1. Faculty of Social Sciences
  2. School of Politics and International Studies
  3. Research and expertise
  4. Impact and engagement
  5. Global pandemic response (COVID-19)

Global pandemic response (COVID-19)

Image of Coronavirus cells

Professor Garrett Brown sits on the UK Cabinet Office COVID-19 Response Roundtable, which examines key priorities regarding the economy, health and international relations. As part of this roundtable Professor Brown is asked to comment on a series of 6 month and 24 month scenarios so as to offer evidence and expert advice. These insights are subsequently included in a series of reports for Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister

Professor Brown also works with the WHO Director of Evidence and Analytics for Health Security (EHS), which is operational arm of the WHO’s new Health Security Preparedness programme, and which has drawn on Brown’s research (BMJ) to help underwrite the new ‘Health Systems for Health Security’ framework currently being developed at the WHO.

Scholars from across the Centre for Global Security Challenges and the Centre for Global Development submitted  written evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee's inquiry, ‘Global health security’, in December 2020. Their report highlights the need for global leadership and a well-resourced global health system at all levels.

Dr Owain Williams worked with Jubilee Australia to produce a report exploring the impact of COVID-19 on Indonesia and Sri Lanka, detailing how the World Bank has historically been involved in pushing for increased privatisation in health care in these countries and how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a danger that the new loans made available by the Bank to assist in their response will bolster the support for the private health care sector, exacerbating the crumbling public systems and lowering the aspirations of universal health care. The report recommends: 1) a call for an end to IFC (the World Bank’s private lending arm) investment in private health care; 2)  detailed monitoring and surveillance of new World Bank loans made to the health care sector; and 3) a broader and more robust policy response to sovereign debt in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Dr Williams has also established the ‘COVID-19 Diaries’ as a community space for global public health scholars to record their lived experiences of the pandemic. Contributors include leading experts from around the world.