A global crisis manager during the COVID-19 pandemic? The OECD and health governance

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered turbulent times across the globe, reminding us of the highly multidimensional and interdependent nature of today's world. Next to diverging national attempts to constrain the spread of the virus, numerous international organizations worked intensely to minimize the impacts of the disease on a regional or/and global scale. Albeit not considered a conventional agency responsible for global infectious diseases, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has surprisingly been one of the most proactive IOs in the pandemic response. In this context, this article examines to what extent the OECD's COVID-19 pandemic response adheres to the role of a global crisis manager. By adapting the theoretical concepts of crisis leadership, we explore the extent of sense-making, decision-making, and learning capacities of the OECD during the pandemic, upon which we draw the organization's position-making. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, this article illustrates that the OECD's concerns regarding the pandemic's severe effects across socioeconomic sectors focused exclusively on its member states. This sense-making enabled prompt and multilayered top-down as well as bottom-up decision-making to provide member states with policy options as solutions to the new challenges. However, the OECD's engagement during the crisis was proactive only to the extent that several limitations allowed, such as resource inflexibility and internal dynamics between the Secretariat and member states. In conclusion, we argue that the OECD did not present itself to be a global crisis manager during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather, the IO's responses consolidated its position-making as a policy advisor for member states.