Abstract
Joseph R. Biden was elected President of the United States during a period of compound crises for global health and security: the worst pandemic in a century, as well as steep reverses in progress toward reducing poverty, hunger, and disease. The United States has been in full retreat from global health leadership, fraying relationships with allies, weakening global institutions, and engaging in nationalist populism that threatens global cooperation to address worldwide challenges. Yet these tragic circumstances are also fertile soil for deep structural reforms. President Biden can both bolster the immediate responses to COVID-19 and its vast ramifications, and spearhead lasting changes to create a healthier and safer world, from which the United States would richly benefit. His immediate task will be to bring U.S. economic and scientific strength to the COVID-19 response in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO). The Biden administration should also assume financial and strategic leadership in bolstering world efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including its singular pledge to leave no one behind. Finally, President Biden should empower the WHO and lead on reforms to the global health architecture to advance the right to health.
Highlights
At a time when the United States is facing its own COVID-19 crisis, the agenda we propose for President Biden is ambitious
The spending linked to our proposals would be minute compared to the overall federal budget, much less the U.S economy
Our proposed global agenda could not be a more fitting way for the United States to demonstrate its full return to the international community, powerfully signaling to the people of the world, including those in the most precarious situations who are most in need of hope and a helping hand, that the United States is on their side
Summary
The United States has been in full retreat from global health leadership, fraying relationships with allies, weakening global institutions, and engaging in nationalist populism that threatens global cooperation to address worldwide challenges. These tragic circumstances are fertile soil for deep structural reforms. U.S global health leadership will open doors for cooperation on global challenges that themselves threaten the United States, from climate change and antimicrobial resistant organisms to cybersecurity. Such leadership should help the United States to gain allies for stopping the global advance of authoritarianism and the erosion of human rights. A Global Health Action Agenda for the Biden Administration, LANCET (Dec. 1, 2020)
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