Nation-state-based solutions aren’t necessary to resolve social problems – COVID proves that people will form international solidarities to help each other in crisis

It is in this context of worldwide fear and concern that an unprecedented number of solidarity initiatives originated, within civil society, to help those in need. Initiatives involving religious and non-religious charities, non-governmental institutions, micro-initiatives at the family or individual level, professional associations, sport associations, foundations, social movement associations, activist groups, trade unions, etc. Non-governmental organizations such as the World Economic Forum acknowledged that incredible efforts have been made to raise unprecedented amounts of money (WEF, 2020). The same is true for the World Health Organizations, which launched the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to raise money from individuals, the private sector, as well as financial and other foundations. “10 days after its March 13 launch, it had raised US$71 million from 170,000 individuals and organizations, including Facebook, Google, and FIFA” (The Lancet, 2020). It was the first time that WHO attempted to raise funding from private people, which denotes the gravity of the situation and the special measures undertaken to face a special emergency. Following WHO, UN, UNDP, OECD (see Figure 1), all the larger humanitarian organizations that were already in operation and could count on an extensive network of agencies worldwide—UNICEF (see Figure 2), Action Against Hunger, Amref, Health Communications Resources, ActionAid, Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, Phase Worldwide, Relief International, The Freedom Fund, Save the Children (see Figure 3), etc.—amplified their solidarity efforts during the pandemic. All of them started specific fundraising for tackling the consequences of the pandemic, and they did it beyond nationality, gender, language, or ethnicity. This is in line with the Habermassian idea of “postnational” or Beck's “cosmopolitanization,” potentially enlarging that “circle of we” Alexander (2012) wrote about. Indeed, the fact that the efforts of these organizations resonated through social media, journals, and televisions, increased the message of a world that needs to come together and overcome all barriers, including national and ethnic ones. NGOs such as the Focolare Movement, a Catholic-born cross-religious, cross-cultural, and international association, is another example of an organization that prioritized the groups most affected by the pandemic, namely the poor, the “different,” and the immigrant. Founded in 1943, after the tragedies of WW2, and being present in 180 countries, it facilitated a prompt and effective action to fight the many side effects of the pandemic. Silvina Chemen, the director of Bet El, an Argentinian NGO devoted to help the poor and needy, summarized well the general sentiment among people around grassroot solidarity: These small gestures of humanity give me hope that once the pandemic is over not only those of us who are actively engaged, but also many others, will understand how interdependent we all are. The longer we are at home alone, the more we realize we cannot do without each other [...] I renew my commitment to continue building a healed community where caring for others is our first commandment (Focolare, 2020). Another show of solidarity that was widely broadcast by the media, but took place within the borders of a country, is the one that saw 750,000 people answering the call by the National Health System in the UK. Volunteers would undertake tasks such as delivering medication from pharmacies, driving patients to appointments, or making regular phone calls to isolated individuals (Tierney and Mahtani, 2020). According to Tierney and Mahtani's study, similar expressions of solidarity increase people's sense that they matter and their sense of participation, and have been recorded in most countries hit by the pandemic. Also the phenomenon of private donors, wealthy philanthropists who donated to alleviate the suffering caused by the pandemic, came to the forefront of the media. The list of benefactors is long and includes, among others, celebrities such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who put almost a third of his 3.6 billion dollar fortune into a fund that will tackle coronavirus relief, Bill and Melinda Gates donated $100 million through their foundation for what they defined a “once in a century pandemic,” Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $25 million, and Ali Baba founder Jack Ma donated $14 million to develop a vaccine against the COVID-19. Besides donors and NGOs, science came to the rescue with academies and research centers in search of a treatment and a vaccine against COVID-19. Scientists from all disciplines came together to tackle the consequences of the pandemic, and carry out research aimed to prevent it from happening again. The Solidarity Clinical Trial, the largest international clinical study to find an effective COVID-19 disease treatment, is one example of cooperation and coordination at the global level that is making a difference. The necessity of this study came from the lack of coordination between scientists in different countries, which led them to experiment with many individual treatments rather than join forces and come up with one valid for all. Instead, the Solidarity Clinical Trial enrolled patients in one single randomized trial that generated the strong evidence needed to determine the relative effectiveness of potential treatments (WHO Clinical Trial, 2020). A great number of medical facilities and research centers from all over the world took part in the study, and a recent investigation by Bondio and Marloth (2020) proves that this was highly beneficial, in particular by cutting the time for critical trials by 80% and providing open access data to scientists worldwide. On the wave of the Clinical Trial, many other institutions joined forces. The InterAcademy Partnership (see Figure 4) is another example, including 140 medical, scientific and engineering academies from around the world, calling on the scientific and policymaking communities to come together (Interacademies, 2020). Similar cooperation initiatives occurred also at the micro-level, where professionals invested their time and skills to help people in need. One notable event involved a small group of engineers who, acknowledging the lack of valves for life-saving coronavirus treatment, used 3D printers to build the valves themselves, which they distributed to medical facilities (BBC, 2020). Others focused on the environment, trying to cope with the ecological consequences of the pandemic. Although reduced transport resulted in significant reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development underlined that due to the fact that environmental protection workers were at home in lockdown, illegal deforestation, fishing and wildlife hunting increased (UNCTAD, 2020). In addition, the volume of non-recyclable waste has risen. Stay-at-home policies have increased people's consumption of take-away food delivered with single-use packaging. Also throwaway protective masks are now used daily. At a time when recycling activities have been suspended due to coronavirus, many organizations mobilized to come to the rescue of the environment. To conclude, it seems that there's overwhelming evidence that the civil society does not wait for official institutions to mobilize, but takes the lead with the goal of lessening the suffering of fellow human beings, beyond color, gender, and nationality, and preserving life in all its forms. In this regard, and specifically in relation to the pandemic, civil society may represent a model for the political world, which is entangled in nation-centric dynamics that render the nation-state, as it is, unfit to deal successfully with, let alone prevent, global catastrophes, thus cope with the challenges of the global risk society.