The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is changing the world drastically. The crisis has turned into an unbelievable loss of human lives and millions of people are being infected every day. Governments are putting their utmost efforts to control the pandemic; and global pharmaceutical companies as well as scientists are in the research mode to develop COVID-19 vaccine. At the same time, pandemic is leading world towards financial slowdown and international financial institutions such as Asian Development Bank (ADB) have estimated global cost of pandemic could range from USD 2.0 trillion to $ 4.1 trillion; equivalent loss of between 2.3 to 4.8 percent of global GDP. Nepal is acutely feeling the brunt.

The Covid-19 pandemic has indicated an unprecedented change in the balance of world order—first of a state’s capacity, its limitations and priority and the second of the collapse of America-led world order. Regional Alliances like NATO, EU, ASEAN, SAARC etc have become almost irrelevant in Covid-19 humanitarian cooperation.

Many countries have implemented lockdown hoping to reverse epidemic growth by decreasing infection numbers to low levels by social distancing the entire population as coronavirus continues to spread globally. As a result, the global economy faces the worst recession since the Great Depression. This has come about because of the overtly hierarchical bureaucratic structures of the World Health Organization (WHO) and most governments around the world are not designed to be agile and responsive to tackle a global pandemic such as COVID-19. There is no denying that the pandemic has exposed a crisis of global governance. Maybe now is the right time to reimagine governance for the hyper globalized, overpopulated, and digitalized world of the 21st century.

KATHMANDU, April 29: As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, the number of women unable to access family planning, facing unintended pregnancies, gender-based violence, and other harmful practices could skyrocket by millions of cases in the months ahead, according to data released by the UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency recently.