Amanda Casanova |March 27, 2020
A former United Kingdom prime minister is asking world leaders to consider creating a temporary global government to help manage the coronavirus pandemic.
Gordon Brown, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2010, said he hopes world leaders, health experts and other international leaders can work together on a response to the pandemic, The Guardian reports.
“This is not something that can be dealt with in one country,” he said. “There has to be a coordinated global response.”
Saudi Arabia has since hosted a virtual meeting of the G20 group of developed and developing countries. Brown, however, said the meeting should also include the U.N. security council.
In the meeting, G20 leaders promised to do “whatever it takes” to combat the economic and social damage from the coronavirus pandemic.
Brown was a central part in dealing with the 2008 global recession. Brown approved a bank rescue package for the U.K. and other economic measures to help with the recession.
“That was an economic problem that had economic causes and had an economic solution.
“This is first and foremost a medical emergency and there has to be joint action to deal with that,” he said of the pandemic. “But the more you intervene to deal with the medical emergency, the more you put economies at risk.”
Brown said a coordinated global effort would be able to develop a vaccine and to organize production, purchasing and profiteering.
“We need some sort of working executive,” Brown said. “If I were doing it again, I would make the G20 a broader organization because in the current circumstances you need to listen to the countries that are most affected, the countries that are making a difference and countries where there is the potential for a massive number of people to be affected – such as those in Africa.”