COVID‐19 vaccine equity in doldrums: Good governance deficits
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | Shahjahan Bhuiyan |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1999 |
Received: 9 February 2022
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Revised: 17 September 2022
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Accepted: 22 November 2022
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1999
RESEARCH ARTICLE
COVID‐19 vaccine equity in doldrums: Good governance
deficits
Shahjahan Bhuiyan
Department of Public Policy and
Administration, School of Global Affairs and
Public Policy (GAPP), The American University
in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt
Correspondence
Shahjahan Bhuiyan, Department of Public
Policy and Administration, School of Global
Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), The
American University in Cairo, New Cairo
11835, Egypt.
Email: sbhuiyan@aucegypt.edu
Abstract
This paper explores whether inequities in access to COVID‐19 vaccines can be
attributed to governance deficits, particularly for developing and emerging coun-
tries where poor governance is widespread, but also for developed countries, where
governments' performance fell short of expectations. These shared performance
deficits beg questions about the impact of governance quality as well as the
interplay of ethics in governance when life‐or‐death decisions must be made. It also
explores the impact of COVID‐19 on development, especially in the areas of
poverty and employment. The findings of the paper show that there is a positive
correlation between vaccine equity and good governance, meaning that countries
with higher scores in governance rankings have more access to vaccines and have
vaccinated most of their populations. Similarly, countries with relatively lower
scores in governance rankings have poor access to and distribution of vaccines and
have only covered a limited number of their people. The paper further points to
disastrous societal impacts of COVID‐19 vaccine inequity on poverty and employ-
ment, which have hindered global development.
KEYWORDS
COVID‐19 pandemic, employment, global development, governance, poverty, vaccine equity
1
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INTRODUCTION
The COVID‐19 pandemic is the biggest health catastrophe in recent
human history. It has gravely affected all countries across the world.
As of October 2, 2021, there have been 235,328,474 people afflicted
with the coronavirus globally and, of those, 4,809,784 people have
died (Worldometers, 2021). There is a growing consensus among
governments and epidemiologists that, in addition to the difficulty of
accurately tracking a global epidemic in real time, the numbers
available give a false sense of precision for reasons ranging from
under reporting and inadequate data to deliberate suppression
or possible manipulation of data, as well as different standards
and practices of collecting and registering coronavirus data
(Annaka, 2021; Norman, 2020). The first 10 most affected countries,
on the basis of total number of cases as of October 2, 2021, were the
USA, India, Brazil, the UK, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Argentina, and Spain
(see Table 1).
The pandemic has clearly exposed the unpreparedness of both
developed and developing countries to effectively address a global
public health crisis of this magnitude, as well as the lack of capacity of
governments and private health providers to deliver the needed
healthcare services to treat corona patients. This observation is
consistent with the 2019 Global Health Security (GHS) report, which
argued that no country was fully prepared to manage epidemics or
pandemics and that national health security across the globe suffered
from fundamental flaws (GHS, 2019).
1
Indeed, high‐income countries
1
Based on the 195 countries included in the report, the GHS Index average score was 40.2 out of a possible 100 (GHS, 2019). The report reveals that the average score for high‐income
countries was 51.9.
Public Admin Dev. 2022;42:293–304.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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