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Inaugural Lecture

Managing Covid-19 as a Super wicked Problem: Lessons from, and for, the Climate Crisis

COVID-19 has caused millions of infections, hundreds of thousands of deaths and overwhelmed governmental health and financial capacities at multiple scales. Trillions of dollars have been dispensed over the past six months. Climate change, in the absence of strong mitigation measures, threatens to severely degrade ecological, agriculture, energy and water systems. Billions of dollars have been allocated over the last 30 years.

This lecture explores policy and management insights that emerge from treating COVID-19 as a “super wicked” problem - a term that Cashore coined, along with colleagues Auld, Bernstein and Levin, to characterize the climate crisis.

I elaborate three lessons. First, in contrast to change, the fundamental challenge for pandemic management is to create and nurture governance institutions capable of maintaining durable policy objectives that allow for swift changes in policy settings consistent with emerging epidemiological evidence. Second, similar to the climate crisis, designing effective global institutions will mitigate the amount of time, effort and resources governments will need to manage domestic responses.  Third, and as a result, policy designers must place significant attention on maintaining, or building, “thermostatic” policies and institutions, which are likely to improve outcomes for both the climate crisis and pandemic management.

You may visit the LKYSPP Facebook LIVE or YouTube LIVE page to view the live stream and share your comments and questions.

For enquiries, please contact LKYSPP Events Team via email: decb64_bGt5c2Nob29sZXZlbnRzQG51cy5lZHUuc2c=_decb64

Tue 2 February 2021
05:15 PM - 06:30 PM

Prof. Benjamin Cashore

Prof. Benjamin Cashore

Li Ka Shing Professor in Public Management and Co-Director, Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

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Prof. Danny Quah

Prof. Danny Quah

Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

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