Webinar: Covid-19 and the Emerging World Order

The recent outbreak of Covid-19 and the global powers’ actions and inactions ignited debates on the post-Covid-19 world order. While the current world order was already at a crossroads prior to the emergence of the pandemic partly due to the United States’ (US) retreat from international affairs, “America First” posture, and the rise of the rest (China in particular); US slow response during this global crisis has presented an opportunity for China to fill the leadership gap in the fight against the pandemic. This begs critical questions: Has the pandemic changed the world order? Has the US global influence further declined? How has Covid-19 changed China’s global position? In light of the pandemic, what is the future of globalisation? What is the role of the United Nations (UN) in the emerging global order? Will post-Covid-19 mark post-America world? Will African regional powers such as South Africa and Nigeria play a significant role in post-Covid-19 world order? This webinar was kicked off by Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg. Professor Alexander Broadbent chaired, and the speakers were: Our first speaker, Dr David Masondo, the Deputy Finance Minister for South Africa; Dr Grant Harris, the Chief Executive Officer at Harris Africa Partners LLC, Adjunct Professor of Global Management at Kellogg School of Management, Lecturer at University of California Berkeley, in the US; Professor Dong Wang, the Executive Director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Peking University, China, and Dr Oluwaseun Tella, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at the University of Johannesburg.