Feminist Perspectives on Crises Response and Governance

As the world enters the third year of the pandemic, one must not underestimate the global trauma that is taking its toll. The multiple crises the world faces have had a devastating impact on the majority of the world, with the exception of the world’s richest. In the blog, The New Normal? The Politics of Resilience[1], I cited, Riding the Storm[2], which reported that the world’s richest hit a record high with their wealth increasing 27.5 percent from April to July 2020 compared to 12 percent growth in billionaires’ wealth in 2019. In January this year, Oxfam International released Inequality Kills which highlights that the wealth of the 10 richest men has doubled from March 2020 to November 2021, while the incomes of 99%of humanity are worse off, because of COVID-19. The report asserts, “Billionaire wealth has seen its biggest increase ever, and has now spiralled to its highest-ever level…. Billionaire wealth has grown more since the pandemic began than it has in the last 14 years.”[3] Extreme inequality betrays the harm caused by structural policies and political choices that favour the interests of the richest and the most powerful over and above the vast majority of people. The other crisis, a pandemic within a pandemic, is gender-based violence. The commitment and progress on gender justice has been profoundly derailed with gender-based violence accounting for only 0.0002% of coronavirus response funding[4]

Within the context of extreme inequality at the heart of the multiple, interlocking crises and emergencies fueled by an alarming new era of monopoly power, [5] political and commercial, let us take a much needed pause for some hope. There are examples of governance responses worth considering. In Protecting public health in adverse circumstances: subnational women leaders and feminist policymaking during COVID 19, Jennifer M. Piscopo and Malliga Och featured women elected leaders in the terrain of local governance “who championed public health and social protection despite the adverse circumstances created by men chief executive”[6]Drawing from examples in Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, Japan, India, and Mexico, Piscopo and Och argue that women elected officials at sub-national level proritised wellbeing, social protection and ways to transform structural inequalities. Their stories convey that clear communications, swift and decisive action and policies implemented in favour of addressing the needs of the vulnerable, especially women, persons with disabilities and communities in the margins, are game changers. According to Piscopo and Och, “their inclusive and justice-oriented coronavirus responses challenge the male-dominated status quo of politics in their countries, creating a feminist approach to pandemic management…. even if individual woman politicians did not or would not perceive their actions in feminist terms.”[7] Piscopo and Och “frame their pandemic responses as consistent with feminist approaches to policymaking: they prioritise wellbeing and seek to ameliorate and transform the structural inequalities that give rise to injustice in the first place (Lombardo et al. 2017).” [8]

Let us consider a few examples featured in the paper[9]:

Brazil

- In Caruaru, in Pernambuco, Mayor Raquel Lyra activated her municipal crisis committee in March 2020, telling a journalist that ‘we work in a very responsible, transparent and collaborative way’ (N brega 2021). Lyra established teams that would move throughout the municipality, providing face-to face education and health services while also monitoring businesses and individuals to ensure they followed public health guidelines (N brega 2021).

- In the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais, mayor of Juiz de Fora, Margarida Salom o got to work quickly following her November 2020 election. Salom o created a Citizens’ Table that linked businesspeople, civil society organisations, and volunteers working on social initiatives (El Globo 2020). She also decentralised the city’s Social Assistance Secretariat and created specialised offices to work with children, adolescents, the elderly, the disabled, migrants, the homeless, the LGBTQ+ population, and women victims of violence (Prefeitura of Juiz de Fora 2021)

India

- Daljit Kaur, sarpanch of Rurkee village in Punjab state worked closely with community organisations and women’s groups to make and distribute masks, prepare and distribute vegetable rations to the poor and to migrants who could not return home, sanitise the village, and raise public awareness through WhatsApp groups and door-to-door campaigns (Banerji 2020).

- Sarpanch Shobha Dev of Bokaro, in Jharkhand state, eased the economic impact of lockdowns by re-establishing essential services and by pooling money from local government funds, her own coffers, and private donations in order to purchase and distribute grocery packages and hygiene kits (Saha 2021).

-The youngest woman sarpanch in Punjab state, Pallavi Thakur, identified three priorities that shaped her COVID-19 response: ‘Control and suppress the spread of the virus, strengthen and maintain health services, and support each other to stay safe, healthy and well’ (Dhaliwal 2021).

Philippines

-Governor of the Dinagat Islands, Arlene Bag-ao, took early action by convening all mayors to implement similar health protocols and organising local government agencies to stockpile food supplies (Friedrich Naumann Foundation 2020).

-In Barugo in Leyte Province, Mayor Macel Cumpio-Avestruz bypassed unreliable cellular networks and communicated information to village captains via handheld radio, which the captains then relayed over villages’ public address systems (Bagayas 2020).

-In Oras in Eastern Samar Province, Mayor Viviane Alvarez used social media and also produced illustrated leaflets in different local languages to educate her constituents about COVID-19 (Bagayas 2020). Alvarez told a journalist, ‘For me, we should always and at all times give the proper information to our people’ (Bagayas 2020)

(This) women’s community-based approach is perhaps not surprising, as Akshi Chawla (interviewed by Malliga Och, virtual, 19 August 2021) noted (since) many women have prior experience in social movements, grassroots organisations, or self-help groups.[10]

A question that begs an answer: how can a context specific governance reform in response to the interlocking crises at the global, regional, national, and local levels commit to and execute “nothing about us without us”?

Inequality Kills and Responding with Equality have proposed solutions to address the multiple crises, calling on governments to act and reinforcing the role of social movements. The proposed solutions include, among others, a public health system with enough trained and well paid staff, debt cancellation and support for the IMF issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR)[11], redistributing power in politics and the private sector so it works for the many, centering workers in corporate decision-making and boosting the political representation, implementation of an one-off solidarity taxes to release billions to fight inequality, progressive taxes on capital and wealth and an end to tax havens and corporate tax dodging, universal social protection that offers income security for all, urgent funding for adaptation, loss and

damage, and a fossil fuel-free world, investment to help strengthen women’s rights and new gender-equal laws and a waiver of intellectual property rules.

Indeed, governments must act. But it is certainly not only about governments. There is a need to imagine a kind of governance and policy response that is inclusive, marked by people’s participation, formally and informally. A question that begs an answer is: how can a context specific governance reform in response to the interlocking crises at the global, regional, national, and local levels commit to and execute “nothing about us without us”? It is crucial to address all forms of vulnerability within the context of the differential impact of the crises. An understanding of the different intersecting systems of oppression and recognition of the various ways that gender inequality is shaped by these intersections is crucial in governance reform. It is important for policy to recognise how race, age, class, gender, among others, overlap and form a web of interconnectedness. Is there political will for substantive transformation? For example, how bold would governance be to reverse structural adjustment policies? Are there more and more women authorised to be decision makers in policy and political processes? Are local capacities being matched with the need of the hour? Are finances being invested to execute transformative legislation and ensure administrative and implementation systems are in place and fit for purpose? 2022 is poised to witness eight general elections and one mid terms elections across the world. How much hope would break through in the aftermath of these elections? And where will governance that addresses intersectional inequalities prevail against the odds?

[1] https://www.myngarcia.com/post/the-new-normal-the-politics-of-resilience [2] https://www.pwc.ch/en/insights/fs/billionaires-insights-2020.html [3] Nabil Ahmed, et al (January 2022), Inequality Kills, Oxfam International [4] Ibid [5] Emma Seery ( December 2021), Responding with Equality, Working Group 2 of the Global Commission on Democracy and Emergencies, Global Commission on Democracy and Emergencies convened by Club de Madrid and Oxfam International- an official knowledge partner to the Global Commission, [6] Jennifer M. Piscopo & Malliga Och (2021) Protecting public health in adverse circumstances: subnational women leaders and feminist policymaking during COVID-19, Gender & Development, 29:2-3, 547-568, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2021.1982481 [7] Ibid [8] Ibid [9] Ibid [10] Ibid [11] SDR an international reserve asset allocated to all IMF member states, and rich countries must ensure that significant portions of their SDRs are redirected to maximize support to vulnerable economies that is free of debt and conditionality – as they should be doing now