Now on bbc news, hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. I am stephen sackur. It may be a Global Pandemic that covid 19 has hardly united the world in a collective response. National governments are focused on self interest, not International Cooperation and that could spell disaster for the world s most Vulnerable People if and when the virus spread through their communities. Well, my guest today is the former uk foreign secretary, now president of the International Rescue committee, david miliband. In this age of coronavirus, is the world getting the leadership it needs . David miliband, welcome to hardtalk. Thanks very much, good to be with you. This terrible pandemic represents a huge challenge right across the world. If we are to generalise massively, at the outset of this interview, how do you feel the International Community is handling the response . To generalise, badly. We know that some countries have handled the disease well. Germany springs to mind. South korea as well but we know there has been far too much what i call to nihilism, head on the sand, hoping for the best and not enough of the group and unified action that is important, both in some countries, im talking chiefly about the United States where the holes in their safety net have been shown to be very serious, but also internationally, where there has been is Little International leadership. The gym 20 seems asleep and the group of seven industrialised democracies could not make a statement and so we face a crisis, the bigger spices in 100 yea rs crisis, the bigger spices in 100 years in health terms and we have a very wea k years in health terms and we have a very weak governmental response where it matters. Surely, you cannot be surprised that leaders and governments around the world right 110w governments around the world right now have turned inward and are putting all their priority on protecting their own citizens . That is what they are elected to do and it is what they must do. That is absolutely right and of course local action is absolutely key, the isolation that everyone is trying to practise, but we all know this is a disease of the connected world and a return to anything like normality, anything like the kind of Global Connections that existed before is not going to be possible without International Action that addresses the wea kest International Action that addresses the weakest links in the global chain as well as takes local action. We cannot have a future for what the israeli author ferrari calls a network of fortresses, that is no future at all to address the potential of humankind never mind the challenges of humankind and i think the wise leaders are taking wise action but a thinking regionally and globally as well herrari. Idsa many watching this interview would already be saying to themselves and to you that we dont wa nt to themselves and to you that we dont want to return to that completely open, globalised world. Idsa, many watching. That makes the spread of pandemics so very easy. We mustnt return to a world with inequality and insecurities but we dont want a world where we cannot travel abroad and visit and where trade is so circumscribed it does not address needs and so i think that we must say a globalisation has to be changed and we need a different kind of globalisation that is more equal and sustainable, but i think that i world of fortresses, national fortresses, would think that i world of fortresses, nationalfortresses, would be a dangerous lesson to draw from this crisis. Just a few days ago, your International Rescue committee released a long and detailed report looking at the most Vulnerable Countries and communities in the world and assessing just what coronavirus might mean for them. We looked at south sudan, for example, which has a total of four ventilators in the entire country. Syria has 11 and not only has a resident population but also a refugee displaced peoples of 11 million, venezuela lacks supplies. Is it your belief that we have to assume coronavirus, this pandemic, will sweep through those most runnable places . Yes, a matter of when and not if. A short window of opportunity to take vital preventative steps, hand washing facilities, triaging through testing, isolation centres for those who get the disease. True information to tackle fake news which is also right. But we have to prepare for a Health Emergency that is virulent and dangerous, given the density of population in many of the places you mentioned, many of the places you mentioned, many of the places that the International Rescue committee works, given the weakness of the Health System and given the Underlying Health conditions, remember, malnutrition, 50 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. These are all factors that drive the danger of the disease. I will also add that the report talks about a double challenge, yes, the health that challenge, yes, the health that challenge of coronavirus but also the Collateral Damage to economy and society that threatens to be a second consequence of the disease. Alcohol is a simple one. Simple to say, anyway, hard to do. Take the preventative steps now and dont let it go by our call is simple. We will not get massive numbers of ventilators in but we can get primary care in and protect countries from the collateral economic and social damage, that the other thing from the macroeconomic response from the International Monetary fund meeting this week but also the national and local efforts to make sure that aid reaches the people who need it. You say these words to deliver our easy but harder to deliver, and frankly impossible to deliver, and frankly impossible to be implemented. It is airily said by people like yourself that we must make sure clean water is available to people all around the world but there is no way in the next few weeks that will happen. That is the grim reality that so many hundreds of millions of people have lived with for years. They do not have access to clean water. There is nothing airily saying about saying that we have staff on the ground, 30,000 International RescueCommittee Staff into hundred field sites in the world, ready to go to work and they can, they wont be able to go and get a hand washing station in every one of the houses of3 station in every one of the houses of 3 Million People who have no hand washing facilities in their homes but they can establish communal and washing facilities for one in 1000 people and im certainly not pretending we can make would the failings of the last 20 years in the next two weeks, that would be absurd but equally to pretend we cannot do anything and cannot be done, and to leave those people in this situation, whether shortages and Global Medical kit that will exacerbate the problem. One of the focus of your teams are the displaced people, Northern Syria to the bangladesh were so many thousands wrecking gains are in those crowded camps is it true that those people are ever more suspicious of displaced people add corona virus is exacerbating tensions and suspicions ina way exacerbating tensions and suspicions in a way that you and your team will not be able to overcome . Rohingans. There it is the case in some places and i was on on the phone to my team and they were striking in the way they explained the way that the local host population has their own needs but actually the kind of virulent anti refugee sentiment has not come to the fore, and it is a real danger and you are right to raise that and thatis and you are right to raise that and that is why we say the services of the International Rescue committee are open to host populations as well as refugees and displaced people and remember when youre talking about displaced people, were talking about internal displacement in a country, citizens of the country, the people in italy and north west area, his facilities are bombed by their own government, they are syrian civilians and this is not xenophobia, this is about filling for their fellow citizens and it is very important we take seriously the danger you raise but we also recognise there is evidence of how to counter those tendencies and one way is to make sure services are open. Another way, which i think is vital, is to make sure economic support for areas that refugees and displaced people as well a social support. You are a former senior politician, former uk foreign secretary annie no more than most that in the context of a crisis, which are senior economists predicting that there will be an Economic Contraction between 5 25 of gdp in the world s richest nations, over this year it is impossible to imagine the kind of urgent, collective assistance being poured into the world s disadvantaged places, i kind of initiative you talk of, when governments are looking at spiralling deficits, Massive National debt. There is simply going to be in no position to deliver on your words. I would say two things to what you said. First of all, it is very possible to imagine it. The difficulty is not imagining the appropriate revolt response, the difficulty is predicting how it will happen given the myopia that dominates too much of the governing, around the world. The second thing that i think is very important is that i think is very important is that the argument that quote unquote there is not the money to tackle global problems is being exploited by governments around the world who are discovering that actually sustainable finances are important, in emergencies, you need to draw money and so for example the call we are making for special drawing rights for poor countries from the imf, that is something that tries to mirror some of the macroeconomic measures being ta ken mirror some of the macroeconomic measures being taken in countries like the us or the uk and make sure they are available for countries that are more heavily indebted in the developing world. I would say to you it is possible to imagine it. The difficulty is doing it but it doesnt mean we shouldnt stop arguing for it. Do you think there should be a debt holiday that the imffor should be a debt holiday that the imf for example should forgo Debt Repayment from the world s Poorest Company countries for at least a year or longer . That should be on the table and it is vital that we do learn that countries who cannot get out of the debt trap even though that they are doing the right thing need help. For example, we know that jordans debt to gdp ratio has gone from 50 90 plus in the time they have been hosting syrian refugees. There has Austerity Programme in place hits bothjordanians and syrian refugees. They need help to get a sustainable base for that finance. This crisis should be the occasion to examine those issues. Finance. This crisis should be the occasion to examine those issuesm a sense and i dont mean this in a pejorative way, you are sitting there, lecturing the world s current leaders, having been in politics yourself recently, you know how hard it is but it seems to me you are also forgetting something really rather important about context. In your day job really rather important about context. In your dayjob you seek in new york city, i know you are not there at the moment for safety and Health Reasons you sit in new york city but nonetheless you know what is happening in new york. To think the American Public will listen to your take on what needs to be done internationally when they are seeing their own country being ravaged by coronavirus and for new yorkers, sing their own city at the epicentre of the epidemic with so many people, particularly disadvantaged, black and latina new yorkers, being killed by this virus, do you really think that their horizon will go so very much wider quasi low look, im not lecturing anybody. Im as afraid for anyone else for my own family and community and the city im living in. Else for my own family and community and the city im living inlj else for my own family and community and the city im living in. I am a citizen of the uk. That is a very personal thing that we feel in this crisis and that this crisis in that senseis crisis and that this crisis in that sense is a great leveller. The people in the bronx, the area in your greatest hit by this disease, the area dominated by African Americans and hispanics, the idea that helping them makes it impossible to help people in south sudan where there are only four ventilators, that is really wrongheaded and that is not about lecturing and i think this striking thing if i look at my own organisation, we have not found that donations have dropped through the floor in the last month. We have found people are grateful for what they have but they also recognise, some of them, that this is a global crisis. To Say Something else to you thatis crisis. To Say Something else to you that is even more important. I was in government in the 2000 and certainly during the Global Financial crisis. I watched as gordon brown, he had on the show, i watch the chancellor, the now co chair of the International Rescue committee in new york, the organisation i now run, now the treasury secretary in the us when i was in government, i watch the way they address problems in their own country as one of a new global contract. They took action in 2008, 2009, and 2010 that was Global Action that served National Purpose as well and i think that that lesson, and im not claiming credit for myself, i was not the finance minister, i am observing the way ministers and ministers raced to the occasion in the gfc and the need to rise to why are they not . There is no question that when the world public leading democracies in America First means nationalism, that a block on International Cooperation, there is no question that when the group of seven leading industrialised countries meet and cant come to an agreement on a statement because the us insist on calling the virus not covert 19, but wuhan virus, there is no question that American Leadership is absolutely essential. There is an extra element of this, because this isa extra element of this, because this is a crisis that is taking place when there is a second superpower. The chinese superpower is now is not a democracy, it is drawing different lessons about the right kind of government and my point would be it is especially important at this point that the worlds democracies, not just point that the worlds democracies, notjust in the geographic west, but the political west, they have to realise the stakes here, and the sta kes a re realise the stakes here, and the stakes are not just realise the stakes here, and the stakes are notjust about our local response to covid 19. They are about the global lesson about the right way to build a strong society, and one argument will be that it is through more autocratic government. Another argument led by countries like germany which have shown how democracies combined with public trust to say no. It is about a democratic future. That is a really big argument. It cant take place without america playing an important role. Cant take place without america playing an important role, you say, and yet donald trump is the reality of american political leadership. You are not going to see him waved goodbye to the white house tomorrow. Are you suggesting that with donald trump in the white house, everything you want to see in terms of International Leadership cannot happen . First of all, the congress of the us holds the Purse Strings was national aid, which we have been talking about in this interview, and it has been sustained and there is a new and further supplementary bill with 12 billion contribution, six times as much as the original world health 0rganisation un appeal. So we shouldnt forget that there are a number of aspects to us global leadership. But when it comes to the politics of this, i do think that on the one hand there is a debate about nationalism versus internationalism, and a second and related debate about democracy versus autocracy and they will come together and i think it is very important that we dont learn the wrong lessons from this crisis because if we are not careful, we will build a network of fortresses that we talked about in the first part of this interview, and we will find credit being claimed by authoritarian regimes for all the wrong reasons. But isnt the truth of this, and we have already talked about new york city, that if one is honest about the way the coronavirus pandemic has affected the world, as an individual, one may well feel safer right now in singapore, seoul, maybe beijing as well than one would feel in your home city, new york city, or indeed london. And that tells us something about what kind of governance has been most effective in tackling this challenge, doesnt it . Yes, there is no question America First today America First in the league or coronavirus cases. The holes in the us safety net, the fragmentation of political leadership, the polarisation and loss of public trust, all of those are deep seated in the american crisis here. And on the other hand, you have got the extraordinary american response, which is public sector, private sector, Civil Society pulling together in quite rema