A discourse on how to address global crises

Covid-19 boosts informational interactions among governments, although constrained to the healthcare system. Moreover, proper information flow has been created among countries. These events were unprecedented in the past.

From another perspective, Covid-19 outbreak can be a savior (how?), if we look on the bright side. Acemoglu and Robinson in their book entitled " Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity, and poverty" (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012) examined success and failure factors of nations based on a historical study. The authors suggested that event(s) taking place at critical junctures can ignite the change/shift engine. Take, for instance, "the black death" (for details see: (Horrox, 2013)). It overturned the sociopolitical balance of Britain and even Europe (Platt, 2014, Hatcher and Present, 1994). Now, the Covid-19 outbreak could be that single event establishing the 21st-century transformation. So, it can be called the 21st-century blessing.

Strategic planning and management are required for a successful and smooth transition from this crisis. Although it is early to think of the post-corona world, and our priority still will be the transition from the Covid-19 crisis and its treatment, governments should prepare themselves for the future waves of Covid-19 or other pandemics. By preparation, we mean observing and managing the consequences of a pandemic and its effects on other areas. Those countries will survive the Covid-19 turmoil that, first of all, are able to take out loans, provide the required capital to maintain economic structure and secondly possess suitable infrastructure, appropriate population?distribution and trained manpower. Of course, all the countries do not possess the same potency. Other vital features for a successful transition from post-corona difficulties are: the change capacity and agility of the public administration system. It seems governments are facing two main challenges: (1) supply chain disruption which is the integral factor of economic recession and (2) demand for public health services. These two challenges will arise faster and require urgent actions. In this situation, it is predictable the parties with social approaches have a more promising future to attract votes. While political systems are concerned about the "reboot" scenario as an unfavorable and "disruptive" scenario. In this scenario, the government appears as the role of a manager, financial interests will be seen as the value in markets, and civil protests will be intensified. This scenario will be more probable by returning to the economic scene and shortening the quarantine period without any plans.

One of the first steps taken by governments was to quarantine citizens to shorten the pandemic outbreak chain and eventually its management time. But this strategy imposes severe economic consequences on countries, due to the closure of businesses and the unemployment benefits. Although enough information is not at hand, estimates based on simulations reveal that each infected person, in the absence of quarantine, can on average infect 2.6 people (the uncertainty ratio is estimated from 1.5 to 3.5) (Imai et al., 2020). So, there is no need to say that quarantine shrinks the outbreak rate.

Some lights should be shed on this point that adapting the quarantine strategy, besides its undeniable economic consequences, also leads to some social challenges, such as: (1) erosion of public trust in the healthcare system, and (2) and human rights violation due to severe and long-term quarantine (especially for the vulnerable sections of society). Take, for instance, the three-day quarantine in Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic in 2014 (Nossiter, 2014, Mark, 2014).

Although it seems that quarantine strategy is high-risk, in the medium term, the negative economic effects of severe quarantine outweigh the effects of its negligence. Let us assume that all the terms of strict quarantine have been adhered. Now governments must prepare themselves to get out of this situation. Unlike the beginning of quatrain which is better to be prompt and fast, the transition from quarantine should be carried out gradually (this point should be highlighted that in Wuhan about 5 million citizens, due to the delay in implementation of quick quarantine, had left the city before the quarantine began (Ratcliffe and Standaert, 2020)). In this regard, it is highly recommended that in time of reopening and resuming operations, priority should be given to industries which add more added value to the country’s GDP. For businesses which are able to handle their jobs remotely, it is still advisable to do so. Even a situation like this can be seen as an opportunity to move from traditional management to more sustainable management structures. It should be noted that the presence of staff requires the reopening of kindergartens and schools. In order to serve the working parents, these places can start off with limited reopening and follow a combination of virtual and face-to-face training. In the field of education, although the transition to e-learning and virtual learning has been a lifelong goal, fair access to appropriate technology (technology justice) is also an emerging challenge.

The spread of Covid-19 has brought the future a bit closer and has strengthened the need for change, especially from the technological perspective. The most important trends expected to be followed further are associated with Information Communication Technology (ICT) industries, these trends are: (1) artificial intelligence, (2) electronic commerce (e-commerce), (3) development of platform economic services, (4) augmented reality, and (5) infiltration of virtual currencies as a tool for transparency and policy-making.

As noted in the emerging trends, after the Covid-19 outbreak, supply chains play a vital role in managing the crisis, reducing the crisis period and strengthening the economy. But some evidence reveals the supply chains have also encountered challenges. In order to tackle these challenges, supply chain management and, from a broader perspective, the countries’ economy should prioritize three issues:

1-????Resilience: The control of power, flexibility, and return to optimal conditions

2-????Accountability: Fair and transparent dissemination of information at various levels for efficient crisis management

3-????Re-regulation: the ability to adapt to changes and adopt appropriate policies

In the post-Covid-19 era, the choice of a suitable supplier, apart from “offered prices”, will depend on other factors such as: the ability to change production capacity (to cope with demand fluctuations, especially in the healthcare system), the role and share of the supplier from competitive advantage and profit (in order to reduce the risk, and its spread along the chain) and supplier financial risk. Although Covid-19 is of no exception, and in the last few decades, we have witnessed that climate change, political tensions and other unpredictable incidents adversely affect the supply chain, it seems that Covid-19 effects are far more long-lasting and substantial, by considering its extensive economic consequences. By assuming the role of government as the leader in the post-Covid-19 management (the favorable scenario), it is advisable that financial institutions, which are dependent on governments or public sector investment, pay more attention to the upstream supply chain. As mentioned before, the supply chain is a network including raw materials to end-users. The downstream supply chain is closer to the end-users, and it offers products/services with a wide variety. Unlike downstream supply chain, upstream supply chain considers low variety, but high production volume (such as raw materials mines).

It can be shown that fluctuation in upstream can trigger a crisis in downstream (the butterfly effect), so controlling the production in the upstream is very essential. Therefore, governments can provide further stability and less risk along the supply chain through investment and monitoring upstream. And vice versa, creating a free market and competitiveness in the downstream can lead to customer satisfaction, quality improvement and development in the share of production and services from GDP.

The restoration of the post-Covid-19 future relies on how the governments will play their roles. In the favorable scenario, governments with the assistance of the financial system can provide the liquidity needed to overcome market tensions. This measure, if accompanied by a reduction in interest rates, can be effective (like the policies pursued by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union (Whittaker, 2020)). Furthermore, the government’s aid to emerging and small businesses can be a sustainable policy that contributes to returning to economic growth and controlling the unemployment rate in the long term. It can be estimated that most of the countries will end 2020 with negative economic growth, or at least, a decrease in global GDP in the first quarter of 2020 can be anticipated (OECD, 2020). During this period, resilience takes on a new meaning to itself, and it can be defined by its emphasis on the ability to manage and survive during the transition to achieve a favorable future.

It should be highlighted that most epidemiologists hold this notion that the Covid-19 pandemic will not be the last in its own kind (Adalja et al., 2019). Although this fact is as plain as a day, still it seems that there is no preparation to face it. One of the best ways to reduce the likelihood of such crises is to reconcile with nature and manage "sustainable development" (Hafezi et al., 2017). Humans need to change their worldview paradigm and renovate the damaged environment around them. Under such circumstances, in addition to elevation in the community quality of life, nations are less likely to witness the spread of zoonotic diseases.

To put everything in a nutshell, after the outbreak of Covid-19 nations have learned these:

(1)??According to evidence from the last decades, we need to show our respect, take responsibility for the environment and make peace with nature.

(2)??Science, technology, and economic development accelerated changes and increased market complexity. As a result, today's actions dramatically influence the future.

(3)??At the macro (i.e., international) level, humanity needs more cooperation, commitment, and shared (agreed) visions. Conflicts increase the risk of facing a global crisis and failure to manage it.

(4)??On the other hand, crises are game changers and can facilitate transitions toward a better future. The cost of change is lower during this period, however requires to manage and diligence.

(5)??The foresight process enables nations to create a shared vision and consensus. Foresight is open to the future and presents alternative images about plausible futures.

(6)??The economic crisis follows pandemics (as has been mentioned in this paper). Politicians must be prepared for economic shocks during pandemics. McKee and Stuckler proposed three sets of measures to facilitate economic recovery (McKee and Stuckler, 2020). The first set is “save lives”. The authors rejected the idea of a trade-off between losing lives and experiencing economic shocks. The second one is “protect financial risk”. Authors noted that financial risk management must be followed by governments to empower small and medium-sized businesses and prevent a recession from escalating into a full-blown depression. And, the last set is “prepare for recovery”. Financial crisis facilitates the emergence of profiteers (Nordstrom, 2004). Then it is needed to guarantee the future of businesses, especially to maintain specialized workforce and keep them updated in the era of knowledge-based economy. Klein claimed that in times of shocks, politicians may undermine labor, health, and environmental protection (Klein, 2007).

In the current paradigm in which countries will sacrifice the environment for economic growth in the race to rapidly rebuild their economy, concerns for the post-Covid-19 will continue to mount. While, in the favorable scenario, value creation is sought in sustainable development. This means deviation from a favorable scenario in order to achieve short-term goals is completely predictable. Although we have learned that the Covid-19 pandemic is controllable and manageable as time goes by, but no effort or commitment has been seen in the governments to eradicate the Covid-19 sources (at least till today). Maybe in the future, humanity will not be this fortunate to survive. Other crises have reared their ugly heads in the current century, and the most important one is climate change and its irreparable consequences sparked from lack of control. But, these crises, unlike Covid-19, bring gradual side effects, and that is why societies and governments pay less attention to them, especially when commitment to tackle them is accompanied by economic pressure.

Please find out our recently published paper entitled "Global scenarios under crises: the case of post COVID-19 era" in Foresight journal.

Note: Thanks to Pardis Asemi for her efforts and contributions to this research.