If anyone ever felt that being a public servant constituted an easy option reserved largely for those resistant to the rigours of the private sector, the past couple of years would surely have given them pause to reconsider their opinion.
The Covid-19 pandemic threw up a myriad of hitherto unimaginable situations that needed to be addressed – none of them straightforward, none of them without cost. Those in power might have had the responsibility of making difficult decisions, but those decisions still had to be implemented – and funded.
Those tasked with the job, from sovereign and regional level, through government agencies and on to the wider-ranging supranationals, stepped up and found innovative and efficacious solutions to the problems they were faced with.
But, just when all the hard work appeared to have begun to pay off and progress back towards some sort of normality beckoned, events once more took over and threatened to undermine what had been achieved.
Different countries and regions were already on different parts of the path out of the pandemic, so how to reconcile their needs without compromising those of others was challenging in any case. Add to that: war in Ukraine; global supply chain issues; concerns about inflation; concerns about recession; the possibility of defaults; disrupted fuel supply; disrupted food supply; and just a general sense of complications arriving from all directions, and the scale of the task becomes only too apparent.
Attempting to deal with all this while still adhering to ESG promises that, where not specifically made were at least intimated, makes the undertaking all the more daunting. Never before has it been so important to ensure that everyone is pulling not only at the same time but in the same direction.
Far from a sinecure, the job of those whose responsibility it is to ensure that the means to the desired end can be found has become all the more crucial of late, but the rewards are there for all to see.
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