The new normal. Or so they say. There are innumerable permutations of the phrase “new normal,” as I write. They include calls to be brave, to accept, to get used to and to find a new normal. But we must ponder what this phrase means and implies.
The recently published World Bank report, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune
( https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-prosperity), underlines the vast impoverishing effects of the current crisis. It is estimated that in 2020, 115 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty and could rise to 150 million in 2021. The report analyses the convergence of a pandemic and its associated global economic downturn, armed conflict and climate change during these unprecedented times. It argues that these three converging forces have reversed the gains in the eradication of extreme poverty, defined as living on less than GBP1.50 a day, for the first time in a generation, since 1998. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020 presents evidence that the triple crisis is “sharply reducing incomes and welfare among people who are already poor while impoverishing ten of millions more who may differ from the existing poor in ways important for policy response.” Clearly, existing conditions are now more acute coupled with the crisis engendering what the report calls the “new poor.” And depending on the scope and severity of the impact of climate change, the report also estimates that between 68 million and 132 million (from an earlier estimate of 100 million) will be impoverished by 2030.
On the other hand, the Swiss bank UBS and PwC in Riding the Storm (https://www.pwc.ch/en/insights/fs/billionaires-insights-2020.html) reports that billionaires, the world’s richest, hit a record high with their wealth increasing 27.5 percent from April to July 2020 compared to the 12 percent growth in billionaires’ wealth last year, as reported by Oxfam. Billionaires from industrials, healthcare and technology have seen their wealth rise between 41%-44%, from April to July of this “pandemic year,” the UBS-PwC report indicated. The world’s 1 percent is richer and global inequality more intensified than ever. And the vast impoverishing effects of the three converging forces makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet the targets for 2030.
The findings of the Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020 call for urgent action. “We must not fail,” the report concludes. But what does “not failing” mean in the face of the three converging forces? Where lies hope? What does it mean to be resilient at this time?
In 2014, I was in Apia, Samoa for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States, which highlighted the “unique and particular vulnerabilities” of small island developing states and large ocean nations. The word resilience buzzed in the conference that focused on the environmental and economic imperatives. In 2015, civil society from across the Commonwealth gathered in Malta and drafted the Malta Declaration on Governance for Resilience (https://commonwealthfoundation.com/resource/malta-declaration-on-governance-for-resilience/). The Declaration offers the view that “mainstream notions of resilience-building that are limited to strengthening the ability of individuals and societies to cope are inadequate as approaches for achieving substantive transformation, as they transfer the burden of resilience on the poor. In reality, most societal vulnerabilities arise from external factors that people have little capacity to control, including a neo-liberal economic system that reproduces these vulnerabilities.” The declaration further demands for a kind of governance that is participatory, inclusive, accountable and sensitive to gender and its intersectionality and argues that resilience is a “multifaceted construct which must be shaped by unheard voices and narratives, responding to all forms of vulnerability and upholding the rights of all people in all their diversity.” It also posits that “change in the current power dynamics is needed to build resilience with active, not superficial community engagement and participation in decision-making processes, where people are part of developing solutions to address fundamental problems.”
This call resonates now more than any other time. And such governance for resilience requires closing the gap between policy response aspirations and effective implementation. A systems approach to develop and deliver policies that respond to the differential impact of the crisis on people and communities in the margins is critical. Women for instance are facing more risks and are more severely exposed to the multifaceted crisis. How can governments exemplify effective responsiveness, transparency and accountability in addressing the complex challenges? Are local capacities being matched with the need and are finances being invested in ensuring administrative and implementation systems are in place and fit for purpose? Is there political will for substantive transformation?Are there more and more women authorised to be decision makers in policy and political processes?
The findings of the Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020 call for urgent action. “We must not fail,” the report concludes.There is indeed a need for a systemic and more holistic response. In 2013, I first came across the phrase “planetary health” at a conference laying out the architecture for post 2015, which we now know as SDG 2030, at the UN in Bonn, Germany. The converging forces of the crisis demand a movement such as planetary health that invites us to reimagine the intersecting discourse on health, climate change and environmental degradation from a systems perspective. In his article, COVID-19: Reimagining the political economy of planetary health, Renzo Guinto, MD, Chief Planetary Doctor of PH Lab writes that one of the fundamental challenges that is shared by “all of planetary health’s ‘wicked problems’ –… (is) weak governance." For Planetary Health to realise its added value in offering solutions for the issues of this century and beyond, it must pursue a governance that is “bold,” addressing, instead of exacerbating, inequalities and systemic oppression and as Dr Guinto argues, “critically analyze the political and economic forces that destroy the health of both people and the planet, but also attempt to…reshape them.”
The profile of poverty, disproportionate vulnerability and intensifying inequality is changing as the world order is shifting before our eyes. The complexity of the global crisis we face - including the trust deficit in national and global leaders- certainly deserves a more robust governance response and a conclusion far beyond being brave in embracing a “new normal.” The scale of the current crisis can’t make do with the global status quo. Re-building resilient societies must never be about transferring the burden of resilience on the poor. Instead it requires a re-imagination, a systemic response to the complexity of the realities individual and communities face; amplifying less heard voices with their new and alternative narratives; and stories of how it is possible to change certain power dynamics for a more inclusive society with a governance that makes a meaningful difference in people’s lives, leaving no one behind. There is a wealth of grassroots and country-specific solutions, particularly from the global south, that can and must inspire, build and galvanise global action. If there is a new normal that would resonate with me, it is this.
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