'Crisis demands a new style of leadership'

Peru's ex-president Francisco Sagasti on leading through crisis 🌐

WorldWise readers—

It seems to me that media coverage for this 4th anniversary of the official start of the Covid-19 pandemic has been somewhat subdued. As usual the space was taken over by more current affairs. Still: anniversaries are useful prompts to hit pause, look back and learn from testing times, if there’s a chance of avoiding mistakes from getting repeated.

Cue part 2 of this special-edition interview, followed by our regular updates.

Anita

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VIEW EDITION | a global take on pressing issues for humanity

INSIGHT | views & analysis

Getting down to principles.

A surprise election in 2020 brought Francisco Sagasti face to face with the task of leading Peru through the pandemic at a politically turbulent moment. His presidency is widely credited with stabilising the country, maintaining positive approval ratings even after a devastating toll from Covid-19.

In Part 1 of our interview published earlier this week, he recounts the circumstances leading to the appointment and key decisions taken to jump-start Peru’s pandemic response.

In this second instalment of our conversation Sagasti outlines the key principles that lay behind those decisions, which are detailed in the new book Governing in a Time of Crisis, and calls for a new style of political leadership to ride out turbulence in the coming decades.

Can you talk a bit about the ideas and concepts that guided your government’s decisions during the pandemic?

Thanks to the Canadian International Development Research Centre, we were able to trace the influences that I and my colleagues had in order to make critical policy decisions, and put them in practice.

The first thing to do is to understand—this is a concept that comes from strategic thinking and planning—whether we were facing a circumstance, [which is a] very specific issue or problem for which rules are already defined and you don't need to spend too much time on; or we were facing a problem, which was much more complex, that required a lot of thinking, experimenting, gathering information, putting things together; or we were facing a condition, a mess, something that was much more complicated, that required not only some problem-solving skills, but the capacity to wiggle out from a lot of constraints and find a way through influence that hampers your performance.

In the case of [the 2021 elections], for example, it was very simple, in spite of a very contentious electoral process. But this is just a circumstance. Why? Because the national constitution very clearly states two things: one, that the electoral authorities are fully autonomous, and nobody can question or revise their decisions. It's Article 181 of the Constitution. And then in Article 18, in the tenth point, it says the duty of the President [is] to obey and to enforce the decisions made by the electoral authorities. So I didn't have to spend two seconds: in spite of all the attacks that I received, in spite of all the questioning, that was it.

Which cases were more challenging?

Problems and conditions are a little more complex. There, we had to rethink what was behind the decision, for example, on the strategy to purchase the vaccines. And I came to the conclusion that you really put together three currents, or sources of influence, that make you take a decision.

The first one, I will call mindset—basically the repertoire of concepts that you have in your mind to understand a particular situation. There is this old joke, that if you have just one concept in your mind, the concept of hammer, the world is made just of nails. But if you have a much broader set of concepts, you can really appreciate everything. The set of concepts I acquired from statistics, from international relations, from analysing information, allow me, for example, to perceive the problem of obtaining vaccines in a much richer and complex manner. And it was not only my own individual mindset, it was that of the team of advisors and ministers I had, and I was able to use that collective intelligence.

The second factor is evidence. And in evidence you have data, and information. For example, the information I got about the difficulties of producing vaccines in Russia made me realise very quickly—and this was confirmed later on—that Russia was not going to be able to provide us with a large number of vaccines. What did it mean? Let's not invest too much effort or time to negotiate with the Russian providers of vaccines. So the use of data and information allows us to focus on those areas that have a greater probability of success.

The third influence I've been calling character—which is basically values, all the things that give us an emotional involvement. In this case, one thing was very clear. We decided that we needed to obtain as many vaccines as possible to vaccinate everybody, free of charge. The character, the values behind [this] are very clear to me: each human life is uniquely valuable, and the life of the rich, the poor, middle classes, whatever they are, are all the same. So, one of the things that we did is never use the word "priority" in vaccination, because our whole population is priority. We only use the word "sequence", mainly to indicate that as the vaccines were coming, we are going to have a sequence [that was] developed by an ethical committee we convened especially and gave full autonomy.

The mindset, evidence and character got involved in every decision we made.

When you look back at all of it, in terms of the COVID crisis in particular, is there anything that you wish you had done differently?

That's a very difficult question. I tend never to answer it. When one is making a decision, you're a prisoner of the time you live in—all the perceptions, information and so on. And the thing to do [later on] is to see whether at that time you had the appropriate evidence, whether you used the mindset that was required, whether you applied your values and emotions, and all the things that were required. So I never cry over spilt milk.

Now if I am in a different situation, what is it that I have learned? [This] is what I just described: to be more conscious about those concepts that were in my mind. The book we wrote about that is for the future. But I would have done exactly the same given the mindset, the evidence and the character I had.

Is there anything else that that you wanted to add about learnings?

There is one other aspect which is, I think, a little bit controversial. But to me, it's pretty clear. In one of the chapters, I tried to describe the leadership style that my government exercised. Because I do believe that many people have a wrong conception of what it is to exercise leadership in turbulent times. They still believe that you require a kind of vertical thing: a supreme leader that orders and expects [others] to implement [decisions] without any questioning.

When you are at times of change, you require a very different style of leadership. You require, of course, firmness and a sense of direction. But you also require openness. You must be able to listen to other views, even if they are uncomfortable. You must be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone else that's criticising you, and figure out whether from their perspective there is something you can bring in. In other words, it's a more open leadership.

But also, in complex times, you're required [to use] leadership that empowers others. There is no way that, with a turbulent situation, the supreme leader can command everything. You really need to empower those at different levels of the hierarchy, and give them an area of decisions they can make autonomously. And then, set up the parameters with which you are going to evaluate their decisions and the results.

This means that you must be able to accept mistakes. But only once: if you make the same error twice, this means negligence or ignorance. The errors you must reflect upon and immediately correct.

For example, we made blunders in our initial communication strategy. You know, I tried to adopt an academic way of communicating, which was totally useless. In one press conference, [in] trying to explain why we had defined some measures to prevent contagion, I began with a description of the situation, what the approach was, and so on—and all the journalists wanted to know [was] the result, not the whole process. At the end of a very chaotic press conference we realised we had messed that completely. Not only that, in a press conference by a president, I tried to use a PowerPoint!

But, you know, political leaders seldom are prepared to accept they make mistakes. And this is fatal at a time when there's so much change, in times in which you need to be extremely flexible, open minded and adaptive to new situations, and to use all the information—whether it be positive or negative—to improve your policy and decision-making processes.

What I hear you saying is that even if politics may not be expected to change much, in times of crisis there is real reason to advocate for a different style—is that right?

Yes, and I would go even further. We now live in times of permanent crisis. So that new style of leadership should be the norm for the next 20 or 30 years everywhere.

We are facing everything from climate change, its consequences, biodiversity loss, the impact of artificial intelligence, a loss of jobs and changing nature of jobs and livelihoods. We are facing the advances in biotechnology. We are facing wars and geopolitical disruptions. We need to become aware that what used to be an exceptional time of crisis is now, I wouldn't say permanent, but an unstable condition for the next several years. And this demands a new style of political and policy leadership.

Are you planning to put yourself in a position of practising that leadership in Peru or in another forum?

I am doing that now, through exerting influence, teaching... But I am 79 years old. If I run for office, there is no way I will have the energy and the capacity to lead my country in that sense. So I'm not running. On the other hand, I am prepared to support—trying to help, instil a new sense of purpose, leadership, vision for the future in my country, and if I can, elsewhere as well.

📕 Learn more in Gobernar en Tiempos de Crisis (Governing in Times of Crisis).

📌 Read part one of the interview.

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BRIEFING | around the world

News highlights

African leaders are adopting the language of justice and benefit-sharing to argue for “equitable extractivism”. A group of African countries—including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad—presented a proposal at the UN Environment Assembly recently concluded in Nairobi, calling for better controls on the sustainable mining and use of critical minerals needed for the green transition. The resolution comes as demand in the Global North surges for the transition minerals necessary to power renewable energy technologies. The move is seen as an attempt to prevent the negative environmental and social impacts that follow extraction operations, and—perhaps more to the political point—also an attempt to extract a share of economic benefits that are often lost when minerals are exported in their raw state to be processed outside the countries of origin. [The Guardian + WPR]

Ghana has passed a bill that makes it illegal for anyone to identify as LGBTQ+. It imposes a three-year jail sentence on individuals, and also penalises the formation or funding of LGBTQ+ groups. The proposed legislation was passed unanimously by the country’s parliament. If it’s signed by the president into law, the country risks financial instability and could lose $3.8 billion in funding from the World Bank over the next five years. [BBC + Bloomberg]

Almost three years after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, women and girls have braved protests to demand an end to harsh restrictions on their freedoms. Against initial promises made just after taking over the country, the Taliban have since introduced over 50 decrees that curtail the rights of women and girls—on anything from education beyond primary school to restrictions on dress, movement and expression, options for employment and public roles. [Al Jazeera + The Diplomat]

Obesity has become a bigger global health problem than hunger, especially in Pacific island nations. More than one in eight people globally are now clinically obese—the number passed the one billion mark for the first time in 2022, according to a recent study. Being obese or underweight are both forms of malnutrition, and global changes such as climate change and the pandemic have raised the risks of both: while some countries don’t have enough food, in others people are shifting to less healthy choices. [Telegraph + BBC + WHO]

A snapshot of climate change news on how impacts are playing out in the Global South: Mexico City may be months away from running out of water. Zambia has declared its ongoing drought a national disaster, with severe impacts on agriculture. Record drought in Somaliland has left nomadic herders dependent on aid. Traditional livelihoods are threatened in India too as rising levels of salinity destroy farmlands. Women farmers in Sri Lanka report rising domestic violence as household incomes shrink after climate extremes deplete harvests. Meanwhile, research suggests that the human cost of climate-related disasters is undercounted. [CNN + PBS + Al Jazeera + African Arguments + The Guardian + Context + NPR]

Views of note

“Almost every aspect of the process of discovering, producing, buying, and consuming antibiotics is riddled with market and government failures that are well-known to economists from other contexts, but not enough work has been done to comprehensively examine how these failures affect ABR [antibiotic resistance].”

🔗 A litany of market failures: Diagnosing and solving the economic drivers of antibiotic resistance - Ranil Dissanayake et al. for Center For Global Development

Under the radar

UNESCO warns that seven out of ten secondary-school teachers will need to be replaced by 2030, and over half of all existing teachers will have left the profession by the decade’s end, according to UN News:

“The effect of a worldwide teacher shortage is profound, creating larger class sizes, overburdened educators, educational disparities, and financial strain on educational systems, impacting educational quality and access.”

An examination of the ethical problems that come with the growing use of RCTs to gather knowledge on how to reduce poverty sees poor Kenyans becoming economists’ ‘guinea pigs’—read Linda Kinstler’s deep dive for 1843 magazine:

“Every day, those in the control village caught a glimpse of what their lives might have been like had the randomisation algorithm smiled on them.”

As Gaza remains on the brink of starvation, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are “normalising the weaponisation of food” by governments and armed groups, Colum Lynch reports for Devex:

“Some observers see a broader erosion of international laws and norms promoting the prohibition of food as a weapon of war or as a lever in diplomatic or humanitarian negotiations, according to experts.”

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MEDIA | working communications

This coming Monday, March 18th, the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) is launching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled "The Living Amazon: Science, Cultures and Sustainability in Practice". The course offers a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing the Amazon, covering topics such as current trends, threats, and sustainable practices. It’s taught by leading experts and designed for a diverse audience, including practitioners and other professionals. Available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, the course is self-paced and estimated to take around 8 weeks to complete—register here.

📩 Plus, ICYMI: our latest MEDIA edition is full of new grants, fellowships, trainings and more.

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