Beyond Borders: Rethinking Global Health Governance in a Post-pandemic World

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into prominence the issue of ‘health’. The pandemic exposed the limitations of the economic and political structures worldwide and brought forth the significant issue that a crisis requires coordination and cooperation beyond state-centric parameters. The state's role concerning human security and health governance also needs a re-examination post-pandemic. Security threats to individual life, rather than inter-state conflicts, have long been acknowledged to carry political, economic, and social ramifications. The pandemic, therefore, has paved the way for a more expansive conceptualization of security, going beyond conventional territorial threats that can be neutralized through the intervention of the forces of the state. The unpredictability of COVID-19 infecting populations and the fears of socio-economic disorder have prompted states across the world, including India, to adopt strict measures. The possibilities for post-pandemic transformations and for rethinking development and foreign policy more broadly. The question remains: How should the global economy function, with the COVID-19 crisis having revealed the limits of a conventional economic growth model? What should the new forms of politics be? Is there a reshaping of citizen-state relations in confronting a pandemic, such as those around mutual solidarity and care? And finally, how should states and international institutions interact and cooperate to address any future ‘health’ challenge? What has been India’s answer to the global health challenge? The chapter shall discuss some of these broader issues from a perspective of global affairs.