The Duke Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS), Rethinking Diplomacy Program is delighted to host a conversation with Dr. David Nabarro on “Balancing National Unity & Global Solidarity in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic(link is external),” next Thursday, May 28, 2020, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. EST on Zoom. This webinar is part of the Rethinking Diplomacy Program “Science-Diplomacy Seminar Series.”
Dr. Nabarro is a Special Envoy to the World Health Organization’s Director-General on COVID-19 and is helping coordinate the WHO global response to the pandemic. In 2017, David Nabarro was the UK candidate for the position of WHO Director-General. In his current position as a Special Envoy on COVID19, Dr. Nabarro has become a vocal ambassador for the cause of international coordination and multilateralism. “Not all the nations represented at the Assembly,” he wrote in a public letter last May 18 as the World Health Assembly was about to begin, “are implementing the COVID-19 containment policies that have been continuously advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO) since late January 2020.”
A medical doctor and professor of global health at the Imperial College in London, Dr. Nabarro is convinced that humanity will have to live with the threat of coronavirus for the foreseeable future, and only a coordinated global effort founded on partnership and solidarity can secure the world an adequate response to what is widely accepted as one of the greatest crises of our lifetime.
“When it comes to health systems across the world, we are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain”
Dr. David Nabarro
Dr. Nabarro is one of the strongest advocates for the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals in this decade of action towards 2030. A master communicator, immediately after his appointment at WHO on February 21 he started using video conferencing and social channels as tools for spurring an international conversation on global health and diplomacy. His “online briefings(link is external)” have become an engaging platform for educating and updating the public to the scope of the threat . Another great contribution Dr. Nabarro provides to interpreting the current crisis are the “COVID-19 Narratives(link is external)” he writes with his peers, “to help raise awareness and readiness of all actors” involved.
Such digital and mediatic deftness, combined with scientific knowledge and passion, have made David Nabarro one of the cultural leaders in today’s conversation around the institutional and practical issues of the pandemic.
David Nabarro is also a global leader in the fields of climate change and food security. He and Dr. Lawrence Haddad co-shared the 2018 World Food Prize(link is external) – the most prominent global award on food security – for their “global leadership in elevating maternal and child undernutrition to a central issue within the food security and development dialogue at national and international levels.”
David Nabarro, WHO Special Envoy at Duke/DUCIGS
