Comments on: Covid-19: a mirror to reflect current risks and challenges

By: Joanna Manganara

Joanna Manganara — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 14:39:34 +0000

A RESPONSE TO COVID-19 THAT IS NOT GENDERED ENOUGH
In my view, the ongoing financial crisis that has engulfed the whole world is not the outcome of COVID-19 only, but is a consequence of the financial architecture of capitalism that poses threats to gender equality, poverty and many other SDG’s. Moreover, the response of feminists to the crisis is not gendered enough. Feminists must work together to produce critiques that could help create an alternative vision of development, grounded on human rights and gender equality.
The current financial crisis is a consequence of the failure of the governance of finance. Finance has been allowed to grow too big, compared to the real economy. The governance is gendered because there is a large underrepresentation of women in financial decision making and as a result, the goals prioritized have been the requirements of finance at the expense of paid and domestic economies. The role of gender inequality in creating the crisis should be acknowledged. Recovery plans and structural adjustment programs have not integrated a perspective, while austerity measures have disastrous effects on people’s lives, especially women’s lives.
There has been a complete rewriting of the social contract from protecting people to protecting creditors and corporate rights, through processes of decision making that violate basic principles of participation and threaten democracy. The priority given to finance, including the financialization and speculation in means of livelihood is a violation of human rights.
Continuous denial of the gender impact of the crisis, combined with the exclusion of women as part of the solution, runs the risk of returning to business as usual that is a recovery strategy, which in the long term will have detrimental consequences on the real lives of women, men, as well as the environment.

By: Joanna Manganara

Joanna Manganara — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 10:36:30 +0000

Dear Renee,
Your idea to discuss this issue is very good. I am of the view that COVID-19 has made more visible the impact of the crisis on women. Despite that member states do not seem to understand that the impact of the crisis is different on women and men
and that they should take measures to strengthen the resilience of women to poverty Both men and women lose jobs and earnings but who loses what depends on the structure of the economy and the extent to which policies are gender blind or gender sensitive. An example of serious shortcomings has to do with data. Women are more likely to change jobs frequently and to be in temporary and /or informal work. Measures of unemployment and redundancy therefore often fail to capture adequately women’s specific experiences.There has been far less disaggregated study of increases in economic inactivity or in informal or vulnerable work or on the quality of life for women beyond the labour market (e,g. access to quality services and participation in community activities )
Best regards,
Joanna

By: Renée Gérard

Renée Gérard — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 12:51:55 +0000

The pandemic Covid 19 devastated the planet for one year and it seems that its many variants might represent a threat for the future
We anticipated risks and challenges, We are now facing them . Governments had to find and adapt their stratégies to cope with the disease and its socio economic consequences due to lengthy lockdowns, which disorganized the economic and social life, working system (‘webinars , web working )aggravating the digital social fracture.
Women are hit by the pandemic . In a short time it proved that DOMESTIC VIOLENCE increased during the lockdown especially in the cities. Unemployment hit women harder than men. Poverty hit badly single moters in charge of young children.
Many publications documented these new happenings

lNGOs have been concerned and attempted to bring their contribution
We want to report two examples of NGOs initiatives in two international and interparlementarian organisations where IAW is represented.

In UNESCO a small group of NGOs initiated a networking group with their affiliates around the world and they were amazed to see the resilience in countries where medical structures were not ready to cope with the pandemic; The friendly exchanges in that time of stress were geratly appreciated

In the Council of Europe a resolution presented by a working group was adopted by the INGO Conference: ” Call for ethical and Human rights compliant management ” ( below see the attachment of this resolution in French and in Englis h.
During the recent IAW meting of the 13 February I was glad to learn that a young Canadian girl, one of the IAW delegation to CSW 65th is a member of a “Parlement des Jeunes” and as such she had herself written a “law” concerning Covid.
We would welcome more comments from our sisters in the affiliated national associations and federations to share with us their efforts to cope with the challenges arising from that stressful situation.

https://rm.coe.int/conf-ple-2020-rec3-covid19-pandemic-en/1680a09147
https://rm.coe.int/conf-ple-2020-rec3-covid19-pandemie-fr/1680a09146

By: Sidney Coles

Sidney Coles — Sat, 06 Feb 2021 04:39:19 +0000

Salut Renée et al.
I was doing much work internationally prior to the Covid outbreak and subsequent travel bans. What I came to recognize is the need to collaborate virtually across borders. The pandemic has also spotlighted the necessity for development models, where ‘Western’ consultants were flown about the globe to “lead” equity projects to go by the wayside. Covid has created the important awareness, among some, that the work being done at the grassroots level requires the support of but not the leadership of international consultants. In this spirit, I founded the Emergent Equity Collective, a burgeoning network of women all working for women’s empowerment across sectors and continents that meets informally online to discuss our work, to be inspired by one another, and to share ideas. It’s the beating heart of my work at the moment, and I can see, on each call, how much it means to members to be connected, across space and time, to other women whom they might not ever have met. It presents opportunities for learning and mentorship and interdisciplinary dialogue that is, in my mind rather unique. I wish you well in your continued work. I hope to join the IAW.

By: Renée GERARD

Renée GERARD — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 11:43:08 +0000

Covid 19 is still with us and many resarches show that women are badly hit by unemployment due to the crisis
Regarding the total population statistics shows that the death rate of men is higher than the one of women .some hypothesis suggest a genetic element due to a chroosom
In old’s people homes where the risk of contamination is high and the lockdown strictly observed there are more women than men (their life being expected higher )but they are often poorer
In Unesco a group of NGOs started a network with their affiliates in different coutries .They were amazed to see the resilience of people especiall women in countries that did not have access tosophisticated medical services

Survival is another new challenge revealed by this crisis

Problems of governance had been pointed out .Their magnitude is higher than what could be expected .Even the governmants are confronted with tremendous public health problems but also their impact on economy ,on working conditions,on unemployment and social life
IAW has affiliates in many countries and we should feel solidarity with our sisters sufferig all over the world

By: Renée Gérard

Renée Gérard — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 18:29:45 +0000

The discussion is supposed to focus on the risks and challenges – the Lancet article is none of these
So as I told you it should be another discussion involving opinions of different actors (you mention WHO but we saw that researchers, physicians, scientists had differences of opinion )
If you are interested and if you believe that IAW might benefit from this new discussion, you might start it.
Personally, I am very concerned about the social and economic global impact of the CoViD crisis on human societies (and on women in these societies). It is why I quoted the books of Jared Diamond and Eric Kline and I want to indicate a new book by Amin Maalouf in French: Le naufrage des civilisations 10 Juin 2019

By: Anje Wiersinga

Anje Wiersinga — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 19:43:34 +0000

The story of the Lancet articles (there were at least 2) is more complex. It is important to mention that following these articles ethical questions were raised: leading to renewed international discussions on the ethical acceptability of conducting human trials.
Resulting into the WHO to publish criteria for such ethical acceptability on the advice of an international working group. WHO includes in its statement “there should be public engagement and broad consultation with civil society” on this.

By: Khadidja

Khadidja — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 21:09:54 +0000

I would like to join, please get in touch

By: Alison Brown

Alison Brown — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 14:30:04 +0000

Just a tiny quibble: Jared Diamond: Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed is not a novel, it is a work of non-fiction. I am reading Eric H. Cline: 1177 BC: The year Civilization collapsed now for a discussion on it in April 2021. I am sure it will still be relevant as SARS-CoV-2 resists all our efforts to wipe it out before it does us in.