wildly more ambitious” SDGs “transformed the way we think about development,” Glennie said. SDG 3 — which covers health and well-being for all — led to the creation of initiatives to fund global public goods, such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or the G20 Global Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Development Hub, according to Gavin Yamey, director at the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at the Duke Global Health Institute. “There has been a growing realization of the importance of those, which I expect will only be accelerated now with COVID-19,” he said. Others cite a more general realization of the planet’s interconnectedness and the need for shared solutions — and shared funding — for issues like climate change, environmental degradation, and pandemics. The idea of global public goods was first popularized by Inge Kaul, non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, who published a book on the topic in 1999. She told Devex that the best functioning examples of global public goods are the global postal system and international civil aviation. “You can go on a plane from London to Hong Kong and the staircase [to enter or exit the plane] fits … because the standardization, harmonization, language, and ethics is very strong,” she explained. Kaul put the success of these goods down to their beginnings as networks that slowly expanded, where “benefits are rather equally distributed” — but added that this is harder to achieve in systems controlled by a few strong powers. Making global public goods work for all Since global public goods are international in nature, they also require international governance to ensure states abide by agreements that create or protect them. Charles Kenny, senior fellow at CGD, cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and international law of the sea as examples, but added that governance systems to create and sustain global public goods are currently weak and lack universal incentives to fund and run. “Pure global public goods are a very rare thing,” Kenny said. “Lots are more good for some people than others.” A malaria vaccine, for example, would be more welcomed in malaria belt countries than in northern Europe, and a stable climate would be most beneficial to countries near the equator. “It makes the financing and governance more of a challenge [since] not everyone feels equally committed,” Kenny said. Supporting effective global public goods governance also requires states to surrender some of their sovereignty to international organizations. “The World Health Organization has done lots of useful things in the COVID [pandemic] … but it could have had an even more useful role with more power,” he noted. But Kenny acknowledged that empowering multilateral organizations in this way runs counter to the political mood in many powerful countries. Funding global public goods is another challenge. Glennie — who sees the return of global public goods as just one element of a broader development reform — highlighted that money would also need to go to middle-income countries, rather than just the very lowest-income countries. He cited the example of Ecuador asking the international community for money not to extract oil in a national park, but sufficient funding was not forthcoming and the drilling went ahead. Donors are “just not used to making that investment,” Glennie said. “There are no precedents for paying countries not to develop.” Yamey’s team’s research found “confirmation of … the cycle of panic and neglect in the financing of global public goods for health, particularly pandemics,” he said. The 2014-2016 Ebola crisis saw spending on research and development and pandemic preparedness rise, but it later fell. “The gap in funding global public goods was very starkly demonstrated during Ebola and it's starkly demonstrated right now — we don’t have a vaccine, we don’t have a cure … we need cheaper, faster [diagnostics],” he said. A new way forward? Even so, the pandemic may also have changed things. “Clearly there is a different reality now,” Yamey said, citing the EU pledging summit, which claimed to raise $8 billion for universal access to vaccines. Analysts are still verifying how much of that was new funding. “An environment in which you can raise a large amount of money quickly in a targeted way for global public goods suggests there is a clear realization of the need to fund global public goods,” Yamey said. Political leaders such as Emmanuel Macron talking of global public goods “matters enormously,” Yamey said, adding that he is cautiously optimistic about a collaborative international approach to any COVID-19 vaccine. “It is really powerful to hear world leaders say this should be a global public good … It sets the terms of debate,” he said. “Are those who refer to the vaccine as a ‘GPG’ actually willing to put their money where their mouth is?” --— Inge Kaul, non-resident fellow, Center for Global Development But Kaul is not so sure. “My prediction is all the talk of solidarity will end when we have a vaccine,” she said. A vaccine that is patented and privatized is not a global public good, she added, and would be a “very private way out [of the pandemic].” That highlights a risk with the return of global public goods to the development lexicon. If the concept is misused, it will lead to “disenchantment,” Kaul said. That was reflected in the recent call from Médecins Sans Frontières for collective and transparent governance of the ACT Accelerator, and for the international community to define how it would ensure its products will be global public goods. “It's now a language that conveys the notion of ‘we are all in the same boat.’ … It's an emotional, heartwarming language,” Kaul said. But "are those who refer to the vaccine as a ‘GPG’ actually willing to put their money where their mouth is: to provide the money needed to make the vaccine available for all? And for how long would they do that?” she asked. "I would be happy to see it happen,” she added. “But, to be on the safe side, I prefer to doubt the sincerity of the GPG statements and wonder whether those who use the term properly [understand] the magnitude of the challenge that needs to be tackled.”