Overcoming enduring inequalities in Global Value Chains? Interpreting the case of Brazil’s Covid-19 vaccine supply through a chess metaphor
以巴西新冠疫苗供应为例，用象棋隐喻分析全球价值链的结构性不平等，指出高附加值活动集中在全球北方，并提出两种未来情景：南方供应商保持边缘或通过政策支持升级，否则不平等将加剧全球健康与经济风险。
This article draws on the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain to illustrate the structural inequalities characterising Global Value Chains. We show how the highly unequal vaccine distribution between the Global North and the Global South is shaped by the concentration of high-added value activities of vaccine development and production in the Global North and their nationalistic economic policies. These policies are short-sighted, as they fail to take account of the health risks that low vaccination rates in the Global South entail, not only for the North, but for the whole world. Using the metaphor of pawns moving in a chess game, we advance two possible scenarios. In the first, regional suppliers from low- and middle-income Global South countries will remain unimportant actors in the global vaccine supply chain, leaving inequalities intact. In the second, these suppliers will upgrade their activities in the vaccine supply chain, supported by public policies fostering industrial infrastructure, systems reforms and technological standardisation, leading to a more polycentric supply chain configuration. The persisting concentration of the governance of Global Value Chains in the Global North, we argue, will not only exacerbate current inequalities, but also likely lead to worldwide health, economic and social vulnerabilities.