Who runs the world?

CRISES CAN bring clarity. In the financial crisis of 2008-09, the G20 club of big economies came into its own, reflecting how economic power had spread beyond the rich world’s G7. One thing the covid-19 pandemic has laid bare is an absence of global leadership. This time the G20 has done little beyond a rhetorical pledge to “do whatever it takes” and supporting debt-repayment suspension for poor countries. America, which led global campaigns to defeat HIV/AIDS and Ebola, has been absorbed in its internal arguments. And the UN Security Council has confirmed its dysfunctionality.