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2. Inequality Kills: The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19
- Author:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. This causes direct harm to us all, and to the poorest people, women and girls, and racialized groups most. Inequality contributes to the death of at least one person every four seconds. But we can radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality. We can claw back extreme wealth through progressive taxation; invest in powerful, proven inequality-busting public measures; and boldly shift power in the economy and society. If we are courageous, and listen to the movements demanding change, we can create an economy in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.
- Topic:
- Health, Inequality, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. A Package of Reforms for Financing Pandemic Preparedness and Response for the G7
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman and Eleni Smitham
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- COVID-19 has shown the detrimental consequences of insufficient and fragmented financing for outbreak preparedness, prevention, and response (PPR). As the world seeks to recover from the current COVID-19 pandemic, and to mitigate recovery needs for future health crises, more must be done to accelerate global efforts to ensure rapid, adequate funding and governance for global health security, which has been under-resourced and under-prioritized. The rationale for reforming and replenishing the global health architecture to prepare for the next pandemic is clear: to protect health, human lives, and economic well-being.[1] Without dedicated and accelerated investment—in scaled up surveillance, strengthened national health systems, enhanced research and development of medical countermeasures, and more—we will continue to face more frequent and more complex epidemics and pandemics in the years ahead, and be less prepared to stop them.[2] Without the capacity to surge financing to respond at-scale to infectious disease outbreaks, we risk a repeat of the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last July, the High-Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, mandated by the Italian Presidency of the G20, released the report A Global Deal for Our Pandemic Age, laying out policies and investments needed to reduce vulnerabilities to future pandemics.[3] Likewise, in 2021, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response[4] described the shortcomings of the existing architecture and suggested similar policies for the future, including greater assessed contributions for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the need for dedicated financing to prevent and prepare for the next COVID-19 variant and pandemic risk. The Global Preparedness and Monitoring Board’s periodic reports went in this same direction[5] , as did earlier assessments following Ebola, SARS and MERS outbreaks though recommendations often went without implementation.[6] These reports and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic itself have again made clear that existing mechanisms for financing pandemic preparedness and response are not fit-for-purpose, nor at the sufficient speed and scale needed to ensure global health security. Current financing for pandemic preparedness is small, fragmented, and concentrated in the health sector.[7] Different organizations across the global health and international financial institution architecture hold different comparative advantages in mobilizing and deploying monies and need to be fully financed to do what they are best suited to do. However, no institution (that is adequately funded, credible, and capable) is currently mandated to or accountable for ensuring pandemic preparedness, resulting in financing and accountability gaps, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where Global Health Security Action Plans too often go un-costed and unfunded.[8] Further, new regional organizations and groupings are leaders in their own development, and must be a central part of a new global health security architecture—the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Forum for the Progress and Development of South America (PROSUR), among others, are examples. Adequate reforms and robust replenishments of global health organizations new and old are needed to ensure stronger global health security and pandemic preparedness now and in the future. External funders should take a comprehensive view of the major global health initiatives and consider how a range of reforms, when combined, have the potential to respond more coherently and efficiently to the financing demands related to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, other macro risks that affect public spending on health, and in the face of future health threats. There are reasons for optimism. Unlike the experience during previous pandemic threats, COVID-19 has finally seen the International Monetary Fund become more aware and vocal on the need to address both COVID-19 and future pandemic risks as “systemic risk(s) to the global economy, not just the development […] of a particular country.”[9] Finance, health and development policymakers are increasingly coming together in different fora and recognizing the need to invest across sectors and to connect the international financial architecture with health initiatives in ways that will deliver better outcomes.[10]
- Topic:
- Reform, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. A Fund for Global Health Security and Pandemic Preparedness
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman, Eleni Smitham, and Erin Collinson
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The COVID-19 crisis has served as a painful demonstration that no country is fully prepared for a pandemic and that the existing global health architecture remains ill-equipped to finance pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR). The rationale for preventing and containing pandemics is self-evident: the price of preparedness is a fraction of the cost of responding to catastrophic outbreaks, both in terms of human and economic well-being.[1] In the aftermath of the 2003 SARS outbreak, 2009 H1N1 pandemic, and the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, experts called for scaling up sustainable financing to ensure the world was better prepared to face that next global health threat. But even amid efforts to better understand and measure preparedness gaps,[2] little action was taken to mobilize financing and incentivize investments in strengthening detection, prevention, and response capabilities. As global health threats evolve, countries’ capacity to prepare for and respond to disease outbreaks is increasingly a global imperative. Now is the time to take concrete steps toward establishing sustained financing for pandemic PPR to help bring an end to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, combat future health security threats, and break the costly cycle of neglect.
- Topic:
- Security, Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. Covid-19 and the Danger of Self-sufficiency: How Europe’s Pandemic Resilience was Helped by an Open Economy
- Author:
- Johan Norberg
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)
- Abstract:
- During the Covid-19 pandemic, Europe has benefitted strongly from being an open economy that can access goods and services from other parts of the world. Paradoxically, some politicians in Europe think that dependence on foreign supplies reduced the resilience of our economy – and argue that Europe now should wean itself off its dependence on other economies. In this Policy Brief, it is argued that self-sufficiency or less economic openness is a dangerous direction of policy. It would make Europe less resilient and less capable of responding to the next emergency. It is key that people, firms and governments can get supplies from other parts of the world. It is diversification, not concentration of production, that will make Europe more resilient when the next emergency hit. We don’t know where the next crisis will come from. Nature will throw nasty surprises at us, and we will make stupid mistakes, some of which will have devastating consequences. What we do know, though, is that we stand a better chance to fight the next emergency if we get richer and improve our technology. The best policy for resilience is one that encourages specialisation and innovation – and, when the emergency hit, allow for people to improvise in search for solutions. For that to happen, we need openness to goods, services and technology from abroad.
- Topic:
- Health, International Political Economy, Innovation, Economic Cooperation, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Global Focus
6. Blending the physical and virtual: a hybrid model for the future of work
- Author:
- Monika Grzegorczyk, Mario Mariniello, Laura Nurski, and Tom Schraepen
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Bruegel
- Abstract:
- The pandemic has shown that many workers can efficiently work remotely, with benefits for wellbeing and even productivity. The European Union should develop a framework to facilitate hybrid work.
- Topic:
- European Union, Work Culture, Innovation, Strategic Competition, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Global Focus
7. Solidarity during Covid-19 at national, regional and global levels: An enabler for improved global pandemic security and governance
- Author:
- Mika Aaltola, Johanna Ketola, Karoliina Vaakanainen, and Aada Peltonen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Solidarity has become a global and regional buzzword in the fght against Covid-19. As a result of the unequal and shifting disease burden and resource scarcity among countries, solidarity has manifested itself in various forms depending on the national and regional contexts and disease situations. Politicians worldwide have called for solidarity, which has taken many shapes and forms. At the nation- al and sub-national level, Covid-19 has prompted calls for communal solidarity. Solidarity, at the EU level, has often been used as a synonym for intra-EU coordination and assistance between member states as well as safe- guarding the welfare of EU citizens. In the global arena, UN and WHO leadership has been pushing for global sol- idarity to highlight the global nature and scope of the crisis, simultaneously alluding to the uneven distribu- tion of vaccines and the embedded systemic injustices in global health governance. Tis mosaic of solidarities difers from the normative ideal. In this Briefng Paper, we explore the diferent types of pandemic solidarities to understand the political dis- course during the frst year of the Covid-19 pandemic. We analyze the solidarity rhetoric of the high political leadership as well as key solidarity initiatives at three diferent governance levels: global (UN), regional (EU), and national (case Finland) to see how solidarity has been defned, in which context, and to what ends. Compared to other types of emergencies, pandemics are in a league of their own. One key characteristic of a pandemic emergency is the anxiety connected to the processes of contagion, infection, and spread. As the term ‘pandemic’ signifes, the frst line of defence at the local level has failed, as happened in the initial stage of Covid-19. Whereas natural catastrophes are usually lo- cally contained without additional concerns stemming from the fear of spread, pandemics are, to a degree, an- ti-humanitarian by their very nature. Tey usually lead to a knee-jerk reaction to step back and bufer oneself to prevent the harm from spreading.1 From this per- spective, pandemic solidarity is far more limited and qualitatively diferent. Instead of compassion for distant. others, a nearest-and-dearest approach can ensue. Tis Briefng Paper argues that lower levels of soli- darity should act as enablers for better pandemic gov- ernance at the global level. Until now, the impact of na- tional and regional solidarity has been relatively bleak. Calls for solidarity can act as empty signifers or merely as political rhetoric that is not tied to any concrete efort or action. To shed light on the meanings of solidarity, it is important to identify and distinguish the operative nature of solidarity, or lack thereof, in various contexts.
- Topic:
- Security, International Cooperation, Governance, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
8. Covid-19 Effects on Peace and Conflict Dynamics: The Need for Prevention Prevails
- Author:
- Katariina Mustasilta
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Armed conflicts around the world have continued largely unabated, irrespective of the global pandemic. Despite influencing conflict-affected contexts, the pandemic has not (thus far) been a gamechanger regarding conflicts. Both non-state and state actors have tried to seize opportunities stemming from the pandemic measures for their own benefit. This, along with changes in the footprint of peacebuilding efforts, has threatened human security. In the long term, socioeconomic repercussions of the pandemic pose the gravest threats to peace. The socioeconomic fallout can induce conflict by undermining the social contract and social cohesion, particularly in contexts with conflict legacies, deep inequalities, and high external economic dependencies. The EU has multiple tools that it can deploy in its external action to mitigate the conflict-inducing repercussions of the pandemic. Taking preventive action requires a long-term perspective, even amidst the unfolding crisis.
- Topic:
- Inequality, Conflict, Peace, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
9. Will Only a Green Power Remain a Great Power?
- Author:
- Marie Dejonghe
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- When the coronavirus broke out in 2020 the whole world literally came to a pause. The pandemic overshadowed all other major problems and started to shape relations between states. Climate change suddenly disappeared from the international agenda. However, the effects of the global climate crisis are showing faster and more severely than ever before: wildfires in Australia, extreme weather events in Asia, tornado’s in America, a melting Arctic... Secondary effects like climate migration and conflicts have become visible as well. This crisis is more urgent than ever. The COVID-19 crisis has shattered our economies, but lockdown measures taken by almost all governments have had a positive impact on the emission of greenhouse gases. The world took a step forward, even if unintended, towards the goals set in Paris in 2015. COVID-19 has taken away a lot from the world, but it may also have created a momentum to continue this downward trend and make it structural. Even the world’s great powers will have to integrate the green transition in their COVID-19 economy recovery plans in order to not fall off the wagon. But will only a green great power remain a great power?
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Green Technology, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
10. Impact of COVID-19 on Armed Forces
- Author:
- Luka Glusac and Ajla Kuduzovic
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
- Abstract:
- The unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on societies and their institutions has led to a series of extraordinary responses by governments around the world. COVID-19 has affected all dimensions of the security sector, including armed forces, which have been deployed to assist civilian authorities in fighting the pandemic in a vast majority of countries. The objective of this briefing note is to map the substantive impact of COVID-19 on armed forces from two perspectives
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Armed Forces, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
11. Impact of COVID-19 on Ombuds Institutions for the Armed Forces
- Author:
- Luka Glusac and Ajla Kuduzovic
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
- Abstract:
- New technologies simply cannot generate the insight and trust gained through personal interactions with a complainant or a witness, which allows for richer and more nuanced information gathering.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Science and Technology, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
12. The Ignored Pandemic: The Dual Crises of Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19
- Author:
- Rowan Harvey
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Gender Based Violence (GBV) is a global pandemic existing in all social groups across the globe, yet it has largely been ignored in the COVID-19 response and recovery plans. It is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified GBV, including domestic violence and intimate partner violence amongst other forms of violations, but the investments in GBV prevention and response are dramatically inadequate, with just 0.0002% of the overall COVID-19 response funding opportunities going into it. Barriers to achieving gender justice, such as harmful social norms, continue to exist, but progress made since the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign show that there are solutions, and feminist activism has been a driving force for progress on eliminating gender-based violence.
- Topic:
- Gender Based Violence, Violence, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
13. Not in This Together: How supermarkets became pandemic winners while women workers are losing out
- Author:
- Anouk Franck and Art Prapha
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Inequality is worsening and exploitation of women is endemic across the global economy. While inequality of power and value was already deeply unfair before the pandemic, it has now reached shocking proportions. COVID-19 has cost global workers $3.7 trillion in lost income, and women and young workers have been hardest hit, as they are often found in the most insecure and lowest-paid jobs. Few places reveal this trend more clearly than supermarket supply chains. In stark contrast to the escalating human misery brought by the pandemic, the supermarket sector has largely been the standout winner of the crisis. Senior executives, the largest institutional investors, and mostly wealthy shareholders of global supermarkets continue to be rewarded with business-as-usual high compensation and dividends. In fact, during the pandemic, publicly listed supermarkets distributed 98% of net profits to their shareholders via dividends and share buybacks. Meanwhile, workers and producers, especially women, across the globe – the people we call ‘essential’ or ‘frontline’ workers – have seen their incomes stagnate or even fall, while their rights continue to be violated.
- Topic:
- Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, Labor Rights, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
14. The Inequality Virus: Bringing together a world torn apart by coronavirus through a fair, just and sustainable economy
- Author:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- The coronavirus pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began. The virus has exposed, fed off and increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender and race. Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest – individuals and corporations – are thriving. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade. The crisis has exposed our collective frailty and the inability of our deeply unequal economy to work for all. Yet it has also shown us the vital importance of government action to protect our health and livelihoods. Transformative policies that seemed unthinkable before the crisis have suddenly been shown to be possible. There can be no return to where we were before. Instead, citizens and governments must act on the urgency to create a more equal and sustainable world.
- Topic:
- Governance, Inequality, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
15. Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis’s Indirect Health Impacts for Women and Girls
- Author:
- Carleigh Krubiner, Megan O'Donnell, Julia Kaufman, and Shelby Bourgault
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As donor institutions and governments seek to provide relief and support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, CGD’s COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. We seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Recognizing that the dialogue to date has largely emphasized challenges facing women and girls in high-income settings, our analysis centers on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. In this policy brief, we summarize the findings of a CGD working paper, Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis’s Indirect Health Impacts for Women and Girls. We examine how the pandemic is affecting women’s and girl’s health, including their sexual and reproductive health; some of the ways national governments and donor institutions have sought to maintain the provision of essential health services; and existing gaps, opportunities, and promising strategies donors and governments should pursue to address indirect harms to women’s and girl’s health during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
- Topic:
- Health, Children, Women, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
16. Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the COVID-19 Context
- Author:
- Megan O'Donnell, Mayra Buvinic, Charles Kenny, Shelby Bourgault, and George Yang
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As donor institutions and governments seek to provide relief and support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, CGD’s COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. We seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Recognizing that the dialogue to date has largely emphasized challenges facing women and girls in high-income settings, our analysis centers on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. In this policy brief, we summarize the findings of a CGD working paper, Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the COVID-19 Context. We explore the impacts of the crisis on women’s economic opportunities and outcomes, document the extent to which governments and donors are taking action to respond to these impacts, and make recommendations for how decision-makers can elevate women’s economic empowerment as a priority in response and recovery efforts. Specifically, we examine the impact of the COVID-19 global recession on women’s work and employment in low- and middle-income countries, including entrepreneurship, wage and salaried work, work in subsistence and commercial agriculture, and unpaid housework and care work.
- Topic:
- Economics, Women, Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
17. The Gendered Dimensions of Social Protection in the COVID-19 Context
- Author:
- Megan O'Donnell, Mayra Buvinic, Shelby Bourgault, and Brian Webster
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As donor institutions and governments seek to provide relief and support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, CGD’s COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. We seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Recognizing that the dialogue to date has largely emphasized challenges facing women and girls in high-income settings, our analysis centers on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. In this policy brief, we summarize the findings of a CGD working paper, The Gendered Dimensions of Social Protection in the COVID-19 Context. We explore the role of social protection, with an emphasis on social assistance policies and programs, in addressing increasing poverty, food insecurity, unpaid care work, and gender-based violence—all exacerbated by the onset of the crisis and associated containment measures. We document these trends and how they disproportionately impact women and girls, as well as the extent to which governments and donors are integrating a gender lens into their social protection efforts and make recommendations to ensure that future efforts effectively reach and benefit women and girls.
- Topic:
- Women, Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus