Pandemic Bonds Are a Scam Holding the Global South Hostage
The World Bank’s “pandemic bonds” demonstrate how global capital has an uncanny ability to profit from social ills. So far, investors have earned about $96 million in interest on the pandemic bonds, but developing countries have yet to receive desperately needed money.
Cambodians sit along the ocean watching the MS Westerdam cruise ship at sunset docked in Sihanoukville, Cambodia on February 17, 2020. Paula Bronstein / Getty
The 2013–14 Ebola outbreak devastated West Africa, killing roughly eleven thousand people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Had these countries had access to financing at the start, experts contended, they would have been better equipped to quell the crisis, potentially saving thousands of lives.
Promising to get a jump on future outbreaks, the World Bank issued its first ever “pandemic bonds” in 2017 that could be used to finance aid to developing countries in the event of a new pandemic. That time is now. But the Bank has yet to fork over the money.
“Sustainable investing” is all the rage these days. Pandemic bonds are just one item on a growing menu of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment products. In the face of catastrophic climate change and skyrocketing global inequality, asset managers and investment banks insist that the best way to fight poverty, disease, and environmental destruction is to put markets to work.
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