Health
The Covid-19 pandemic was an unprecedented shock and a catalyst for international relations. Other health crises will follow. We need to be prepared for them.
[Webinar] German and French responses to COVID-19
Thierry de Montbrial, Ifri's founder and executive chairman, participated in a webinar organized by the Harvard Kennedy School, alongside Daniela Schwarzer, Director, German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
China wants its diplomats to show more fighting spirit. It may not be intended to win over the rest of the world
The rise of the so-called ‘wolf warriors’ heralds a more aggressive approach to promoting the country’s official line. Analysts warn this is likely to harm the country’s image even if their careers benefit as a result.
Energy, Climate and the Covid-19 Shocks: Double or Quits
The shocks from COVID-19 likely to affect energy and the climate are multiple and unprecedented in scale and scope.
Shocks from collapsing prices due to plummeting and then paralyzed demand combined with overproduction: this is the case for oil, but also to a lesser extent for electricity and gas. Other raw materials are also being affected.
Shocks to investments, because oil as well as electricity companies are experiencing dramatic falls in earnings while waiting for the peak of the pandemic to pass. They are cutting spending and revising or postponing projects. Jobs and smaller company survival are under threat.
Coronavirus: Franco-German solidarity put to the test
While the coronavirus health crisis is currently intensifying in Europe, it does not seem to be affecting France and Germany at the same pace or with the same intensity. The crisis is putting both countries' respective hospital systems to the test in different ways. France and Germany's economies are being mobilized, and social cohesion is enhanced. The crisis also impacting Franco-German and European solidarity.
A Pandemic Response for Peace and Freedom
“Populism is the great beneficiary of inefficiency. Without a virtuous response … authoritarian regimes will have free rein to thrive and rebuild walls — or wage war.”
Korean Democracy in Times of Coronavirus
The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare a series of troublesome truths, both about healthcare infrastructures in Western nations and the state of their democracies.
The quarantine they prescribed, albeit after periods of irresoluteness, drew embarrassing parallels to measures taken by China just a few weeks earlier. Social life has come to a near standstill without citizens being given a chance to deliberate, as procedures were discussed for the most part in closed-door meetings between the executive branch and appointed experts: the White House Coronavirus Task Force in the United States, the Scientific Council of France, etc. The general public has been hardly more involved in the West than in China.
In contrast, South Korea has thus far been the only significantly affected country to contain the spread of Covid-19 without shutting itself down or compromising even temporarily democratic institutions.
COVID-19: The Price of Negligence
It is not easy to step back and gain perspective on a battle that is raging on the home front for all of us and has not yet reached its peak. However, I do want to share some of my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic, especially its context.
The U.S. opioid crisis: from prescription abuse to a full blown epidemic
The opioid crisis in the U.S. has reached increasingly tragic proportions – accounting for two thirds of the 72,000 overdose deaths of 2017.
The legalization of cannabis in the United States, the examples of Colorado and Washington State
The use of recreational cannabis became legal in the States of Colorado and Washington in January and July 2014 respectively. The regulations, based on the examples of the tobacco and alcohol markets, intend to tackle the black market and to protect minors more efficiently. How do these two pioneering experiments inform the ongoing debate in France?
What Is a Good Security Sector Reform?
For about 20 years, security sector reform (SSR) has emerged as an essential tool for crisis recovery and reconstructing weak and failed states at the heart of the security-development continuum. It is time to take stock of the lessons learnt about SSR and to offer an analysis of good practices and the lessons learned from these experiences.
Cooperating with African Armed Forces
Nowadays, numerous actors are involved in military cooperation programs aiming to strengthen African armed forces and build special partnerships.
Fragility Factors and Reconciliation Needs in Forest Guinea
In December 2013 the first Ebola cases surfaced in Guéckedou district, near the Liberian and Sierra Leon borders in the Forest Region of Guinea. The outbreak quickly spread from Forest Guinea to the rest of the country and, through the borders, to neighbouring countries. It took three months to identify the Ebola virus as the causative agent of the burgeoning epidemic, longer for the Guinean government to understand the importance of treating the outbreak as a national emergency, and even more time for everyone involved to appreciate the great social toll of Ebola.
Ebola: A Post-colonial Epidemic
One reason Ebola has been so difficult to contain is that it emerged in countries marked by poverty and violence.
International Health Cooperation Abolished by Ebola?
Since 1976, there have been twenty-five recorded epidemics of the Ebola virus. The 2014 outbreak is the most serious.
Réduire la taille des portions : Les guerres alimentaires aux États-Unis
At times of TTIP negotiations, the American food industry frightens the Europeans. Having elaborated marketing practices and also unhealthy foodstuffs, it is largely kept responsible for obesity epidemic which strikes the United States since the 1980s. however, the American civil society organized itself and the industrialists now have to act more carefully. What is the state of the balance of power today?
Fake medicines trafficking in West Africa: Supply chains and distribution networks (Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana)
On December 13, 2013, in response to an Interpol initiative, the first ever African Conference on pharmaceutical crime was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Its final communiqué declared the intention of 20 countries to reinforce the struggle against the production of counterfeit drugs.
European States and their Muslim Citizens
" Diversity " in hospitals: social identities and discriminations
"Diversity" is a structuring dimension of healthcare institutions in France today. Public and private hospitals employ a very socially and culturally diversified staff, to which they offer upward social mobility opportunities. This diversity constitutes an asset, which allows healthcare institutions to welcome a very diversified public, including people with an immigration background or coming from the French Overseas Territories or Departments (DOM-TOM).
Restoring Health Care and Welfare Services after the Great East Japan Earthquake
Ifri and the Canon Institute for Global Studies are launching a series of policy papers presenting the analyses of senior Japanese researchers on how the triple disasters that hit the archipelago last March have impacted Japan's economic, environmental and energy policies as well as country's crisis management system.
Making Sense of One Health: Cooperating at the Human-Animal-Ecosystem Health Interface
This study aims at showing and making sense of the One Health approach, according to which it is impossible to defeat infectious disease without working at the interface between human health, animal health and the environment.
Ifri, a foundation recognized as being of public utility, relies largely on private donors – companies and individuals – to guarantee its sustainability and intellectual independence. Through their funding, donors help maintain the Institute's position among the world's leading think tanks. By benefiting from an internationally recognized network and expertise, donors refine their understanding of geopolitical risk and its consequences on global politics and the economy. In 2026, Ifri partners with over 90 French and international companies and organizations.
