This past year has been a lesson in the challenges of predicting. For the global development community, the best laid plans of the so-called “Decade of Action” had to be shelved as the coronavirus pandemic swamped every other issue.
Maybe this year will be no different. Nonetheless, it’s worth it to at least try to look ahead and see what may be coming in 2021 for global development leaders and practitioners alike. Here are seven things to look out for.
For poorer countries, a stark vaccine reality
The vaccine roll-out in high-income countries will quite literally be a shot in the arm. As advanced economies reach high levels of immunization — perhaps by mid-year — there will be collective euphoria. Restaurants, concert halls, and special events will be packed.
While it will feel much like the end of World War II in the rich world, in poorer countries the vaccine still won’t have reached most people by the end of 2021. There will be outbreaks and maybe even new variants of the virus.
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Worst of all, the inequalities we all recognize will be more viscerally felt as people the world over watch and wait for their vaccine shot. In some places, especially the middle-income countries of Latin America and South Asia hard-hit by the virus, this will become a deeply political issue. In Colombia and South Africa, it already is.
For those working in global health, the scramble to get vaccines to everyone — and the frustrating realities of fundraising and realpolitik — will be a lesson not soon forgotten. Much like the West African Ebola outbreak led to the creation of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, expect at least one new global health organization to be conceived this year.
Vaccine diplomacy will become a major 2021 theme. Global health leaders — call them diplomats this year — will be phoning capitals looking for extra doses to be released to COVAX or directly to particular countries in need. While they’re at it, at least one of China’s four vaccines may have achieved regulatory approvals allowing for global roll-out.
The global development Cold War could well extend to vaccines this year. China may even reach more people in Africa with COVID-19 vaccines than Western countries this year, which could be good news for patients but also fodder for pulling global health further into a great power conflict.
The slip in the SDGs will turn into a slide
For the first time, 2020 was a year in which progress on the Sustainable Development Goals slipped. Unfortunately the economic repercussions of the pandemic have yet to be fully realized and SDG indicators will likely suffer even more this year.
One key data point helps to tell the story: In low- and middle-income countries, there are 200 million tourism jobs that could be lost as a result of the pandemic. As vaccines get distributed in wealthy countries, people may begin to travel, but mostly domestically or to other countries that have high rates of vaccination.