Do we ever learn? Collective memory as a blind spot in KNAW report on pandemics

By Posted on

In its latest advisory report ‘Met de kennis van straks’ (‘With the knowledge of later’), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) maps out what Dutch science and society need to do in order to be well prepared – and thus ready – for future pandemics. However, the report pays scant attention to macro(economic) issues, which doesn’t do justice to this societal-medical problem, writes Peter van Bergeijk.

Source: Syaibatul Hamdi, Pixabay.

Introduction

If we have learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, it is that it is almost impossible for economists to make clear what our field is about. In fact, debates on economics all but stopped in my home country (Van Bergeijk 2022) [1]. Important insights from economics therefore did not sufficiently feed into other fields of science and policy.

From an economic point of view, the most important question is how to deal with the scarcity that arises during a pandemic. This requires insight into the effects and effectiveness of measures that have been considered and taken. I want to illustrate this with three topics that also provide concrete recommendations for improvement.

 

Be transparent about intended measures

A macroeconomic analysis is indispensable both because of the pandemic, which involves a simultaneous loss of a large part of the labour force, and because of measures including business closures and restrictions on gathering and movement. That up-to-date analyses of a flu pandemic were not ready in the Netherlands is an omission of the major policy institutions (CPB Netherlands Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Dutch Central Bank DNB), because the risk was known. On the eve of the COVID-19 outbreak, the ‘Geïntegreerde risicoanalyse Nationale Veiligheid’ (‘Integrated National Security Risk Analysis’ – ANV 2019) for example reported that a flu pandemic in the near future was both likely (5-50%) and a major threat for society with a significant impact on population and the economy at large.

However, the econometricians at CPB and DNB cannot be blamed for not foreseeing the lockdowns that were suddenly conjured out of the medical top hat in 2020. None of the national and international roadmaps anticipated lockdowns (van Bergeijk 2021a). As a result, not only policy analysts, but also scientists could not anticipate that lockdown instruments would be used. A first important conclusion is therefore that realistic roadmaps should be drawn up – and published – as early on as possible so that analyses of concretely considered (combinations of) instruments can be made in advance without the time pressure of an unfolding pandemic.

 

International comparative macro-research is needed

The KNAW report focuses mainly on improved accessibility of micro data (for example health status and socio-economic characteristics of large groups of individuals). This requires linking medical data files with data on socio-economic characteristics, either by means of long-term panels or through CBS Statistics Netherlands. At face value, this focus on micro and the Netherlands is understandable, but at the same time, one might argue that this focus is too narrow. After all, a pandemic is not a national problem, the micro-macro paradox can lead to bias, and a third relevant problem is whether the vulnerable are (or will be) adequately represented in the data. A very obvious problem with Internet panels, for example, is the under-representation of both the elderly and the disadvantaged and marginally poor, who are both more vulnerable and inherently more difficult to survey.

It is unfortunate that the KNAW focuses so much on the Dutch context. Every national context is unique and findings are therefore strongly determined by the conditions of time and place. ‘Met de kennis van straks’ uses these differences in context to justify an essentially national research strategy. Learning, however, actually requires making to make good use of differences in national contexts. Where regional policy in the Netherlands has proved to be impossible, researchers will have to look beyond national borders for differences in policies, institutions, and behaviour. National navel-gazing can be expected to lead to opportunities and threats being overlooked. It is important to start asking what the optimal design of our society would be from the perspective of pandemic resilience, lest the costs become too high. The second conclusion is therefore that building resilience in an evidence-based way requires extensive investments and structural change, which in turns requires research on the influence of differences between national contexts.

 

Final research findings do not exist

The economic view of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to change significantly in coming years. After all, definitive research findings do not exist. Consider, for example, the estimate for the growth rate of world GDP in the year 2020 provided by the IMF in its World Economic Outlook [2]. Figure 1 shows that successive estimates for 2021 and 2022 became slightly less negative each time. 2020 will never be a good year, of course, but the adjustments made to the historical data are not insignificant. It amounts to 0.3 percentage points, or 10 percent of the first estimate. The adjustments themselves moreover come as no surprise at all (van Bergeijk 2021b).

 

Figure 1. Adjustments made in four instances by the IMF to the 2020 world production growth estimates provided in its World Economic Outlook.

Source: IMF website, accessed 11 October 2022.

 

The medical impact of the pandemic will also take time to become clear. We know the number of people that got COVID-19 and whether they recovered or died due to infection, but we know neither the impact on the long run of the lockdowns on the health status of the population, nor the long-term effects of COVID-19 itself. This uncertainty does not mean that no general policy recommendations can be made. Cost-benefit analyses, for example, have shown that while short lockdowns may make a rational and cost-effective contribution during pandemic outbreaks, the same cannot be said of long-term lockdown policies. This is basically because at its core, a human life can only be saved once, while longer lockdowns continuously increase economic costs. So, whether such an insight is valid for the next pandemic is not the question. However, what is ‘short’ cannot be answered in advance. The third conclusion is that economics can play an important role in helping design macro trade-off frameworks to best fill in and adjust the parameters in the event of a breakout as soon as new insights become available.

 

Conclusion

Science pretends to know a lot and to be able to contribute much. In this regard, it is probably too big for its boots. Vaccines have been important, but if we can actually put the COVID-19 crisis behind us, it will be mostly thanks to the gift Mother Nature gave us, namely a less severe, more infectious variant that makes COVID-19 better socially manageable. It is human nature to draw some lessons after a pandemic has died out and then to forget them. It is remarkable that all the issues that came up during the previous pandemic, the Mexican Flu pandemic, remained unresolved and came back again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Science could and should play a much more important role here, not so much in research, but in education. It is actually strange that the report does not pay attention to the core task of science. Providing the knowledge about the previous pandemic requires a better place in the curricula of all fields of science. If not, our students, who will probably experience four to five more pandemics in their lifetime, will be not be prepared for the next one.

Footnotes

[1] Dutch readers may want to consult van Bergeijk 2021b.

[2] Another example is the resurgence of research on the economic impact of the Spanish Flu.

 

References

ANV, 2019, Geïntegreerde risicoanalyse Nationale Veiligheid, ANV Netherlands Network of Safety and Security Analysts http://www.rivm.nl/sites/default/files/2019-10/Geintegreerde%20risicoanalyse%20Nationale%20Veiligheid%202019.pdfhttp://www.rivm.nl/sites/default/files/2019-10/Geintegreerde%20risicoanalyse%20Nationale%20Veiligheid%202019.pdf

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van, 2021a, Pandemic Economics, Edward Elgar 2021.

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van, 2021b, De volgende pandemie: een deltaplan voor overleving, Walburg, 2021.

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van, 2022, The Political Economy of the Next Pandemic, Review of Economic Analysis, 14 (1), 27-49

KNAW, 2022, Met de Kennis van straks: De wetenschap goed voorbereid op pandemieën.

This article was originally published on MeJudice and has been republished with permission of the author and editors.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Peter van Bergeijk is Professor of International Economic Relations and Macroeconomics at the Hague-based Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University (ISS); one of the leading educational and research institutes in the field of development cooperation in Europe.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

From sacred to clinical: how the lack of proper burials during the Covid-19 pandemic affected communities in Uganda

By Posted on

When Covid-19 started spreading across the globe, the World Health Organization issued strict burial guidelines in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. In Uganda, the national health department took over the burial of Covid-19 victims, interring them quickly and without adhering to proper cultural and religious procedures. In a country where death rituals form a central part of the grieving process, the undignified burials that took place during the pandemic have had severe psychological consequences for bereaved families and communities.

In the Global South and in Africa particularly, most development studies research concentrates on survival issues; economic needs and death/loss are generally discussed in relation to poverty or AIDS, while the few available bereavement studies focus on the grieving experiences of individuals or groups.[1] However, injustices are also apparent in processes of grieving; unpacking the way in which grief is collectively and individually experienced is a necessary first step in addressing these injustices. Here, I show how the strict burial guidelines imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic were received in Uganda and why we should take note.

 

The many facets of death rituals

Death rituals, defined as “forms of expressions and connections performed by individuals, groups of people or communities in communication with the living-dead and the Supreme Being”[2], connect the dead and living in Africa. These rituals serve to mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds as the spirit of the deceased crosses between worlds. Many African families for example have a graveyard within the compound they live in because they believe that the dead remains part of the living family.[3]

During death rituals, the bereaved family plays a direct role in preparing the body, washing the body and shaving the deceased’s head; domestic animals are also slaughtered for ritual purposes. Slaughtering a sheep, for example, is meant to please the ancestors so that they do not demand another death.[4] And a death is communicated to the entire community as part of the ritual. A study of death rituals in Bugumba in Uganda shows how community members participate in death rituals once a large bonfire has been lit in the compound of the deceased to communicate bereavement to everyone in the community.[5]

Other death-related rites and beliefs include a belief among the Ethur of northeastern Uganda in life after death, with the spirit of the dead person travelling to the realm of ‘Obanga’, as well as the common belief that the dead are spirits that can send curses if disturbed.[6] Not performing death rituals would be considered one way of disturbing the dead. Similarly, in northern Uganda, a harmonious relationship between the living and dead is maintained to avoid ‘cen’, or vengeful spirits, by performing rituals.[7]

Death rituals are considered so important that in cases where a bereaved family lacks adequate resources to perform crucial rituals, community members may contribute the required resources – something that is reciprocal. In studying bereavement, the concept of Ubuntu[8] helps us to understand how cohesion and solidarity are maintained during and after burial through communal rituals and mourning. People travel from far away to participate in death rituals or attend funerals because death comes with misfortune for those who don’t participate in rituals. Paying close attention to the rituals while maintaining solidarity is a key healing factor from loss due to death.[9]

 

The inability to say goodbye properly

Limitations on death rituals during the Covid-19 pandemic and the interment of Covid-19 victims by health authorities thus caused great distress in Uganda and beyond. During the pandemic, following protocols issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) to curb the spread of the virus, strict guidelines for burials were issued by the government of Uganda under its Ministry of Health. They included limiting the handling of the deceased body to health/burial teams only, wrapping the body in waterproof plastic bags before handing it over for burial, and preventing the public from seeing the body. Family members and other mourners had to stay two meters away from the body.

Many district governments came up with further burial guidelines that included the time at which the burial was to take place, the prohibition of death announcements over radios to prevent the burials from attracting crowds, and ensuring a burial would take no more than two hours. The burial team, dressed in white wellington boots, full plastic protective suits, goggles, face shields, and gloves besides preparing the body secured the burial sites, dug the graves, and conducted the burials. They were nicknamed ‘Angels’ because they appeared mystical to the community members.

 

Indignation and defiance

Besides leading to personal suffering, these clinical burials also led to political dissatisfaction. The burial teams were heckled and some attacked for not following burial traditions. This is because in Uganda, a dead person is very special to the community and must be treated with full respect during the entire burial process. Burials were considered undignified because of the rough handling of the dead and the mourning of those close to the deceased in isolation, when this would usually take place as part of the burial process.[10] The departure from the traditional rituals led to psychosocial suffering (distress for bereaved families) that affecting healing, since no space was provided to express grief.

The community felt that the creation of distance between the deceased person and mourners, the wrapping of the body in artificial materials, and the handling of the body by seemingly alien entities did not ensure sufficient respect. The mystery and criticism was inspired by a deep distrust of the government during the pandemic, leading to allegations such as government’s burying of empty coffins and speculation that Covid-19 deaths concealed the trafficking of individuals.

“How could the spirit of the dead be reached and engaged when it is so trapped? Can the spirit be able to escape its ‘plastic prison’ and join the ancestors, or remain locked in captivity?” asks Brian Mukalazi in the Daily Monitor newspaper, describing how the burial of Covid-19 victims in a ‘scientific’ way angered the communities and led them to defying the burial guidelines by secretly exhuming the bodies to conduct decent burials. Communities such as the Budaka in eastern Uganda, the Buikwe, and the Palissa who resorted to this claimed they needed to ensure decent burials for their departed kin since their spirits had started disturbing their living relatives and some community members.

 

Conclusion

It is clear from the above that the suffering stemming from the loss of a loved one can be compounded by the lack of proper treatment of the deceased, in this case by the absence of proper burial rituals. However, these emotional impacts of injustices linked to bereavement processes on those close to the deceased and their communities are not yet sufficiently understood. It is crucial to address the psychosocial needs of those that lost loved ones to the pandemic. To prevent recurrence, and to help the bereaved find closure, academic research should focus more deliberately on cultural and psychological needs that arise during bereavement processes.

 

[1] McCarthy, J. R., Evans, R., Bowlby, S., & Wouango, J. (2020). Making sense of family deaths in urban Senegal: Diversities, contexts, and comparisons. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 82(2), 230-260.

[2] Baloyi, L., & Makobe-Rabothata, M. (2014). The African conception of death: A cultural implication.

[3] Umoh, D. S. (2012). Death is not natural: The African story.

[4] Haram, L. (2021). Bodily grief work meets Christian interiority: The Meru case. Death studies, 45(1), 51-60.

[5] Vokes, R. (2018). Before the call: Mobile phones, exchange relations, and social change in south-western Uganda. Ethnos, 83(2), 274-290.

[6] Wayland, E. J. (1931). Preliminary studies of the tribes of Karamoja. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 61, 187-230.

[7] Kembel, A. S. (2015). When the Dead Are Not Silent: The Investigation of Cultural Perspectives Concerning Improper Burials in Northern Uganda.

[8] As a theoretical perspective, Ubuntu is expressed in many languages in African communities but with the same meaning (Mugumbate and Chereni, 2020). Ubuntu caring solidarity translates to Uganda’s context through a saying which literally means “today it’s me, tomorrow someone else”.

[9] Lee, R., & Vaughan, M. (2008). Death and dying in the history of Africa since 1800. The Journal of African History, 49(3), 341-359.

[10] Lubega, M., Nakamya, C. S., Namugumya, E., & Najjemba, J. (2022). The effect of COVID-19 public health guidelines on the funeral traditions and burial rituals among the Baganda, a tribe in Central Uganda. PAMJ-One Health, 7(7).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Henry Okidi Okoth holds a MA Development Studies degree from the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Currently, he is a researcher and consultant with Collaborative Social Change. His research interests are death and bereavement studies from a decolonial perspective, marginalization and poverty, gender, conflict, and human rights.

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Rebuilding the economy one home-office at a time: the pros and cons of working from the office

By Posted on

Are we sure we still need to be in the office 40+ hours a week? The economy may suffer in the short term if we continue flexible working, but society suffers in the long term if we force a return to the office So, do we really need to return to full time work-from-office? I say no. Hear me out.

It’s 2022, and now that COVID-19 is not as serious a threat, we are collectively looking at figuring out how to move forwards (or backwards) to a post-pandemic reality. This includes the slew of opinion pieces we are bombarded with extolling both the perils and virtues of continued hybrid working (Hsu, 2022; Duncan, 2022; Sherman, 2022). It is time, therefore, to look at both the merits and consequences of not returning to the office.

 

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/tuesday-june-8th-work-home
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/tuesday-june-8th-work-home

Before doing my master’s degree, I was working in a large multi-national corporation in Singapore. As someone who had to work from home from November 2019 (read: before the global pandemic) because of a broken leg, but whose job required her to personally connect with as many colleagues as she could, let me tell you that working from an office is not the end-all solution. Before November 2019 I had been going in every day, and not once did I underestimate the power of working face to face in an office environment. However, working entirely from home didn’t stall my productivity either. If anything, the more flexible schedules allowed me to take better care of local and global relationships because I could catch colleagues at all hours of the day based on their own disparate schedules, and take proper breaks in between to deal with personal needs like physio and doctor’s visits, cooking, cleaning, or other household needs for myself and my family without scheduling set office hours or the pressure of commuting. The lack of travel to and from office, as well as huge savings on professionally mandated socialising via lunches, coffees, and drinks meant saving enough money that I was able to pay for my degree almost in full!

 

We saw during the height of the pandemic that our biggest collective fear is facing the consequences of the unknown, which is why the urgency we see from governments and companies in having people return to the office is understandable (Franklin, 2022; Lim, 2022; Forrest, 2021; Gordon and McGregor, 2022). It is far more comforting to revert to the familiar, and in this case, those in charge – from companies to governments, to university administrators – are keen to go back to what they know: physical attendance.

 

Let us give them credit: in-person connectivity has immeasurable benefits. To start with, an influx of staff back to office buildings will certainly help those businesses that rely on office spaces (think cleaners, the food and beverage industry [F&B], real estate), and by extension the families who depend on these businesses. In addition, it is undeniable that team rapports and knowledge sharing are built more effectively through face-to-face interactions. However, this is where the fallacy fails: it is misguided to assume office jobs are only truly effective when conducted from an office. Indeed, the pandemic has taught us otherwise, and forgetting this lesson will result in regressive consequences (Choudhry, 2020).

To be clear, no one questions the need to rebuild economies. This is a feat that takes both manpower and brainpower, but I would argue that the more of both we have, the faster and more efficiently we can rebuild. Working from an office once again limits brainpower to those who are able enough to reach the office in the first place (usually men, the able-bodied, youth, and for instance those who can afford or do not need childcare). In considering this state of affairs, we exclude hugely talented swathes of the community who, during COVID-19 were actually being given the opportunity to find employment through remote-working opportunities, including fully educated but full-time mothers, the retired and the elderly, and those with disabilities. Inherently, in forcing staff back to the office, we once again exclude these groups: fundamentally counter-productive to rebuilding.

 

It is true that maintaining a permanent hybrid working environment does pose risks, but inherently they are all short-term. The most obvious has already been mentioned – the financial strain on the office-dependent businesses and the families who depend on those businesses. By extension, businesses that have depended on in-person connectivity will also be affected, like the airline business. Just recently, British Airways announced the cancellation of 30,000 flights in 2022 alone (BBC, 2022). F&B and hotels are equally affected, as are their related supply chains (Jagt, 2022; Mijnke, Obermann and Hammers, 2022). But people and businesses are creative and resilient. They will find ways to reinvent the wheel and make it work for them. Indeed, considering the tenacity of human nature, we will endure – for instance, an option to convert existing unutilised office spaces into public utility spaces such as schools, day-cares, or temporary shelters with related shops to protect housing and living costs.

 

But for any of these to happen, governments and companies need to stop thinking short-term, and start considering the long-term effects of their actions. A full-time return to office spaces will result in an undoing of all the effort that went into repairing what this neoliberal, profit-centric, exclusionary, high-pressure system progressively broke in the past: from the strengthened family relationships (hello two-year lockdown!) to the healthier diets and more socio-environmentally conscious purchasing and living (home-cooking, supporting local shops, gardening, the upsurge in second-hand markets, a reduction in carbon footprint from reduced traveling). Talent from forgotten resources like mothers, the less-physically-abled and retirees can be reinstated in new forms, and the subsequent intellectual discrimination that has, until now, been a detriment to the economy can be renewed and utilised. The cost, therefore, of forcing a return to the white-light corridors, communal coffee machines, recycled air, and open plan desks will far outweigh the benefits of corporate camaraderie, social capital, and political protection. As important as it is to recognise the value of in-person work, it appears that, once again, companies like LinkedIn and Twitter appear ahead of the curve by suggesting long-term work-from-home options (Kay, 2021; Kelly, 2022). Perhaps the time has come for other institutions to follow their lead and see the value they derive in it. And perhaps in changing what an ‘office’ looks like, corporations can gain back some of the trust they have lost by putting profit over people for so long.

 

British Broadcasting Corporation (6 July 2022) ‘British Airways to Cancel 10,300 More Flights’, British Broadcasting Corporation, accessed 19 July 2022

Choudhry P (2020) ‘Our Work-From-Anywhere Future’, Harvard Business Review, accessed 19 July 2022

Duncan E (18 February 2022) ‘COVID has Changed the Way We Work and There’s No Going Back’, The Times UK, accessed 19 July 2022

Forrest A (3 August 2021) ‘Government Urges Businesses to ‘Ramp Up’ Return to Office this Summer’, The Independent UK, accessed 19 July 2022

Franklin J (1 June 2022) ‘Elon Musk Tells Employees to Return to the Office 40 Hours a Week – or Quit’, NPR, accessed 19 July 2022

Gordon N and McGregor G (29 June 2022) ‘As the Return-to-Office Debate Rages in the U.S. and Europe, the Matter is Already Settled in Asia’, Fortune, accessed 19 July 2022

Hsu A (5 June 2022) ‘The Idea of Working in the Office, All Day Every Day? No Thanks, Say Workers’, NPR, accessed 19 July 2022  

Jagt R (2022) ‘COVID-19 and the Food Industry’, Deloitte, accessed 19 July 2022. www.deloitte.com/nl

Kay D (29 July 2021) ‘LinkedIn Allows Employees to Work Fully Remote, Removes In-office Expectation’, Reuters, accessed 19 July 2022

Kelly J (5 March 2022) ‘Twitter Employees Can Work from Home ‘Forever’ or ‘Wherever You Feel Most Productive and Creative’, Forbes Magazine, accessed 19 July 2022

Lim J (25 April 2022) ‘Some Firms Want Staff Back at Workplace, but Experts Warn Against Rushing Into It’, The Straits Times, accessed 19 July 2022

Mijnke F, Obermann W, and Hammers T (2022) ‘Impact of COVID-19 on the Hospitality Industry’, Deloitte, accessed 19 July 2022. www.deloitte.com/nl

Sherman A (8 March 2022) ‘Making Sense of Why Executives are Eager to get Employees Back in the Office’, CNBC, accessed 19 July 2022

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Niyati Pingali is currently completing her MA in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), focusing on governance and development policy. As a former corporate employee, she knows the cost and the benefits of capitalism and plans to dedicate her life to changing the narrative to ensure both people and the economy benefit equally: a feat that sounds impossible, but she knows can happen.

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Reforming the international financial system is no act of charity

By Posted on

Rolph van der Hoeven and Rob Vos are the authors of a chapter* of the recently published book ‘COVID-19 and International Development’. In this blog, they elaborate on their chapter, which is about the international financial system. They urge governments worldwide to implement four reforms, necessary to create more fiscal space and access to adequate external finance for developing countries.

Deep inequalities in pandemic response capacity

The global economic crisis provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic has painfully revealed the fundamental flaws in the international financial and fiscal system (IFFS). While advanced countries could engage in massive fiscal and monetary support measures, low- and middle-income countries lacked such capacities and were hit disproportionally. During the first year of the pandemic (2020), advanced countries provided fiscal stimuli to the tune of 12.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on average. This was three times more in relative terms than the stimulus in emerging and other middle-income countries, and almost 10 times more than governments in low-income countries could provide (Figure 1). This divergence in government support mimicked the inequality in vaccine roll-out.

Figure 1. Fiscal and monetary support in response to COVID-19, as of January 2021

Source: Van der Hoeven and Vos (2022), based on data from IMF (2021), Fiscal Monitor, Database of Country Fiscal Measures in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Four reforms to overcome financing flaws

As with past crises, a lack of adequate contingency financing forced poorer nations to take a big hit with lasting consequences. While high-income countries could engage in massive, and almost costless fiscal and monetary expansion, low-income countries saw their external debts increase to severe distress levels. In addition, they were forced to devalue their currencies, and curtail economic and social support programs. Consequently, an estimated 100 million to 150 million more people faced hunger during 2020, lifting the total number of people with not enough to eat to 810 million.[1]

The lack of fiscal space and access to adequate external finance for developing countries has its origins in the weaknesses of the International Financial and Fiscal System (IFFS). These structural weaknesses demand four urgent reforms, outlined below:

  1. Establish credible mechanisms for international tax coordination.

Such mechanisms would include, among other things, an internationally agreed, uniform corporate tax rate of approximately 25% to stop tax base erosion. This tax rate would hinder multinational companies shifting their profits to tax havens. Improved tax coordination should further include mandated publication of data on offshore wealth holdings. This would enable all jurisdictions to adopt effective progressive wealth taxes and facilitate the monitoring of income taxes effectively paid by the super wealthy. After years of deliberations, the G20 indeed agreed to a proposal for uniform corporate tax treatment in 2021. Unfortunately, at 15%, the rate is still significantly lower than we proposed, thereby falling short of making a more significant impact on boosting tax revenues and on limiting profit-shifting behaviour.[2]

  1. Establish a multilaterally backed sovereign debt workout mechanism.

Although existing mechanisms to renegotiate sovereign debts with private creditors have improved over the years, they are still far from adequate. This is due to the multiplicity of debt contracts, some of which are not subject to collective action clauses. These collective action clauses are perceived as preventing more drastic action in cases of crises; without them bonds could potentially lose a great amount of their value. A global institutional mechanism to renegotiate sovereign debts should, therefore, be put in place as soon as possible. To this day, sovereign debt solvency problems continue to be solved in an ad-hoc fashion, at little favourable terms to debt-distressed countries. Moreover, they are accompanied by policy conditionality. This leads to unnecessary hardship in affected countries.[3]

  1. Reform of policy conditionality attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) contingency financing.

While the IMF has recognized the need for enhanced public spending by developing country governments, including those facing debt distress, in practice, however, it continues providing pro-cyclical policy advice. This means that the IMF asks for fiscal restraint, rather than deficit spending when economies are in recession.

  1. Increasing the availability of truly international liquidity by increasing Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and making these available to developing countries.

As an important step in this direction, the IMF approved the issuance of US $650 billion in new SDRs in June 2021. However, no agreement has yet been reached regarding how these additional SDRs should be allocated to developing countries, and how they can leverage additional investment to foster sustainable development. Had such reforms been in place already, the pandemic response would have provided a fairer level playing field for emerging and developing countries. This would have mitigated the pandemic’s worst economic consequences.


Conclusion

None of these reforms should be seen as acts of charity. They are necessary to facilitate a global economic recovery that is both sustainable and equitable. As in past crises, government leaders have acted with a ‘me first’ attitude, as has been blatantly clear in the roll-out of vaccination programs. Some countries perceived this as a return to protectionism. This form of protectionism was evident in the unprecedented fiscal responses of high-income countries to protect the livelihoods of their own citizens, but which woefully disregarded the fate of people in low-income countries. The governments of those countries did not have the means to protect the livelihoods of their citizens to the same extent. Beggar-thy-neighbour policy responses, however, will affect global prosperity in the long term, and will make the Sustainable Development Goals elusive.

[1]  Laborde, D., Martin, W. and Vos, R. (2021) Impacts of COVID-19 on Global Poverty, Food Security and Diets, Agricultural Economics 52(3) https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12624, and FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021.  Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all.  Rome: FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en

[2] A. Cobham, 2021 Is today a turning point against corporate tax abuse? Tax Justice Network, 4 June 2022

[3] INET. (2021). The pandemic and the economic crisis: A global agenda for urgent action (Interim report of the commission for global economic transformation). Institute for New Economic Thinking. https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/the-pandemic-and-the-economic-crisis-a-global-agenda-for-urgent-action

Note

*This blog is based on: Rolph van der Hoeven and Rob Vos (2022), ‘Reforming the International Financial and Fiscal System for better COVID-19 and Post-Pandemic Crisis Responsiveness’, Chapter 2 in Papyrakis, E.(ed.). COVID19 and International Development, Springer

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Rolph van der Hoeven is Professor of Employment and Development Economics at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

Rob Vos is Director of Markets, Trade and Institutions Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

COVID-19: the disease of inequality, not of globalization

By Posted on

Binyam Afewerk Demena is one of the authors of several chapters of the recently published book ‘COVID-19 and International Development’. In this blog, he and his colleagues elaborate on their contributions to this book. We welcome you to join us for the book launch on March 17 (3:30-5:00 CET) at Pakhuis de Zwijger. Registration is now open.

The COVID-19 outbreak has posed a threat to both lives and livelihood. Because of the strong and interdependent global production value and linkages, coupled with the closure of international borders, businesses, and factories, the economic expectations and forecasts in the early months of the pandemic were generally pessimistic.

The prospect of the world plunging into another major and long-term economic recession comparable to the Great Depression in 1930s and the Great Recession of 2008/9 was on the minds of many economists, governments, international organizations, and citizens worldwide. The attacks on supranational governance and international cooperation were a symptom of an underlying disease – inequality – that has been illuminated by the pandemic. The de-globalization process was driven by increasing inequality, and a dreary lack of trickle-down of the benefits of internationalization.

COVID-19 and globalization

Globalization is a multifaceted concept that describes the process of creating networks of connections among actors at intra- or multi-continental distances. This emphasizes that globalization captures the increased interdependence of national economies, and the trend towards greater integration of different varieties of flows such as information, goods, labour, and capital.

More recently, however, there has been growing discontent and increase in negative sentiments about the impact of globalization. These negative sentiments have manifested in different ways, including through the election of the former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016, Brexit, and criticism of the World Trade Organization. For instance, Afesorgbor and Beaulieu (2021) argue that the Trump presidency strained diplomatic relationships with close allies, and undermined the rule-based global system, creating uncertainty for the global economic system.

These occurrences constitute a major setback to the pace of globalization, and have set the stage for growing protectionism and nationalism around the world. As van Bergeijk (2019) highlighted, these actors were political. More recently, the principal actor was a virus. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic introduced new health threats to globalization (see van Bergeijk, 2021 for details), emanating from the health risk posed by the contagious nature of COVID-19. In a sense, the pandemic clearly reflects globalization — the virus went global in a few weeks’ time due to the high level of globalization and interconnectedness. COVID-19, however, also relates to de-globalization — the breakdown of international co-operation, and the re-emergence of zero-sum thinking and raw beggar-thy-neighbour polices on the markets for medical productive gear, medical machinery, and vaccines.

We* set out to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the global economic system by looking at three components of globalization: economic, social, and political globalization. The pandemic and the economic policy response to the crisis have impacted these three aspects to different degrees.

  1. Economic globalization

Economic globalization has been conceptualized by means of flows of goods, services, capital, and information in connection to long distance market transactions. Although the pandemic is global, regions and countries have experienced differential effects on various indicators of the economic dimension of globalization. For instance, merchandise trade contracted for the global economy, but the rate of decline was more pronounced in advanced economies  compared to in developing and emerging economies. Moreover, not only were trade flows hit, but the impact of COVID-19 on foreign direct investment (FDI) was also immediate, as global FDI flows declined by nearly half in 2020.

  1. Social globalization

COVID-19 was also impactful, in particular, on social globalization, an aspect which involves interaction with foreign nationals through events such as migration, or actions such as international phone calls and international remittances paid or received by citizens.

Linking COVID-19 to social globalization is important since the former reduced interpersonal globalization, as many countries imposed travel restriction on both residents and foreign travellers. Border closures hindered temporary migration, especially tourists’ and foreign students’ movements in and out of countries. Migrant remittances were also affected, not because of any formal restrictions on remittances, but mainly because of a negative labour market shock on immigrant employment. Demena et al. (2022) found that the pandemic, overall, negatively affected various labour market outcomes. The impact has been most pronounced, in particular, in developed countries, reducing the number of remittances that could be repatriated to developing countries.

  1. Political globalization

Political globalization captures the ability of countries to engage in international political co-operation, as well as the diffusion or implementation of government policies.

The initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected international co-operation, mainly because of the blame game between the two largest economies in the world, the US and China. Although global co-operation to fight the virus did not begin immediately with the outbreak of COVID-19, there were many efforts later by different countries to co-operate in fighting the pandemic. China, for example, supported countries like Italy, which became the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe in April 2020. Politically, the outbreak of the coronavirus could, therefore, be used as a building block in the future to reinforce international co-operation and strengthen the pillars of political globalization.

Optimistic outlook for the global economy

There are, in fact, reasons to be optimistic about the COVID-19 economic recovery, as well as about the future of globalization. The main reason for optimism is the noteworthy resilience of world merchandise trade and investment during previous global crises. Multinational enterprises have already had their stress test during the 2008 – 2009 collapse of world trade. That collapse kick-started the process of de-globalization. However, global merchandise trade and industrial production recovered to previous peaks quickly, and this recovery has occurred even quicker during the COVID-19 crisis.

This is the big and fundamental difference with the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it may be related to the fact that world trade is governed and supported by the multilateral trading system. The shock of the pandemic was sharp and immediate, but so has been the recovery. The so-called invisible flows (FDI, remittances, tourism, official development cooperation) have been hit harder compared to the two major historical economic crises during the Great Recession and the Great Depression, and a full recovery of these invisible flows is not to be expected before vaccination is ‘sufficiently global’ in scope. Yet, the expectation of a speedy recovery is realistic at the time of writing. For instance, global FDI has shown full recovery in the last quarter of 2021, although recovery has been highly uneven regionally, and was concentrated in developed economies. Recovery efforts, therefore, took hold early, compared to the two major historical episodes of economic crises. This suggests stronger resilience of the global economic system than anticipated.

The disease of inequality

The prediction and reports of the expected “death” of globalization, however, were, with hindsight, grossly exaggerated. Yet, the pandemic has taught us that inequalities are the breeding ground for the spread of disease and the suffering that follows. Reducing epidemic vulnerabilities, therefore, requires tackling those inequalities. The fight against next potential pandemics, however, implies that we cannot limit ourselves to domestic developments only. Inequalities around the world – within and between countries – provide the breeding grounds and disease pools from which new variants, viruses, and other contagious diseases emerge. Adhering to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a high-return investment project, in particular SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). A recent study by Fantu et al. (2022) pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the inequalities between migrants (in particular Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants) and ordinary citizens in the Netherlands. Likewise, Murshed (2022) highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to accelerate the various forms of inequality.

And last but not least, the outlook for openness of the world economy is still much better than in the 1930s. Yes, de-globalization exists. Yes, overall globalization will probably be lower for the foreseeable future. Our societies will, however, remain much more open than at the start of the globalization wave in 1990. We are now connected via the internet with an intensity that has never been observed before in history. Even though the push towards de-globalization certainly still exists, economies are now digitally connected in ways they have never been before.

Conclusions and recommendations

In conclusion, the eradication of the spread of the virus will require international co-operation, and a global effort to make sure that no single country is left behind. A pool will be forged to prevent new variants and potential future outbreaks. Vaccines must be made available to all countries and must be affordable, something that has been reiterated by the promise of the leaders of the G7 nations as a ‘big step towards vaccinating the world’ – to supply one billion doses of vaccine to poorer nations. A global initiative recently called for urgent further funding to supply a minimum of 600 million additional doses.  Just as globalization has ramifications for all countries, the health of different nations is intertwined. The health of one nation affects the health of the other, as the pandemic has demonstrated. The implication, therefore, is that fighting a pandemic requires us to tackle inequalities, as the latter determine pandemic vulnerability to a large extent. Moreover, it requires a global approach to ensure equality for all the world’s citizens.

References:

*Afesorgbor, S.K., van Bergeijk, P. and Demena, B.A., 2022. COVID-19 and the Threat to Globalization: An optimistic note. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.) Covid-19 and International Development, Springer.

Demena, B.A., Floridi, A. and Wagner, N., 2022. The short-term impact of COVID-19 on labour market outcomes: Comparative systematic evidence. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and International Development, Springer.

Fantu, B., Haile, G., Tekle, Y.L., Sathi, S., Demen, B.A., and Shigute, Z., 2022. Experiences of Eritrean and Ethiopian Migrants during COVID-19 in the Netherlands. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and International Development, Springer.

Murshed, S.M., 2022. Consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for economic inequality. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and International Development, Springer.

van Bergeijk, P.A.G., 2021. Pandemic Economics, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.

Related articles:

The Conversation – Academic rigor, journalistic flair.

Devdiscourse – Discourse on Development

 (NEWS) – the Canadian National Post

(NEWS) – NEWSBREAK

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the contributors:

Binyam Afewerk Demena: International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University

Peter A.G. van Bergeijk: International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University

Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor: Agri-Food Trade and Policy, University of Guelph

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Sub-Saharan migrants transiting through Algeria: Migratory farm labor in Covid times

By Posted on

The agricultural sector in Algeria relies on the informal labor force of Sub-Saharan migrants on their way to Europe. Interviews with migrants highlight their precarious conditions of life and work, worsening during the Covid-19 health crisis.

A migrant cycling through a wadi to avoid checkpoints. Photo: M. F. Hamamouche

Over the last few decades, the Maghreb has become a migratory space: in addition to its traditional function as a site of emigration, it is now a transit land for many migrants trying to reach Europe. Since many African countries are dealing with unstable political and economic situations as well as with climate change, the in-flux of sub-Saharan migrants has become a major societal fact in Algeria. While in the 1990s, this concerned only the Saharan regions, during the 2000s it spread to the coastal cities of the north of the Maghreb,  feeding the local economies. Transit through the Algerian territory happens in stages and through specific  corridors. Although transnational migration to Europe begins in a heterogeneous manner, sub-Saharan migrants reorganize themselves collectively during their journey. During different stages of their journey, migrants ‘recognise’ each other and cooperate, gradually creating a common history, an ‘adventure’: their migratory project is a collective one and brings them together (for more information on sub-Saharan migration through North Africa see the book “Le Maghreb à l’épreuve des migrations subsahariennes. Immigration sur émigration” edited by Bensaâd, 2009).

According to the report “Contribution à la connaissance des flux migratoires mixtes, vers, à travers et de l’Algérie: Pour une vision humanitaire du phénomène migratoire”, compiled by the International centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in 2015, the province of Ghardaïa is an unavoidable transit land for migrants. They settle temporarily in order to accumulate the financial resources and information necessary to reach Europe. This reality is evidenced in the strong presence of migrants in the informal labor market in the Sahara, particularly in sectors with labor shortage, namely in agriculture, construction and public works. In recent years, sub-Saharan undocumented workers have become essential to the functioning of these sectors.

However, the introduction of a range of measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 has disrupted this migration process. In light of the context and our previous work with different rural actors, including sub-Saharan agricultural workers in the M’zab Valley, we explored how they dealt with the constraints posed upon them by the pandemic. In other words, how did sub-Saharan migrants experience the pandemic and the related lockdown measures? How did these impact on their work and which coping strategies did they adopt? We answer these questions by placing the experiences of young sub-Saharan migrants at the heart of our qualitative analysis. Because of the structural role of sub-Saharan labor particularly in Saharan agriculture, we focus on this sector and have made some recommendations for policy that could contribute to more a just development of this sector.

The M’zab Valley

The M’zab valley is located in the province of Ghardaïa, in the northern Sahara, about 600 km from the capital Algiers, and  is characterized by the coexistence of two agricultural landscapes: the ancient palm groves created in the eleventh century and the new agricultural extensions created in the 1980s. ​The labour force is mainly composed of sub-Saharan migrants in transit.

This study is based on our work prior to the pandemic with agricultural actors in the M’zab valley. During the month of March 2021, 10 interviews were conducted with sub- Saharan workers in order to document their experiences during the Covid-19 crisis.The names of the sub-Saharan farm workers interviewed are fictitious in order to maintain their anonymity.

From Mali to Ghardaïa, a long and difficult journey

The Malian border is more than 1200 km away from Ghardaïa. The migrants we spoke to underlined the reasons for crossing the border. One of the migrants we interviewed, Djamel, 22, told us:

I left my country, Mali, because life is difficult and we cannot find work… In Mali, there is almost no work left because of the civil war and the pay is very low, around 3 euros for a 9-hour working day… the search for gold is hard work with a lot of risk, without guaranteeing any money at the end of the day.

Another migrant, Nassim, 24 highlighted the difficult conditions of the journey:

We had to walk for hours in the middle of the desert while avoiding the main roads in order to avoid the Algerian security service who are very present in the border regions… Algerian smugglers show us the way in exchange for money… So to pay for our journey from the Malian border to Ghardaïa, we are obliged to stop in certain towns to earn a little money… part of the money is used to pay the smugglers and the other part is sent to our families who stayed in Mali through an informal network of money changers… our families rely on us to provide for them.

One of the Malians interviewed, Karim, 23, said:

I am the eldest of 10 children… My father has a low income… he relies on me to feed the family… that is why the goal of going to Europe is not achieved quickly… We have to meet the needs of our families first.

Over the years, an informal network of money changers has developed between Algeria and Mali. As a young Malian, Said, 20, explained:

If I want to send the equivalent of 10,000 DA (± 63 €) in Francs to my family in Mali, I have to give 17,000 DA (± 106 €)  to the trader.

The choice to settle in Ghardaïa and not in another Algerian province is mainly explained by family ties:

My older brother settled in Ghardaïa since 2014…he welcomed all the young men from the family and from our home village who wanted to embark on the adventure of migration…we need a stable focal point before we embark…because this is the person who takes care of us once we are arrive and waiting to find a job…he also puts us in contact with employers.

Karim added

My brother worked for years with a farmer-digger… when he went back to Mali temporarily, he gave me his contact… I came directly to him in 2019.

This choice to go and work in Ghardaia can also be explained by the need for labour, as explained by a young Malian, Yacine, 20:

I came here to Ghardaia because work is available and the pay is better… During my journey, I stopped first in Bordj Baji Moukhtar, a border region with Mali, where I worked for 1000 da/day, then I went to Adrar where I worked for 1200 DA per day (± 7,5 €)… here in Ghardaïa, we are paid between 1500 and 1700 DA per day (± 94 and 106 €).

Bypassing checkpoints during the lockdown

Migrants have taken an important role in the development of the national economy despite their irregular situation in Algeria. In case they are stopped, they risk being escorted back to the borders. With the Covid-19 health crisis, control has been reinforced, which has led migrants to develop strategies to avoid coming across the checkpoints. The 10 migrants we interviewed told us that they used secondary roads, wadis and mountains to move between their homes and workplaces. As Djamel explained:

I chose to work on a remote farm in Ghardaïa in order to ensure my safety…to get to the city center, if necessary, I cross the gardens and farms in order to avoid the controls.

This irregular situation makes migrants vulnerable. Some take advantage of the situation of Malian migrants by refusing to pay them when their work is completed, while threatening to call the security service. Migrants are also subject to repeated theft, not only by some Algerians but also by migrants from other countries.

As Salah, 25, confided to us:

I was attacked when I tried to bypass the town on the side roads. They stole my phone, my bike and my money for the day.

According to the same person,

attacks and thefts have increased since the beginning of the Covid-19 health crisis… These attacks are carried out with impunity… the aggressors know that we cannot file a complaint.

Gathering sites have been replaced by word of mouth and phone recruitment

Before March 2020, migrants looking for daily work used to gather in specific gathering  points. Farmers used to come and recruit them in these places. However, with the health crisis and the reinforcement of checkpoints, migrants deserted the collection points. To find work, they could only rely on word of mouth and through phone contact, as Karim explained:

During the first months of the lockdown, when mobility restrictions were strict, I was able to find work thanks to my network of contacts. My former employers, who had kept my phone number, contacted me when they, their family or neighbors needed a worker”. Another worker, Nassim, 24, told us: I took the initiative to call my former bosses, one by one, to ask them if they needed a worker. Only the farmers responded positively to my request… the building contractors did not need any more workers since this sector was heavily impacted by the health crisis.

On the other hand, for migrants who arrived in Ghardaïa shortly before the health crisis, it was more difficult to find work because of the restrictions imposed by the government to counter the spread of Covid-19. They relied on their compatriots who had been in the M’Zab valley before them. As Adam, 18, explained:

I arrived in Ghardaïa in February 2020… I was able to find a job quickly and even during the lockdown thanks to a young man from my native village who has been living in Ghardaïa since 2018. He contacted me every time his employers needed several hands.

Some of those who did not find work during the months of the lockdown, relied on help from their compatriots:

I borrowed money from a friend… then I paid it back a few months later… fortunately there is mutual aid and compassion between Malians… in my opinion this is what makes the difference with other migrant nationalities (Ilyes, 19).

Turning to agricultural work and a strong demand for versatility

Migrants who worked in the construction and public works sectors before the health crisis saw their activity suspended when the lockdown measures were implemented in March 2020. This economic sector has been hit hard by Covid-19. To support themselves and their families back in Mali, some of them have turned to agriculture. According to Nassim:

Before the crisis, I worked mainly in masonry, but with the introduction of the lockdown and the suspension of all building activities, I found myself without work… I then became an agricultural worker because this activity cannot stop… The farmers needed us to carry out certain agricultural tasks: working the soil, irrigation, manual weeding, harvesting seasonal vegetables… we found work by word of mouth.

Agricultural tasks carried out by sub-Saharan workers. Photo: M. F. Hamamouche

Another worker, Salah, told us that he had been recruited to help clean out wells:

A friend, an agricultural worker for a farmer- washer, called me to tell me that his employer was looking for workers with knowledge of construction and public works to restore a dozen wells in an old oasis… I responded positively to this proposal because I knew that this type of work would last several months.

In addition, there was a high demand for multi-skilled workers during the lockdown  period, as farmers were looking for Malian workers with skills in agriculture and construction, as was the case for Mohamed, 23:

When my employer called me on the phone to recruit me, he had asked me if I had any knowledge in construction, as he wanted to fence his farm and do some work in his secondary house so that his family could confine themselves… he had specified that the work also consisted of maintaining the garden… he had offered me free accommodation in the farm during the work as his family was not yet there.

More responsibility for skilled agricultural workers

Migrants who have been working in the agricultural sector in Ghardaïa for a number of years, have seen their responsibilities increasing in the farms, particularly in the phoeniculture sector. Indeed, the mobility restrictions imposed by the Algerian state to counter the spread of Covid-19 during 2020 have had an impact on the availability of skilled agricultural workers for harvesting dates. Traditionally, date harvesting in the M’Zab Valley, and particularly the harvesting of Deglet Nour dates, relies on workers from the Timimoun region, some 600 km away. The workers specialised in harvesting dates belong to a socio-ethnic group descended from the slaves who worked in the M’Zab valley. The latter were formerly called “khammès”, which means “sharecropper to the fifth” because they worked the land in exchange for a fifth of the harvest. Most of the descendants of the khammès gradually returned to their native region (Timimoun) after the 1971 land reform –a decision implemented to distribute land to landless peasants and to change the social status of the descendants of the khammès (for more information see Aït-Amara, 1999).

However, in October 2020, these skilled workers were unable to travel to the M’Zab valley due to mobility constraints. Consequently, Malian workers benefited from this situation. As Samir, 25, said:

I have been working as a farm laborer since I arrived in Algeria in 2017, and I never went near the palm tree until 2020…the farmers preferred to use skilled workers to harvest the dates which have a high market value…but with mobility restrictions and the low local availability of skilled workers, they turned to sub-Saharan migrants as a last resort.

Conclusions 

In the Sahara, agriculture continues to be the main sector of occupation for migrants. However, its socio-economic role has evolved. It has gone from being a seasonal supplementary job in the traditional oases of the border areas, to an essential activity in new forms of Saharan agriculture.

Indeed, the unlocking of access to groundwater and agricultural land from the 1980s onwards allowed the development of large ‘pioneering front’ type agricultural projects, occupying new land and renewing agricultural methods and practices (see also the article “From Oasis Archipelago to Pioneering Eldorado in Algeria’s Sahara”, by Amichi et al., 2018).

In the Algerian Sahara, where less than 11% of the Algerian population lives (3.6 million inhabitants), agricultural development would not have been possible without foreign labor. Although irregular immigration is neither formalized nor controlled by the state, it has become structural to the functioning of strategic sectors and to the national economy.

Paradoxically, this pervasive reality, which puts immigrant agricultural workers in even more vulnerable conditions regarding their labor and health security and rights, is officially concealed, albeit tolerated to varying degrees depending on the area, the different sectors of the economy and the economic or political conjuncture. The ambiguity surrounding this migration (partially tolerated but not recognised) and the fragility of the conditions of residence and work, which inevitably lead to situations of vulnerability (e.g. blackmailing of employers controlled by the security services) are accentuated in times of crisis.

This situation more than ever highlights the importance of politically recognizing the rights of migrant workers and of taking action to address their needs. The migrants we interviewed told us that the conditions in which they are living and working are not dignified. The regularization of seasonal work and the allocation of work permits to foreigners would allow them to claim fundamental rights (social, economic and civil).

This issue of recognition must be given special attention by public authorities. A better understanding of the dynamics of migration and employment in Saharan agriculture can help to inform policies and regulations to reorganize the recruitment and employment of migrants and ensure decent and dignified working conditions. Policies must address the precarious situation of these workers focusing on providing them with proper housing, secure living conditions and health assistance. Moreover, little information is available on the impact of COVID-19 on the health of the immigrant workers.

This blog was first published in Undisciplined Environments.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Meriem Farah Hamamouce is a junior water management and agronomy researcher. She is the founder and manager of BRDA (Agricultural Research and Development office) and an associated researcher at G-Eau Research Unit (France). She also works as an independent consultant for the engineering office (ECA) in Algeria.

Amine Saidani is founder and manager of an engineering office (ECA) in Algeria and a Ph.D student in water sciences at IAV Hassan II (Rabat, Morocco) and SupAgro (Montpellier, France).

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Can a global ‘vaccine citizenship’ help us move toward an inclusive pandemic-free space?

By Posted on

The dire shortage of COVID-19 vaccines across low- and middle-income countries is a strong indicator of global health injustice in recent times. Vaccine hoarding by affluent countries, for example the USA or Canada, is causing vaccine apartheid, and global policy responses thus far fall short in failing to save the world from this catastrophic moral failure. While the political and economic relationship of vaccine production and distribution is dominating the discussion, it’s the socio-cultural dynamics of the COVID-19 vaccine that put global governance in a fix.

Martin Sanchez (Unsplash)

The absence of a standardised treatment protocol and the current impossibility of eradicating the COVID-19 virus projects the COVID-19 vaccine as a new hope, not only for preventing infection, but also for restoring the sense of physical  and mental wellbeing that was eroded when lockdowns were imposed and then extended worldwide. For society at large, vaccines promise a return to a free social, economic, and political life – the ‘old normal’. Thus, the vaccine represents a new type of ‘cure’ – one that would ‘fix’ all the pandemic-induced abnormalities in our daily lives.

This new ‘culture of cure’ has a profound impact on policy making at the national level. Ever since the search for a possible vaccine started in earnest last year, several vaccines have been developed, of which some are showing potential. But the vaccines are now being viewed and used politically as social medicines to ‘cure’ ‘pandemic ills’ that are largely linked to a life under lockdown. The vaccine when viewed as a social medicine creates a sense of confidence of being able to both prevent infection and also ‘unlock’ society that has been ‘imprisoned’ by pandemic-imposed restrictions. Therefore, in the policy-making process, a vaccine moves from being a preventive medicine to being a social medicine.

Vaccine nationalism and a return to sovereignty?

National leaders have taken this transformation as an opportunity to re-establish the eroded social contract in their jurisdictions. For political leaders, the large-scale vaccination of citizens signals a pathway toward combating pandemic-induced discontent. Vaccine nationalism, in which countries compete in arranging vaccines for its citizens, has become a way, especially for affluent countries, to ensure that citizens regain trust in governments. However, this competitive nationalism over the vaccine has been creating an abysmal shortage of vaccines in many other low- and middle-income countries.

The resulting vaccine inequity scripts the failure of global health governance in two distinct ways. First, it prevents nations from establishing a global coordination framework for the equitable distribution of vaccines. This is evident in the case of COVAX. Second, it fails to govern the market at the time of emergency to safeguard the interests of the people. The reluctance of a few pharmaceutical companies to share knowledge on vaccines with manufacturers, also those in developing countries, is a case in point. This means that the majority of vaccines are being developed and used in the Global North.

While vaccine nationalism has indeed had many ramifications when it comes to global ‘vaccine equity’, most of them negative, these two failures have created a new form of global mobilisation. This may only overtly appear as an alliance of  less advanced countries pushing for a waiver of an agreement called TRIPS that currently upholds COVID-19 vaccine patents. The suspension of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) signed by World Trade Organisation members would help make the products and technologies needed to fight COVID-19 more freely available during the course of pandemic.

More importantly, the collective demand for the TRIPS waiver is also a new treaty-in-making that questions the role of knowledge in vaccine production and capital formation. This is a culture of counterpolitics in international relations that opposes the primacy of knowledge protection as an intangible asset over human lives.

Opposing vaccine inequity

Interestingly, this politics is not driven by national leaders as in the case of vaccine nationalism, but by the people themselves. Beyond the politics of a TRIPS waiver, there is a politics of breaking a knowledge monopoly that is instrumental in ideating a socially shared space of a pandemic-free territory. This imagined territory is for vaccinated people only. So those deprived of vaccines across the world have reasonably claimed that patented knowledge is a barrier in the ‘access to vaccine’ and thus ‘access to a pandemic-free territory’. This irrefutably triggers the current global outcry against ‘Big Pharmas’ and has been followed by domestic public actions. The Indian government for example had to halt vaccine exports despite diplomatic commitments to assuage the anger of people in the aftermath of second wave of the virus and a nationwide vaccine shortage.

But governments are also rallying to redress global vaccine inequity. Members of a bloc of some 62 countries (with India and South Africa driving it) are pursuing the sharing of vaccine-related knowledge. They are very well aware of the exclusiveness of pandemic-free territories in the current global order and are thus in the process of negotiating with international organisations and actors, especially the WTO, to be considered   ‘entitled’ to the knowledge needed to manufacture vaccines.

Vaccine citizenship

This politics of vaccine entitlement is globally producing a new social category of vaccine citizens. Unlike vaccine nationalism, vaccine citizenship is a global citizenship not linked to nationality, with members from all over the world that collectively seek to quash the virus and its related social and economic effects by working together. Vaccine citizens are seen to struggle against the global knowledge-capital nexus.

Hence, vaccine nationalism driven by states is dividing the world, while vaccine citizenship driven by the general public who seem to be desiring a more equitable and accessible pandemic-free space that is not confined to state borders may help redress global inequities that have emerged alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. Only time will tell what the long-term effects of this people’s alliance will be in the global distribution of the vaccine. It might permanently change the global order. And rightly so!

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question

About the author:

Amitabha Sarkar holds a Ph.D. in Health from the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He is a scholar of international development of health politics and is currently associated with the Transnational Institute (TNI).

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

COVID-19 | How exclusionary social protection systems in the MENA are making the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects worse

By Posted on

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the majority of people living in the MENA region even more vulnerable, adding to existing structural problems that include under-resourced public health services, a high degree of labour informality, and high poverty and unemployment rates. Temporary social and economic support measures to mitigate the pandemic’s effects are not sufficient, however – the region has to go beyond piecemeal policies. Countries need to expand the scope and scale of social provisioning and social protection as well as the quality of and access to public health services by moving towards a universalist approach to social policy, writes Mahmoud Messkoub.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the importance of state-centred approaches in managing pandemics and mitigating their socio-economic impacts on the population. But public health services in most MENA countries are underfunded and inadequately designed to cope with the pandemic. The MENA population has suffered, especially those people living in low-income and non-oil-exporting countries.

Here, as elsewhere in the world, to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, states have taken a number of measures ranging from temporary cash payments to the poor and vulnerable, furlough schemes, and financial support to employers and industries to the relaxation of regulations governing financial market support to companies and individuals through lower interest loans. Most MENA countries adopted a combination of these measures (OECD, 2020).

However, these short-term measures cannot deal with the long-term structural insecurity and vulnerability facing the majority of people in the MENA who live precarious lives in highly unequal societies, where the top 10% of the population takes 64% of the total income (Alvaredo et al., 2017). Their vulnerability to a large extent can be ascribed to the concentration of economic activity and employment in the informal sector, which is usually overlooked in social security and regulatory measures that tend to focus more on formal employment sectors (ILO, 2019; O’Sullivan et al., 2012). The exclusionary character of the countries’ social protection programmes is a great cause for concern, as even in ordinary circumstances vulnerable populations working informally do not have adequate social protection against health problems, a loss of income, and other contingencies.

Informality and unemployment rates are high in the MENA

According to OECD (2020), in the MENA the informal sector employs some 68% of the workforce, while in individual countries such as Yemen and Lebanon the portion rises to 74% and 71%, respectively. Another structural problem is persistently high unemployment rates that have particularly hit the youth as well as educated women across the MENA  (O’Sullivan et al., 2012). In 2018, the youth unemployment rate was around 30% in the MENA – the highest in the world (Kabbani, 2019). And large-scale poverty and vulnerability are also high in the MENA despite its riches. MENA countries are heterogeneous in terms of their resource base. The headcount poverty rates of a-dollar-a-day (or more) are high in the labour-abundant and resource-poor countries like Egypt. But poverty is also present in the populous, resource-rich and industrializing countries of Iran and Algeria. The other aspect of poverty is its regional spread: rural headcount poverty rates are higher in rural areas than in urban areas (Messkoub, 2008).

The most vulnerable are being overlooked, also during the pandemic

It is against this backdrop of poverty and vulnerability that the pandemic emerged, plunging the weakest countries in the region into a deeper crisis, with very limited social protection measures to help protect vulnerable populations. Whilst all countries in the region had some kind of social protection programmes before the pandemic, and in some cases extensive ones, coverage in most middle- and low-income MENA countries is limited to members of the civil service, police, and military, as well as those in the modern, regulated private sectors of manufacturing and services. The majority of the population working in agriculture, the informal sector, and other unregulated activities have very limited access, if any, to state social protection programmes. To start with, entitlement to most of these programmes requires a formal labour contract. But entitlement and access vary depending on the area of social protection: health, old age, unemployment, work injury, or family allowance.

Regarding health services, there is an urban-rural divide in favour of the former, in addition to high out-of-pocket expenditure and a general neglect of primary and preventive healthcare. High spending on expensive diagnostic and curative health care can be observed, and low-income/low-status migrants, displaced people, refugees, and ethnic minorities have limited access to public health services (WHO, 2010; Loewe, 2019).

The fragmentation of health insurance and service provision also limits the coverage and adequacy of social policies. In most MENA countries, there are different public and private health insurance programmes and health service providers. If these were integrated into a common national health insurance programme, the result could be increased coverage and an improvement of the services provided by reducing administrative costs and rationalising overlapping services (Loewe, 2019). Other complementary public health measures should also be placed on the agenda: the provision of clean water, improved sanitation, and a greater emphasis of preventative health care (Karshenas et al., 2014).

Why universal social protection is needed now more than ever

Thus, countries in the region are in urgent need of increasing expenditure on public health to manage the current pandemic as well as strengthening the health system to improve entitlement and access to health services. Reform and re-organisation of the health system beyond the public sector is part of this agenda. The region needs to return to the ideals of universal entitlement and access to health and other social services that are essential to the social policy agenda of developmental states. Selectivity and exclusion in terms of who qualifies for social protection benefits will only harm these countries, as responses to the pandemic have shown.

References and further readings

Alvaredo, R., Assouad, L. and Piketty, T. (2017) Measuring lnequality in the Middle East 1990 2016: The World’s Most Unequal Region? Reprinted  2020. [https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02796992/file/2017-15_.pdf] [Accessed: 10 September 2020.]

ILO, 2019. Working Poor or how a job is no guarantee of decent living conditions. April.

Kabbani, N. , 2019. Youth Employment in the Middle East and North Africa: Revisiting and Reframing the Challenge. Brookings Institution. [https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Youth_Unemployment_MENA_English_Web.pdf ][Accessed: September 2020]

Karshenas, M., Moghadam, V. and R. Alami (2014), ‘Social Policy after the Arab Spring: States and Social Rights in the MENA Region,’ World Development, Vol. 64, issue C, pp.726-739.

Loewe, M. (2019), ‘Social Protection Schemes in the Middle East and North Africa: Not Fair, Not Efficient, Not Effective,’ in Jawad, R., Jones, N. and M. Messkoub (eds., 2019), pp.35 60.

Messkoub, M. (2008), Economic Growth, Employment and Poverty in the Middle East and  North Africa, Geneva: ILO Working Paper Series, No. 19.

Messkoub, M. (2021, Forthcoming), ‘Social Policy in the MENA Region,’ in H. Hakimian, ed.(2020) Routledge Handbook on Middle Eastern Economy. London: Routledge.

OECD, 2020. COVID-19 crisis response in MENA countries. Updated 9 June [https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=129_129919-4li7bq8asv&title=COVID-19-Crisis-Response-in-MENA-Countries] [Accessed: 10 September 2020.]

O’Sullivan, A., Rey, M-E and Galvez Mendez, J. (2012) Opportunities and Challenges in the MENA Region. OECD.

An earlier version of this blog titled ‘COVID-19, Public Health and Social Policy in MENA’ was first published by the Alternative Policy Solutions, a public policy research project at the American University of Cairo.

About the author:

Mahmoud Messkoub (PhD Econs, University of London) is based at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, NL). He has researched and taught economics of development, social policy and population (mobility/migration, age structure and ageing) at universities of London (Queen Mary), Leeds and Erasmus (ISS). His current research interests are in the areas of economics of: social policy and population ageing, migration and universal approach to social provisioning. His recent publications are related to social policy, poverty and employment policies, cash transfers and evaluation of unpaid household work. He has acted as a consultant to ESCWA, ILO and the UN (DESA, UNFPA). He is currently working with an EU and African consortium on an EU funded – Horizon 2020 research project : ‘Crisis as Opportunities: towards a Level Telling Field on Migration and a New Narrative of Successful Integration’ 

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

COVID-19 | The voices of children and youth in Tanzania’s COVID-19 response

By Posted on

Rapid research into the effects of COVID-19 on young people in Tanzania reveals high levels of anxiety about the virus as it relates to relationships, economic livelihoods and the community. The research, led by Dr Elizabeth Ngutuku, draws further attention to the need for governments to consider the disease’s wider social and psychological impacts.

Source: Wikimedia Commons under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en. Image contrast altered.

Soon after the first COVID-19 case was reported in Tanzania on 16 March 2020, a series of closures were announced to schools and some businesses to avert the spread of the disease. However, the government changed tack in June, announcing the country had the disease under control. Life seemed to have gone back to the normal with schools re-opening and people returning to work.

In July and August 2020, as part of our advocacy using the findings from our research, ‘Adolescent’s Perceptions of Healthy Relationships in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam’, we carried out rapid research with children and youth aged 10-18 years through essay writing. The resulting 309 essays explored young people’s perspectives on the effects of COVID-19 on their relationships with others at home, their school, the community, technology and with the environment. Their narratives reveal that behind the sense of assumed normality, and assurance that the virus does not pose a threat to the general population, the youth position themselves ambivalently. While their voice on effects of the disease speaks to day-to-day immediate issues of survival, it also jumps scales to touch on relationships between nation states, relations with the government and a relationship with the country’s past.

The disease is ‘everywhere’

Young people noted that the disease permeated all areas of their relationships and equated this to being ‘everywhere and in everything’. Arguing that space itself was ‘sick’, this understanding can be read literally from President Magufuli’s declaration that the disease inhabits inanimate objects, like papaya and even animals such as goats. These voices reveal deeper perspectives when read alongside young people’s relationship with the environment, especially play spaces, trees, rocks and beaches, as shown to be important to youth in our earlier work in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam. Through art-based research and interviews, some of the young respondents explained that when relationships with their parents and siblings soured, they would go out to relax in these spaces or talk to animals.

Such a souring of family relationships was common during the period of school closures. While some acquired new skills like cooking, and bonded with their parents at home, others reported being overworked and the pressure causing constant collisions. Some young people noted that during such periods school normally provided solace through interactions with peers and teachers. Some girls were also looking forward to schools’ re-opening to avoid domestic sexual violence, as reported elsewhere to be on the rise in Tanzania during the epidemic, but other girls explained that staying at home had freed them from being approached for sexual favours by their peers and teachers.

Many young respondents voiced a perceived weakening of social ties, beyond immediate practices such as an inability to hug or greet each other, and playing or receiving visitors. They drew attention to the effects on a core social fabric and collective support. These young respondents remembered a collective past (perhaps drawing on the imaginaries of Ujamaa philosophy), with its emphasis on the care and welfare for others, in contrast to, for example, people during the epidemic who stopped carrying each other’s burdens, or what they called kubebeana mzigo. Drawing on a collective we, many respondents also noted that society’s collective dreams or aspirations (ndoto zetu) had been put on hold, which while going unspecified allude to school closures and an ability to continue their activities in the community.

Economics and politics matters to youth

The youth respondents emphasised the epidemic’s large and small economic effects. While they discussed their parents having lost jobs and livelihoods, and the inability to afford health care, they raised anxieties over there being ‘no longer milk for the small baby [sibling]’ and not being able to ‘ask for a second helping of food’, as they did before onset of the disease.

Moreover, the youth positioned themselves as actors in political relationships. For example, when referencing the diplomatic spat between Kenya and Tanzania over flights and truck drivers, they stated the disease had created enmity between countries, interpreting the closure of the shared border as an attempt by Kenya, which they called a good neighbour, to close itself off from Tanzania. Some noted that their relatives, and especially their breadwinner fathers who rely on cross-border trade, were afraid they would be quarantined in Kenya at their own expense, leaving them behind as carers for the family. This requirement was only reviewed in mid-September 2020.

Despite the atmosphere of the gloom, many young people also celebrated the President like a prophet who supported them with ‘kind words’, assuring them that ‘God could not allow them to die of Corona’. These youth represented themselves as political and cultural nationalists, who unquestioningly obeyed the President’s traditional steam therapy for the virus, as well as his call for the country’s return to faith, health, community and nation through prayer. For others, an obedience to Magufuli’s orders was more guarded, with some youth revealing how their parents forbade them to go to church, despite the leadership urging their attendance.

The youth indeed represented collective prayer in Kiswahili as praying bega kwa bega (shoulder to shoulder) against the disease, for which prevention is alternatively encouraged by the World Health Organization through maintaining social distance. The respondents further represented the perceived elimination of COVID-19 as a sign of good leadership by the government, because cases in Tanzania (which stopped publishing statistics in May 2020) were few compared to the high COVID-19 statistics in Kenya by June.

Listening to youth voices differently through essay writing reveals that behind the façade of a fearless nation fear remains prevalent. Our respondents reported that important political leaders in the community had died of the disease, and their essays revealed a veritable daily fear of their parents’ death. Some reported that they would observe their parents for signs of infection after they returned from work, and one youth in Dar es Salaam noted that he would each day observe his friends throwing a bottle of hand sanitiser to their mother on arrival.

Yet many children nevertheless celebrated their president, the sentiment ‘our president cannot lie to us, we cannot die of Corona’ expressed by many respondents, which can be read as cautiously confident despite their anxiety. It is at the interstices of this apparent guarded optimism that an imperative emerges for the government of Tanzania: they must listen to the wishes and voices of young people and protect them not only from the disease but its multitude of effects.

This post was first published by the LSE’s Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa and first appeared here

About the author:

Elizabeth Ngutuku has a PhD in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her work investigates young people’s experience of poverty, vulnerability, citizenship claims and sexual and reproductive health. Dr. Ngutuku coordinated the rapid research on behalf of Nascent/ISS as part of the APHR project funded by Oak Foundation

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

The rise of Big Tech cements the fall of the US economy

By Posted on

While the US economy is going through its worst crisis in the last eight decades, with small businesses shutting down en masse and millions of Americans losing their jobs, one wouldn’t know anything is wrong solely from looking at the largest US companies. The crisis, triggered―but not caused―by the COVID-19 pandemic measures, has enabled some of the world’s largest corporations to amass record profits. It allows them to capture ever-larger shares of a market that is increasingly monopolised. How could that happen and what will it lead to?

The widening gap between the Big Five and the rest

It is no secret that Amazon has done well throughout the pandemic, with both the company’s profits and Jeff Bezos’ personal wealth shooting up to record highs in the middle of one of the worst recessions the US has ever seen. While brick-and-mortar retailers have suffered tremendous damage as a result of the measures implemented in response to COVID-19, Amazon has thrived off the accelerated shift to online services.

And it is not alone in this: The so-called US tech companies―also referred to as the Big Five―have all managed to keep increasing their profits while the US economy is contracting. Apple, Alphabet (Google’s holding company), Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft saw their combined pre-tax profits rise by an annualised 5% in the second quarter; starkly contrasting profits of the rest of corporate America, which fell by an annualised 27% (excluding finance).

A company experiencing profits growth during a recession is highly unusual, and the Big Five’s outperformance has led to a dramatic increase of their share in total non-financial profits made by US companies. Having already risen from 4% in 2011 to 11% in 2019, the Big Five have increased their slice of the pie to 16% in the first half of this year.

To put this into perspective: The concentration of US non-financial profits in the top five companies has historically been around 7-9% while the current top five, which includes three of the large tech companies, accounted for an astounding 19.3% in 2019. Since the onset of the pandemic, this figure is estimated to have risen further to 25%. This would mean that five companies now receive one quarter of all non-financial profits made in the US.

Profits of financial entities are excluded here because we are examining the production side of the US economy. But Wall Street, too, is an almost insane case of monopolisation and control over public policy that might be explored in another article.

A long-standing trend of market concentration

There is no question that the pandemic measures have accelerated the ever-widening gap between the Big Five and the rest, but at the same time it cannot be ignored that the US economy has seen a long-standing trend of market and profits concentration. Even before Big Tech came along, many of the major industries, ranging from beer to healthcare, had already seen the emergence of oligopolies (a few dominant firms), duopolies (two dominant firms) and even monopolies (one dominant firm).

A prime example is the case of high-speed internet provision in the US, for which the market is almost completely controlled by the three telecom giants AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. By carving up the market, they have avoided competing in the same regions, forcing as many as 75% of US households to ‘choose’ from just one provider. Health insurance is another industry for which the market has been sliced up by the companies who dominate it, ensuring that competition is avoided as much as possible. As a consequence, in many states 80-90% of the health insurance market is controlled by just two companies.

Capitalism is a system in which competition drives innovation and growth. The natural strategy for a company to become dominant in an industry is to outcompete its rivals by producing better and cheaper products―i.e., by innovating. The problem in the US today is that more often than not, it has been a lack of competition which has allowed for high levels of market concentration and abnormally high profit margins in the US.

But it wasn’t always like this. The US government used to pay great attention to market concentration and threats to competition, which was why they had created antitrust regulation in the first place around the turn of the 20th century. According to Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, who documented the vast extent of uncompetitive and increasingly concentrated industries in the US in ‘The Myth of Capitalism’, point to the dismantling of antitrust regulation since the 1980s as one of the major causes for the growing degree of what they refer to as ‘industrial concentration’.

An illustration of when antitrust was still applied in full force is the case of IBM in 1969. The US government brought an antitrust lawsuit to PC maker IBM who held 70% of the market at the time. The lawsuit instigated IBM to make its hardware compatible with software other than the programmes it sold itself, allowing for new companies such as Microsoft (founded in 1975) to emerge and produce software for IBM machines and, eventually, for those produced by other companies.

In 1998, when the number of antitrust cases was already much lower than before, the US government brought an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft because it was starting to monopolise the PC software market. The tech giant was using its popular Windows operating system to favour its own programs such as the Internet Explorer. And with the internet on the rise, the company was also well positioned to block competitors from areas such as search engines. The lawsuit helped curb Microsoft’s growing power and allow other software companies to compete. Perhaps more importantly, it also allowed tech startups―such as a little company called Google―to grow.

The Big Five and the abandonment of antitrust regulation

The irony of Google owing its existence to antitrust is that the tech giant is currently one of the largest violators of antitrust principles, which appear to no longer be enforced by the US government. Apart from being a monopoly in the market for search engines, Google together with Facebook controls the market for online advertising with both companies actively barring new entrants to the industry. When Facebook bought social media rival Instagram in 2012, there was not a single antitrust case brought against them to block the acquisition.

Buying the competition certainly has been a favorite tool for retaining dominance. Since 2005, the Big Five have acquired 549 companies, which in many instances were direct competitors. From 1985 to 2017, the number of mergers and acquisitions completed annually rose from 2,308 to 15,361 nationwide. Unsurprisingly, Tepper and Hearn are able to show that the rise in acquisitions has a clear inverse relationship with the number of antitrust cases.

On top of acquisitions, the Big Five have found other ways to cement their market dominance. As US President Donald Trump correctly pointed out, Amazon is subsidised massively by their exclusive access to state-owned US postal services (USPS) at cheap rates. It is estimated that the USPS undercharges Amazon by $1.47 per package―no wonder Amazon accounts for more than 43% of online retail sales.

Boosting profits without being more competitive

Highly concentrated industries allow for two major distortions that boost corporate profits without the dominant companies having to be more competitive: price gouging and suppressing wages.

For price gouging, the internet provision industry serves as a good example. New York University economist Thomas Philippon found in a 2019 study that prices for a monthly broadband connection were almost twice as high in the US than in Europe or South Korea. Similar price differences were observed for air travel in the US when compared to Europe. Flights in the US are dominated by four major airlines that often enjoy regional monopolies and have solidified their market dominance since the US deregulated the airline industry in 1978. Having been fairly stable until that point, inflation-adjusted flight prices jumped by 50% in the first ten years after deregulation.

Being often one of the few employers (in some cases the only employer) in small-town America, monopolies also hold significant power over labour, which they exert through lobbying for laxer labour laws, inserting non-compete clauses in labour contracts, and consequently depressing wages. Marshall Steinbaum, Ioana Marinescu and Jose Azar found that wages are typically 10-25% lower in a ‘highly concentrated’ industry than in a ‘very competitive one’. Overall, wages adjusted for inflation have been stagnant in the US since the 1970s.

The suppression of wages has no doubt elevated profits margins, as Tepper and Hearn show in an almost perfectly inverse relationship between the two. What they further show is that the income distribution to the lower percentiles has a remarkably close correlation to union membership, the latter of which has been on a steady decline since the 1960s, implying that the large US corporations have successfully worn down the power of labour.

The consequences of not having to compete

Higher prices and lower wages are the reason for the exorbitant profit margins we see in today’s economy. But apart from that, they also lead to a complete loss of the capitalist drive that usually spurs companies to innovate. This decline in innovation is for a large part indicated by the number of US-American start-ups―which usually account for a large portion of total innovation―having fallen by nearly half since the 1970s.

What’s more, the large companies that dominate their industries are themselves not driven to innovate anymore. Instead, they have found a new way to inflate the value of their company: share buybacks. A study conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that between 2009-2018, companies listed on the S&P500 spent $4.3 trillion, or 52% of net income (profits), on share buybacks and $3.3 trillion, or 39% of net income, on dividends. This increases the wealth of both owners and managers, but does not make the company any more productive as little capital remains for research and development (R&D). In 2018, only 43% of all companies listed on the S&P500 index invested in any R&D.

Of the Big Five, the loss of competitiveness is perhaps the clearest in the case of Apple. The American electronics manufacturer that once pioneered and dominated the smartphone market for almost a decade has been knocked to the fourth place in global smartphone sales, losing out to East Asian competitors Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi. The only market Apple still dominates is the US, although it is worth wondering whether this would be the case if Huawei were allowed to sell its phones in the American market.

It is not to say innovation in the US has completely left the scene (for instance, the US is still a leader in microprocessors), but that the dynamism that once allowed for rapid technological change and global dominance is in decline. Tesla is another good example of a monopoly born in the US and having received billions worth of government support (see Mazzucato’s 2013 book ‘The Entrepreneurial State’) that now has increasing difficulty remaining competitive in an international setting.

The concentration of profits in the largest US companies and their dominance of entire sectors is essentially not a reflection of their superior competitiveness, but the result of a system benefiting them disproportionately while allowing them to accumulate wealth without becoming more competitive.

The lack of innovation is significant because an economy thus hollowed out of its productive capacity is bound to crumble, and, in the case of the US, allow a new power to rise and take its place in the global economy. There is only one reason that the loss of international competitiveness has not yet fully translated itself into a deterioration of living standards for Americans: the Dollar.

Further reading

  1. Jonathan Tepper (2018): Why American Workers Aren’t Getting A Raise: An Economic Detective Story. https://www.mythofcapitalism.com/worker-s-wages
  2. Jay Shambaugh, Ryan Nunn, Audrey Breitwieser, and Patrick Liu (2018): The state of competition and dynamism: Facts about concentration, start-ups, and related policies. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-state-of-competition-and-dynamism-facts-about-concentration-start-ups-and-related-policies/
  3. Patrick Bet-David and Jonathan Tepper (2019): The Missing Link To Modern Day Capitalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGzUVH9LsA
  4. John Coumarianos (2019): How corporate monopolies fuel wage stagnation, inequality, and populism. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-corporate-monopolies-fuel-wage-stagnation-inequality-and-populism-2019-05-06
  5. Walter Frick (2020): Big tech’s 15-year acquisition spree had a hidden cost. https://qz.com/1883377/how-big-techs-acquisition-strategies-suppress-entrepreneurship/

This article was originally published on Kapital Economics, the platform for evidence-based economic analysis.

Josephine Valeske

About the authors:

Josephine Valeske holds a MA degree in Development Studies from the ISS and a BA degree in Philosophy and Economics. Apart from contributing to Kapital Economics, she currently works for the research and advocacy organisation Transnational Institute.

 

Bram Nicholas holds an MBA from the University of Western Sydney and is in the process of writing a PhD on the subject of exchange rates and forex markets at the University of Colombo. He is the founder and CEO of Kapital Economics and currently lectures at HUTECH, Vietnam.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

COVID-19 | The COVID-19 pandemic and oil spills in the Ecuadorian Amazon: the confluence of two crises

By Posted on
Oil Spill Amazon

How can we reframe the current planetary crisis to find ways for decisive and life-changing collective action? The Amazon region of Ecuador, at the center of two crises—COVID-19 and a major oil spill—but also home to a long history of indigenous resistance, offers some answers.

Oil Spill Amazon

Navigating two crises

In Ecuador, the intensification of resource extraction and pollution, floods and weather disturbances have hit marginalized populations hardest. Indigenous peoples and people living in the Amazon have continuously suffered an enormous political and economic disadvantage when confronting extractive industries and allied state bodies. The vulnerability of the peoples and territory of the Ecuadorian Amazon region has been even more severely exposed during the COVID-19 lockdown period starting 16 March 2020.

On 7 April 2020, the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System and the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline, which transport Ecuador’s oil, collapsed. The pipelines were built along the banks of the Coca River and the collapse resulted in the spillage of an enormous quantity of crude oil into its waters. The Coca river is a key artery in the regional Amazon system. It runs through three national parks that form one of the richest biodiverse areas on Earth, which has been historically preserved by the ways of life of the indigenous peoples who inhabit it.

The breakage of the pipelines impacted kilometers of rainforest riverways and tens of thousands of people. Indigenous populations living in surrounding areas are more at risk than non-indigenous populations because they rely on locally harvested food and water, which can become contaminated. Indigenous peoples find it difficult to comply with lockdown mobility restrictions since their subsistence depends on agriculture, hunting and fishing, which in turn have been severely impacted by the oil spills. The exposure to the virus due to the entry of technicians to repair the pipelines is another threat. These conditions have led the Confederation of indigenous nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) warning of an impending genocide.

The Coca river valley before the erosion. Photo credit: Luisa Andrade

Despite the constitutional mandate to provide free and high-quality public healthcare for all citizens, the Ecuadorian national health system is fraught with problems. Health coverage in the Amazon region is precarious with a lack of medical facilities, doctors, and not enough COVID-19 tests and ventilators required to treat an outbreak. While elderly and people with comorbidities have been identified globally as most vulnerable to infection, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights identifies indigenous people as a risk group. Indeed, historically, pathogens have been one of the most powerful factors in decimating indigenous peoples in South America.

Depending on how an issue is framed, different responses can be expected, including why something is considered or not a problem, who is responsible, and what needs to be done about it. Environmental problems derived from the extraction of natural resources such as oil are mainly framed as localized problems. Thus, the burden is placed onto affected communities and local and national governments, while their global and systematic character is disowned. What we aim to say with this is that while there are companies and governmental entities that are directly responsible, their actions respond to a global system that is based and sustained on extractivism.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shows, it is only when a crisis is understood as part of a global web of relations derived from complex power dynamics that we can imagine possibilities of globally coordinated and integrated efforts required for effective resolution. We are now living under global restrictions, which were once unimaginable, politically and economically.  The rapid adaptation of quarantine and travel restrictions reveals that when the message of ‘human life is in danger’ is embraced, societies as a whole are able to perform the collective drastic changes required in a short period of time.

For Ecuadorian grassroots organizations and scholars, the COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder of our interconnectedness, our collective vulnerability, and therefore our mutual obligations to our planet. The pandemic is just one aspect of the human-made planetary crisis along with biodiversity loss and climate change. We are interested in how to reframe the current planetary crisis that encompasses increasingly visible global diseases in order to find ways for decisive and life-changing collective action. We ask these questions by looking at the Amazon region of Ecuador, which is bearing the brunt of two crises: COVID-19 and environmental destruction through a major oil spill.

“In the name of development”

To understand the complexity of this human and ecological disaster, it is necessary to retrace some historical steps. On February 2, 2020, the San Rafael waterfall, the highest in Ecuador, collapsed. At that time, hydrologists warned that a phenomenon known as ‘regressive erosion’ could affect upstream infrastructure. On April 7, 2020 the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources announced that the pipelines broke due to landslides that occurred in the San Rafael sector. Hydrologists associate the landslides with the construction and operation of the Coca-Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam (CCSHD).

Location of the most relevant events generated by the regressive erosion phenomenon of the Coca River. Infographic credit: Luisa Andrade

According to Carolina Bernal, PhD in Geomorphology and Hydrosedimentology, the CCSHD caused a serious imbalance in the transport of sediments and water through the river flow which produced a  regressive erosion phenomenon which was responsible for causing sinkholes along the banks of the river. One of these sinkholes broke the oil pipelines. This risk had been mentioned in the earlier preliminary environmental impact study of the hydroelectric project.

CCSHD was inaugurated as part of Ecuador’s hydraulic mission during the presidency of Rafael Correa. The dam, like other hydroelectric projects carried out during his mandate, was politically legitimatized as “provider of clean energy and ‘good living’ for Ecuadorians and the world”. The rhetoric concerning the sustainable energy transition to renewable sources in the national energy matrix has been notably inconsistent with the dam’s high impacts on people and the environment.

The socio-environmental impacts associated with CCSHD and the oil spill were foreseen by the scientific community and civil society who were dismissed as “antidevelopmentalists” by Correa’s government. Some anticipated that the dam would a be major disruption of downstream sediment for the Napo River and would require extensive road-building and line construction in the primary forest. Others have questioned the true purpose of the dam, arguing that it was not about sustainable development for local people, but rather to provide electricity to the oil fields.

One of several sinkholes caused by the regressive erosion of the Coca River. The sinkhole captured in this picture is close to the town of San Luis. Photo credit: Carlos Sanchez (August 2020)

Going beyond business as usual

Even if the world is still embroiled in the COVID-19 pandemic, the responses to this crisis have revealed stark unequal, racial, and geopolitical differences. The indigenous populations affected by the spill and the pandemic have denounced the failure of the state to attend to these two emergencies. The many commentators on the current changes in the social and economic constellation of the world are urging for the re-evaluation of our way of life and the possibility of a radical change. For Ecuadorian indigenous organizations and the environmental justice movement, the pandemic and the environmental crises call for a radical rethinking of economic growth and our current model of development.

Scholars like Maurie Cohen see COVID-19 as “a public health emergency and a real-time experiment in downsizing the consumer economy”. Accordingly, the outbreak could potentially contribute to a sustainable consumption transition. For Phoebe Everingham and Natasha Chassagne the crisis is an opportunity to challenge the atomized individualism that underlies overconsumption. For them, Buen Vivir, a central concept to Ecuador’s development planning, drawn from the historical experience of indigenous communities that have lived in harmony with nature, is a post-pandemic alternative for moving away from capitalist growth and re-imagining a new form of traveling and tourism.

We cannot return to ‘a normal’ that ignores the global environmental crisis which led to the inequitable and polluted societies that enabled the spread of COVID-19. The extractive vision of the living world is endangering humanity’s very existence. Is there space for a greater appreciation of the complexity of these intertwined crises? When will we see, as Bayo Akomalafe states, “Earth’s interconnected geological and political processes”?.

The extractive environmental activities that underpin capitalist development and a planetary-mass consumption culture are jeopardizing the very existence of humanity. Though environmental disasters have decimated and violated the rights of indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon for years, they continue to resist. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Amazonian indigenous organizations promoted a model of autonomous governance of the Amazon region of Ecuador and Peru through the “Sacred Basins Territories of Life” initiative.

The proposal has been developed by an alliance of indigenous peoples and nationalities of Ecuador and Peru to forge a new post-carbon, post-extractive model by leaving fossil fuels and mineral resources underground, retaining around 3.8 billion metric tons of carbon, to protect our planet and the well-being of future generations. The proposal would cover around 30 million hectares of land between Ecuador and Peru, home to almost 500,000 indigenous people of 20 different nationalities. Can these counter-hegemonic proposals which claim the interconnectivity of all species in this world be critically revisited in the times of the pandemic?

COVID-19 brought the world to a halt. This ‘portal to a new era’, as Arundhati Roy proclaimed, offers us a chance to question deeply our social and economic relations. Perhaps this could be the moment in history where we also can finally reframe localized environmental disasters as global concerns and act accordingly. This is the opportunity to politically and socially rethink how to transition to a different kind of development that acknowledges and changes the damaging way global lifestyles directly impact the indigenous peoples and natures of the world.

This blog article was first published on Undisciplined Environments.

About the authors:

Jacqueline Gaybor is a Research Associate at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University, in The Hague and lecturer at Erasmus University College in Rotterdam. Email: gaybortobar@iss.nl.

Wendy HarcourtWendy Harcourt is a Professor of Gender, Diversity and Sustainable Development at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University, in The Hague. She is a member of the Editorial Collective of Undisciplined Environments. Email: harcourt@iss.nl.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Covid-19 | Worsening inequality in the developing world: why we should say no to a ‘new normal’

By Posted on
hunger food insecurity covid corona

As the Covid-19 pandemic drags on, many of us living in wealthy countries are still struggling to get used to the ‘new normal’ of frequent regulatory changes that affect our freedom of movement and well-being. In developing countries, the negative effects of the pandemic move beyond the curtailing of movement to include increasing hunger, unemployment, and inequality. We can now witness some of these seemingly permanent changes that may take years or even decades to reverse, and we should not accept this as a ‘new normal’, write Shradha Parashari and Lize Swartz.

hunger food insecurity covid corona

Introduction

Over the past months, the world has come to experience the unthinkable as the Covid-19 pandemic has swept across the globe (Mahapatra, 2020). The overall outlook for world economy is bleak. According to Economist Intelligence Unit, as from March 17, global economic growth has slowed to just one percent—the lowest level of growth since the global financial crisis of 2008 (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020). The pandemic has affected both the developing and developed world. However, instances of hunger, unemployment and poor access to virus testing and treatment facilities are more prevalent in developing countries (World Food Programme Report, 2020).

Developed countries are taking important measures to protect their people from the Covid-19 virus and consequent slowdown of the economy and life in general by providing unemployment benefits, measures for food security, and privileges such as facilities enabling employees and entrepreneurs to work from home or at a safe distance from one another (Mahapatra, 2020). This is a rare case in the developing world, where governments face challenges in ensuring that tens of millions of people already on verge of starvation do not succumb to virus and its adverse economic consequences, which includes hunger (Dongyu, 2020).

Thus, the pandemic, popularly referred to as the ‘pandemic of inequality’ (Mahaptara, 2020), has exposed existing inequalities and has given rise to new inequalities. According to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres,

COVID-19 has highlighted growing inequalities. It has exposed the myth that everyone is in same boat, when the truth is, we all are floating in same sea; some are in superyachts, while others are clinging to drifting debris.

It is becoming clear that the pandemic is affecting the poor in both the developed and developing world more than wealthier groups, but it is especially the long-term effects of the pandemic in developing countries that remain a cause for concern. The pandemic has created a disruptive ‘new normal’ for everyone through government orders on social distancing and Covid-19 protection measures. Below are just some of the negative effects of this ‘new normal’ that support our argument that it should not be accepted as such.

First, for billions of poor persons, these guidelines are burdensome and impossible to comply with (Du et al., 2020). Poor informal workers in Asia, Africa and Latin America live in densely populated neighbourhoods with unreliable and shared access to water and sanitation facilities, making home quarantine or social distancing almost impossible. These workers lack access to bank accounts, insurance and secure employment that forces them to work on daily basis, defying lockdowns and creating an increased risk of Covid-19 transmission (Du et al., 2020). For them, a ‘new normal’ means not being able to work and meet basic needs.

Second, the hunger crisis is most evident in the central and western parts of Africa, where there has been a massive spike in the number of people facing food insecurity. Up to 90% of people living in Southern Africa are estimated to have become food insecure (World Food Programme Report, 2020). The closure of schools has further aggravated the hunger crisis in the developing world where children are highly dependent on meal programs at schools. For example, in Latin American countries and the Caribbean, the closure of schools during the pandemic has deprived around 85 million children of what is often the only (hot) meal they get daily (Dongyu Qu, 2020). This has led to surging hunger-related poverty during the pandemic. However, this is not the case in Global North, where school closures are simply an inconvenience for most parents.

Moreover, the lockdowns have left millions of workers jobless, especially the informal workforce in the developed and developing world (Daniyal et al., 2020). Workers in developed countries are still better off than those in the developing world as governments in US and Europe have pledged to pump trillions of dollars to support the unemployed workforce (TRT World, 2020). In contrast, the situation is grim in developing countries as informal workers are not covered by any social protection measures or proper employment contracts (TRT World, 2020). Millions of workers in Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and India have faced unemployment as the market remains shut due to the pandemic.

Why we should resist a ‘new normal’

As the pandemic drags on, many people in wealthier countries or those in developing countries with secure jobs or livelihoods, especially those whose lives are disrupted but not severely negatively affected, especially in economic terms, are getting used to the ‘new normal’. For many people, a ‘new normal’ means working from home, not visiting restaurants, not going on holidays outside of our countries, and having to wear a face mask. For millions people who are less fortunate, a ‘new normal’ means a loss of jobs and the inability to secure new employment, going to bed hungry, and working illegally with an exposed risk to the virus.

We have to reject this ‘new normal’ characterized by worsening living conditions and increasing economic inequality before it becomes seen as accepted and a permanent feature of life among poor people in developing and developed countries alike. The search for a vaccine and its global roll-out may take many months still. We have to start think beyond the end of the pandemic to ensure that its negative effects, particularly for people in developing countries, are urgently addressed. If we don’t, the consequences can be far-reaching.

References:

Dongyu Qu, “Coronavirus could worsen hunger in developing world”, World Economic Forum, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-worsen-hunger-developing-world/

Economist Intelligence Unit, “Coronavirus what we expect for global growth”, accessed September 16, 2020. http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1849161968&Country=United%20States&topic=Economy&subtopic=Recent+developments

Jillian Du, Robin King and Radha Chanchani, “Tackling Inequality in cities is Essential for Fighting COVID-19”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-inequality-cities

Richard Mahapatra, “COVID-19: The Pandemic of Inequality”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/economy/covid-19-the-pandemic-of-inequality-72442

Oxfam, “Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty by coronavirus, warns Oxfam”, accessed September 14, 2020. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/half-billion-people-could-be-pushed-poverty-coronavirus-warns-oxfam

Sara Christensen, “Hunger in Developing Countries: Five Facts You Need to Know”, accessed September 16, 2020. https://borgenproject.org/hunger-in-developing-countries-five-facts/

Shoaib Daniyal et al., “As Covid-19 pandemic hits India’s daily-wage earners hard, some leave city for their home towns”, accessed September 16, 2020. https://scroll.in/article/956779/starvation-will-kill-us-before-corona-the-covid-19-pandemic-has-hit-indias-working-class-hard

TRT World. “Coronavirus hits jobs, Millions face unemployment and poverty”, accessed September 15, 2020. Retrieved from TRT World: https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/coronavirus-hits-jobs-millions-face-unemployment-and poverty-35294

Tasfia Jahangir, “The Moral Dilemma of Slum Tourism”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://fundforeducationabroad.org/journals/moral-dilemma-slum-tourism/ 

World Food Programme, “COVID-19: Potential Impact on World’s Poorest People”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000114205/download/?_ga=2.261738637.121369336.1599543905-1508832003.1599543905

About the authors:

Shradha Parashari is an ISS of Erasmus University Rotterdam alumna of the 2017-2018 batch. She is currently working as a Research and Operation Associate at PAD India.

Lize Swartz

 

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes. She is also the editor of the ISS Blog Bliss.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Covid-19 | How moving (academic) conferences online could help address social injustices

By Posted on
Video conference

Curtailing the movement of people around the world in a bid to control and eventually stop the spread of Covid-19 has forced many, including academics, to gather online. A recent online conference of the European Consortium for Political Research I attended shows that such conferences can not only be a roaring success, but can also help address social injustices, in particular economic and social barriers to participation. Yet these practices should become the ‘new norm’ to ensure that these barriers are broken down once and for all.

Video conference

In August 2020 the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) held its first virtual general conference. This event also marked its 50-year anniversary. Remarkably, despite the restrictions, it still managed to virtually bring together over 2,000 researchers to discuss political science, including the politics of the Covid-19 crisis.

As a conference participant coming from an institution whose key focus is social justice, the important social justice dimensions of the event did not elude me. In this article, I highlight some of these dimensions to proffer what I believe may be cardinal collateral gains towards social justice within academia emerging from the otherwise unfortunate outbreak of the corona virus. Using the ECPR case example, I seek to make a global argument that these gains would be maximised if they are immediately and widely consolidated as a feature of such conferences.

As early as April 14th, 2020 the World Health Organisation had issued an alert on mass international gatherings in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This alert, which has led to a new global norm on limiting the gathering of a large number of people, therefore meant that the ECPR’s conference, if held physically, was going to raise many eyebrows. The body thus decided to take the conference online, attracting a perhaps unprecedented number of participants. The ECPR president noted that the virtual conference hosted more participants than the previous physical general conference. So it was probably a good decision to have the conference run virtually.

In my view, the idea to have a virtual rather than a physical conference had two main gains that help to address some of the social injustices that for a long time have been entrenched within the academic sphere.  For readers that may be new to the idea of social justice, it is a critical political and philosophical view of society that is concerned with the fair and just relations between individuals in society. This issue became salient at the ECPR’s event because the virtual nature of the conference broke down two of the barriers that disable some academics from taking full advantage of such academically stimulating platforms: an economic barrier and a social barrier.

The conference broke down an economic barrier by providing easy access to participants who may not have had the financial resources required to travel and pitch camp in a physical location. Here, I refer to the huge flight and hotel costs that would have been a deal-breaker for many of such people, including myself. In addition, conference registration costs can run up to several hundred euros. Groups that usually suffer from such setbacks include students, both at the Master’s and PhD level, as well as academics from less-financially-endowed institutions or countries.

Yet, members from these groups contribute some of the most original and case-sensitive analyses of social and political science, thereby contributing to the academic debates upon which associations such as the ECPR thrive. For a long time, barriers of this calibre have limited some of these voices in these discourses, and perhaps this new virtualisation of academic life is the pathway to raising their voices.

 For the ECPR specifically, the Western European origins of the consortium has for a long time kept researchers from Eastern Europe from fully participating in these conferences. Yet, they were ubiquitous this time round on almost all the 15 panels that I participated in. As a researcher interested in the politics of conflicts, I gathered the most relevant insights from these Eastern European participants and other participants from the Middle East. It is likely that physical conferences may have created a lot more barriers to their participation.

Second, the conference broke down a social barrier, particularly one preventing females from participating in conferences, rooted in the absence of females in academia in general. Perhaps readers may be aware of the so-called leaky pipeline phenomenon characterising how women fall out of the scene as they progress in their academic careers. This a significant social justice issue that many responsible organisations are trying to deal with, including the ECPR. As the president’s anniversary address acknowledges, there are many more women involved in the ECPR’s activities both at administrative and academic levels. Indeed, throughout the conference, female panellists were a frequent encounter that I welcomed. Yet, I could not help but wonder how difficult it must be for many of them to juggle their child-rearing duties with spending a week away, possibly on another continent, to attend an academic conference.

With this in mind, it is clear to me how the Covid-19-induced virtualisation of academic life may provide some opportunity to academics and researchers with such responsibilities to actively participate in the academic fraternity whilst tending to their role in home economics. Of course, conferencing online from home is no walk in the park either, but in my view, it is less of a burden to have to return to those duties just after one hour of online engagement than having to be way for a whole week for the same purpose.

Whilst highlighting these gains, I am not oblivious of the other forms of injustices that virtual conferences also present. Here I refer to the loss of jobs in the hospitality industry that hosts conferences, or the outrageous financial gains these virtualizations rake in for owners of online communication platforms. Nevertheless, I am also persuaded by the campaigns led by some senior colleagues at my university to tone down the current climatically and financially unsustainable model of flying thousands of participants every year to conferences.

Already, deep voices within the scientific community are predicting that the ‘new normal’ is expected to stay. Yet I am concerned that perhaps these gains exemplified by the ECPR’s virtual general conference may not be consolidated, at least not in the immediate future. From the plenary address and the post-conference questionnaire, I can gather that the ECPR is already considering at least some physical meeting during next year’s general conference. Other conferences may possibly be considering doing the same.

Yet, it is my view that the failure to immediately entrench the above-highlighted Covid-19-induced shifts to improving social justice within the academe would be ‘one step forward, two steps backward’. I hope it won’t be.

About the author:

Dennis Penu (penu@iss.nl) is a PhD Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam with research interests in the links between political geography and conflicts studied with qualitative comparative methods.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Covid-19 | Strengthening alliances in a post-Covid world: green recovery as a new opportunity for EU-China climate cooperation?

By Posted on
Chinese and EU flag

As nations turn their attention to fighting the economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, green recovery seems to be a good—and perhaps for the first time, possible—option. As climate change remains the most pressing challenge despite the severity of the global Covid-19 pandemic, a green recovery plan to slow down global warming and meet climate goals becomes imperative. Leaders in the EU are taking the lead in greening the recovery, while China seems to be following suit. A ‘green consciousness’ seems to be emerging. Could these efforts improve EU-China relations and help these two global powerhouses work together to fight climate change? asks Hao Zhang.

Chinese and EU flag
Credit: Friends of Europe on Flickr

As the IMF’s latest report on fiscal policies shows, the Covid-19 crisis won’t change the global climate that is also in crisis, but responses to it might. Even though science hasn’t produced an answer on whether the current economic crisis induced by the pandemic will indeed affect the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, efforts to address it certainly will. It is undeniable that the current health and economic crisis together create a threat to our current development trajectory and that the scope and severity of the issue to some extent make lasting efforts and immediate actions crucial. These decisions on how we will recover from the pandemic and the resulting crisis will shape our society for the next few decades and, even more importantly perhaps, how we deal with our climate and environmental challenges. As the IPCC’s report warned that our current ambition and willingness are far from pushing us to reach our goal of containing global warming, a green recovery plan becomes imperative in a post-Covid-19 world.

The question then arises: How do we green our recovery? As the IMF suggests, fiscal policymakers should take the lead in making policies that support climate goals without undermining the purpose of boosting the economy. Then, finance ministries should be able to set up concrete and practical projects to implement these policies. In addition, public support for the green policies with the rationale that curbing emissions would likely reduce the risk of respiratory diseases is indispensable. In a post-Covid-19 world, this might sway the public in support of green measures in a way it never has before.

The EU seems to be taking the lead in employing green measures to recover its lockdown-hit economies. As policymakers tend to believe that a green plan can better help revive the economy, concrete actions can be witnessed. In May this year, the European Commission proposed a €750 billion recovery fund with green conditions, 25% of which is to be set aside for climate action, meaning that one-quarter of expenditure with a ‘do-no-harm’ clause can potentially rule out environmentally damaging investments.[1] In addition, the Commission also issued a €1.85 trillion, seven-year budget and pandemic recovery package. This EU green recovery package could be introduced elsewhere to stimulate the economy while fighting climate change.

In addition, the EU launched the world’s largest programs for innovative low-carbon technologies under the fund from the EU’s emissions trading system. This innovation fund is created to finance breakthrough technologies for renewable energy, energy-intensive industries, carbon capture, use and storage, etc. These could help create local job opportunities, lead the economy to a climate-neutral place, and also help the EU maintain its technological leadership in climate change. It is obvious that the EU pays great attention to the future of clean technologies, yet it allows member states and the market space to decide how the money is spent. The member states will be allowed to use their allocations from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility for a wide range of green projects detailed in their national energy climate plans, and their proposals will be reviewed by the Commission; at the same time, private capital will be encouraged to invest in clean energy technologies.

On the other side of the world, in China, residents also survived the first wave of the pandemic, and the government is now also making recovery plans. This May, in the report on the work of the government, the development of renewable energy and efforts toward the clean and efficient use of coal were emphasized.[2] At the same time, this year for the first time Beijing has decided not to set an economic growth target, which is interpreted as a way to help China shift away from energy-intensive infrastructure projects.[3] This indeed has sent out a very positive signal; however, given that China still hasn’t submitted its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the next reporting round, it also raises concerns about a lack of practical assurance.

Nevertheless, the cooperation between the EU and China in regard to green recovery seems promising. At the recent 22nd China-EU Summit on September 14 this year, President Xi Jinping stated that

China is interested in forging a green partnership with the EU and constructively participating in the global process of tackling climate change and preserving biodiversity. We are researching on reaching our long-term vision in the mid-century,[4] which includes carbon-peaking and carbon-neutrality.[5]

It is thus obvious that economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic is considered a top priority for leaders of both the EU and China, and it becomes increasingly clear that both parties are interested in a recovery package that aligns with their green transition goals.

Looking ahead, the EU and China can cooperate with each other in a few fields. First, the EU’s experiences could help China transition more rigorously to the use of green energy, especially in cutting the number of carbon-powered plants and subsidizing new energy vehicles. Second, the EU and China could agree to channel public and private funds to low-carbon investments both at home and abroad. Both parties are big investors of overseas development projects; they can thus work together to invest in projects subject to green terms. Going a step further, the EU and China could also work on developing international standards for sustainable finance[6], and China could learn from the EU’s experience in committing to more ambitious climate targets, specifically making ‘decarbonization’ a top priority in its next five-year plan.[7] Hopes are high for future cooperation between the EU and China in leading the world toward a green recovery, yet key decisions need to be made by both parties.

[1] Refer to Climate Home News, “EU €750 billion Covid recovery fund comes with green conditions”, May 27, 2020.

[2] Refer to ccchina.org.cn, 一图读懂2020政府工作报告, May 29, 2020.

[3] Refer to Climate Home News, “China prioritises employment over GDP growth in coronavirus recovery”, May 22, 2020.

[4] President Xi confirmed that China will try to reach carbon-neutrality before 2060 in his speech at a high-level meeting to mark the UN’s 75th anniversary on September 22nd, 2020.

[5] Refer to Global Times, “推动疫后全球经济复苏 中欧领导人视频会晤定目标”, September 15, 2020.

[6] Refer to China Dialogue, “Hopes for EU-China climate deal centre on a green recovery”, June 17, 2020.

[7] Refer to China Dialogue, “中欧气候协议前景如何？”, September 14, 2020.

About the author:

Hao ZhangHao Zhang is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). Before joining ISS, she was a master’s student majoring international affairs at School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego. Her current research focus on policy advocacy of Chinese NGOs in global climate governance. Her research interests lie in Chinese politics, global climate politics and diplomacy.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

How COVID-19 is tragically exposing systemic vulnerabilities in Peru

By Posted on
COVID testing in Peru

Despite early assessments that Peru was faring well in the COVID-19 pandemic and that its preparedness was due to its strict application of austerity and reforms over the last 30 years, these quickly turned out to be tragically premature as the country emerged over the summer as one of the worst impacted globally in terms of confirmed deaths per capita. While much of the blame has been focused on people’s behaviour, the crisis ultimately points to deep overlapping structural inequalities within the social protection, employment, and health systems, which austerity and reform have not resolved and in some cases worsened.

COVID testing in Peru
COVID-19 testing in Peru. Credit: Ministerio de Defensa del Perú on Flickr.

Precocious optimism followed by demise

Peru was one of the first countries to adopt strict measures to cope with COVID-19 in Latin America. A week after the first COVID-19 case was reported on 6 March, the country closed its borders on 13 March and declared a mandatory immobilization, allowing the population to go out only for acquiring essential services. At the same time, it launched an economic plan equivalent to 12% of the GDP, considered by experts as unprecedented – the greatest economic stimulus in Latin America against COVID-19. The plan included cash transfers for the vulnerable population, subsidies for services and salaries, food provisioning, financial aid for companies, and a large budget allocation for the health system, among other measures.

The current Minister of Economy and Finance, Maria Antonieta Alva, argued that the last 30 years of good fiscal behaviour – as a result of the strict application of austerity measures – allowed the country to face this health and economic crisis. These statements and international news coverage created a positive narrative that seemed to vindicate the country’s economic and social policies in recent decades. Even as recently as 21 July, an article in the Financial Times presented Peru as better prepared for the crisis compared to other countries in the region that were in worse fiscal and macroeconomic positions, such as neighbouring Ecuador.

However, this congratulatory assessment was tragically premature, as has now become evident. As of 24 August, Peru has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per capita in Latin America and second only to Belgium globally (and soon to overtake), at 842 per million people, versus 542 for Brazil or 468 for Mexico. It also has the sixth largest number of confirmed cases in the world, with 600,438 confirmed cases. Per capita, it has slightly more confirmed cases than Brazil and more than four times than Mexico.

After initially controlling a sharp spike in cases in late May, daily confirmed cases first plateaued at between 3,000 to 4,000 per day, and after removing the nationwide quarantine on 30 June, they again surged since the beginning of August to surpass the peak levels reported in May (see Figure 1). Confirmed deaths have been running at about 200 deaths a day since July after a peak of about 300 a day in June (see Figure 2).1

Confirmed daily new COVID-19 cases, Peru
Figure 1: Confirmed daily new cases, Peru
Confirmed daily COVID-19 deaths, Peru
Figure 2: Confirmed daily deaths, Peru

Source of both figures: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/peru/ (last accessed 24 August 2020).

The dire comparison with its neighbours is partly due to a much higher level of testing (besides Chile), which is also reflective of at least one aspect of greater capacity in the health system (and it also underscores the certain underestimation of the severity of the crisis in Mexico and Ecuador). However, this statistic is also problematic because the Peruvian numbers include both PCR as well as serology tests, with the large majority being serological, whereas other countries only include PCR tests. As a result, the numbers are not comparable, although this being said, Peru’s positivity rate is also one of the highest in the world, meaning that far more testing is needed relative to the current prevalence of infection.2

Proximate explanations of failure: mobility and behaviour

The lack of success in controlling the pandemic was partially due to an inability to restrict peoples’ mobility despite the lockdown, which has been widely reported in media and noted by commentators. This became more evident following the initial 15-day quarantine period, even despite the extension of this initial period. As in many parts of the world, migrant workers in places such as the capital city of Lima began returning to their places of origin by foot. Specialists also noted that the lack of refrigerators in households and the habit of buying fresh products caused people to go out to markets frequently. Social protection measures to help vulnerable people ironically made this situation worse. For instance, a monetary grant of 760 soles (about 214 USD) was one of the measures intended to help people without a formal income and who lost their job because of COVID-19. However, the payment of the grant caused people to crowd in the banks. Indeed, markets and banks became the main hot spots of infection.

As a result, many experts claimed that people’s behaviour was the main factor that undermined the COVID-19 response, that lack of education about health care and respect for rules was aggravating the spread of the virus, especially among poor people. However, the discussion generally revolves around proximate reasons rather than highlighting fundamental structural inequalities that in fact point back to the legacy of social and economic policies over the last 30 years.

More fundamental structural reasons

Although the COVID-19 response at first seemed to be strong and promising, it actually quickly exposed the deep and overlapping structural problems within the social protection system, the employment structure, and the health system, which 30 years of reform did not resolve and in some cases worsened.

One crucial problem, as noted above, is the high degree of informality, which is estimated at 72.5% of the economically active population (16.511 million people), with no access to any formal social security. Poverty was estimated at about one-fifth of the national population in 2018, based on a money-metric poverty line of 344 soles (roughly 98 USD) per person per month (the extreme poverty line was 183 soles). This means that about half of employed people were informal but not considered poor by this metric, even though they might have been just above the poverty line.

Moreover, only a fraction of those deemed poor receive assistance. For instance, before the lockdown, only about 725,000 households were affiliated with the main cash transfer programme (Juntos), or less than 9% of households in the general household register that is used for poverty targeting. Those uncovered and working informally become part of the ‘missing middle’ given that they are also not covered by any social protection.

As noted above, the government has created different monetary subsidies and adapted the existing cash transfer programmes to address the vulnerability of these uncovered populations. As of 21 August, these have been extended in principle to more than 8.5 million households, with transfer values from 160 soles to 760 soles (it is unclear whether these are monthly or one-off payments). However, the government has not yet completed paying many of these households and for many it would amount to only one transfer within the six-month period from March to August. Beyond such limited support and facing unemployment with little or no savings, adhering to mobility restrictions were quite simply unrealistic or impossible for a large majority of the population.

In addition, although Peru is in a better fiscal or financial position compared to other Latin American countries, this position was achieved by austerity and reforms that have undermined the public health system. Health specialists have noted the lack of historical investment in this system, as well as fragmentation and inequality, all of which have hampered the COVID-19 response effectiveness.3

Austerity clearly contributed to critical deficiencies in terms of infrastructure, human resources and medical supplies, and also constrained the composition of health spending, producing inefficient combinations of spending and thus impacting negatively on the implementation of services. For instance, Peru has a higher number of beds per capita compared with Ecuador and Mexico, but a lower number of doctors (see here). The distribution has also been historically uneven among the regions.4

Acknowledging this situation, the lockdown helped the government to gain time to increase the supply of beds, intensive care units, personal protective equipment, health staff, and to improve the infrastructure and also allocate financial resources to the sector. It has also generated alliances between the different health subsystems (public and private) to improve the availability of beds and intensive care units.

Despite the efforts, the number of cases exceeds the capacity of hospitals, the number of health personnel is insufficient, and there is a scarcity of essential supplies. Health professionals and local authorities have recently reported the collapse of the health system in different regions including Loreto, Piura, Lambayeque, Ucayali, Ica, Lima, Huánuco and Arequipa due to lack of human resources and key medical supplies, including scarcity of medicinal oxygen.5

Realities exposed

In sum, COVID-19 has exposed a reality that is distant from what the government and the international news media celebrated at the beginning of the pandemic. In a short period of time, Peru went from being heralded as better prepared to having the world’s worst performance in coping with the crisis. This has been in large part because of deep structural inequalities in Peruvian society, exacerbated by the high cost of austere policy choices that, despite producing strong economic performance according to conventional measures, did not solve the most pressing social problems of the last decades and exacerbated the crisis.

COVID-19 exposed an illusion. A political commitment to redefine the last 30 years of policies is required, alongside an allocation and distribution of resources to make it happen.

About the authors:

Kattia Talla CornejoKattia Liz Talla Cornejo lives in Lima, Peru. She has been working as a consultant monitoring a health project aimed at strengthening the COVID-19 response in Ancash, one of the Peruvian regions most impacted by the pandemic. This allows her to observe the critical situation of the health system and the COVID-19 response from the inside. She holds an MA in Development Studies from ISS with a major in Social Policy, and degree in Economics and International Business. She has experience in public finance, policy advocacy and monitoring within the fields of social policy, health and childhood, and has worked in governmental and non-governmental organizations in Peru.

Andrew FischerAndrew M. Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the ISS and the Scientific Director of CERES, The Dutch Research School for International Development. His latest book, Poverty as Ideology (Zed, 2018), was awarded the International Studies in Poverty Prize by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) and Zed Books and, as part of the award, is now fully open access (http://bora.uib.no/handle/1956/20614). Since 2015, he has been leading a European Research Council Starting Grant on the political economy of externally financing social policy in developing countries. He has been known to tweet @AndrewM_Fischer

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Covid-19: Increased responsiveness helps South Korea legitimize authoritarian pandemic response measures

By Posted on
People lined up at a pharmacy to buy masks in Sejong City. Image Credit: Rickinasia on WikiMedia (Created 16 March 2020).

Despite the South Korean government’s authoritarian Covid-19 measures that have sparked concerns over the possible violation of personal rights, no public protests against the government’s response have been witnessed thus far. In this article, Seohee Kwak explains why, showing that the high level of responsiveness of the government in tackling the pandemic lowers the perceived need for contentious political action.

People lined up at a pharmacy to buy masks in Sejong City. Image Credit: Rickinasia on WikiMedia (Created 16 March 2020).
People lined up at a pharmacy to buy masks in Sejong City. Image Credit: Rickinasia on WikiMedia (Created 16 March 2020).

While the fight against Covid-19 remains arguably the most pressing issue worldwide, protests that express opposition to the government are erupting in many parts of the world. Protesters are mainly concerned about government measures to contain the virus and how governments are handling the economic fallout arising from the slowing down of economies and life through lockdown measures.

In South Korea, the Moon Jae-in administration has done its utmost to contain the virus as well as to mitigate public concerns, and it is often seen as a success case, with infections contained despite an initial surge. South Korea has a strong protest culture, citizens taking collective action when they wish to make political demands. One of the most remarkable examples is the 2016-2017 candlelight protests, when Korean citizens took to the streets to call for the resignation of the president and the protection of the country’s democracy.

However, mass protests against the government’s responses to Covid-19 have not yet materialized in Korean society. A closer look shows that certain governing strategies may have helped this on despite the relative invasiveness of the government’s measures in fighting the virus.

Contact tracing through surveillance

The government has instituted several measures since the virus outbreak, including drive-through and walk-through testing facilities and a compulsory 14-day quarantine and monitoring of inbound travelers.[1] In particular, state authorities have implemented so-called ‘contact tracing’ of those who have tested positive. Public officials have the authority to trace the recent travel history and contacts of those who have tested positive by screening GPS on their mobile phones, credit card transactions, and closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in places visited by potential carriers. Municipalities publicize information on the respective government portal and send emergency text alerts to people’s mobile phones to keep them updated about new cases in their region.

Balancing public health concerns and privacy breaches

The authority to collect and process personal data is guaranteed, if necessary, for epidemiological investigation and in the name of public health. Two government acts, the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act and the Personal Information Protection Act, ensure that data may be collected, but has to be responsibly managed.

Initially, personal information about infected persons was made public, causing social stigma for carriers. Also, small businesses were hurt, since people avoided going to shops and restaurants that those who tested positive had visited despite disinfection measures having been taken. Correspondingly, whereas contact tracing has been made possible by a certain degree of public consent, critical concerns over privacy breaches have been raised.

Moreover, to prevent the spread of the virus, Seoul and several other municipalities have banned people from assembling in some public spaces and religious facilities in the name of public safety. This has sparked condemnations, being interpreted as restrictions to the freedom of assembly and religious freedom. These measures do not correspond to the Constitution of South Korea that protects these rights.

Countering privacy breaches by openness in governing the pandemic

As criticism over the violation of privacy increased, the government adjusted the scope of the public release of information, not disclosing the names of the places that infected persons visited and officially erasing the information after 14 days of their last contact with someone.

In addition, the Korean government has made commitments not only to fight the virus in the name of public safety, but also to interact with the public to fulfill its duty of vertical accountability. State authorities have held press conferences every day or even twice a day. Also, informative press releases and official statistical data moreover are easily accessible by anyone.

South Korea’s balanced approach

While ministries and municipalities have exercised their authority which arguably limits people’s rights, they have released statements that respond to public concerns and correct media reports so as to ensure the public has sufficient and correct information about two key elements: how the pandemic is developing, and how the government is responding to it.

Despite many complaints made both online and offline, the ruling liberal party won a landslide victory in the general election in April 2020, indicating that public support has not been compromised since the pandemic’s outbreak. Moreover, a monthly survey by Gallup shows that 85% (May), 77% (June), and 78% (July) of around 1,000 surveyed respondents were satisfied with the government’s Covid-19 responses[2].

The current Korean government’s Covid-19 measures can be viewed as a balanced approach of strong authority and a high level of responsiveness. In other words, the government’s authority used for the common goal of tackling Covid-19 is tolerated to an extent that people have the low perceived need for contentious collective action.

[1] A further explanation of the Korean government’s response system is available at http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/en/baroView.do?brdId=11&brdGubun=111&dataGubun=&ncvContSeq=&contSeq=&board_id=&gubun=

[2] The report is available only in Korean. It should be noted that the satisfaction rate with the government’s Covid-19 measures is not the same as the approval rating of the incumbent administration.

About the author:

Seohee KwakSeohee Kwak is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). Her current research focuses on political action and state response in Vietnam. With a geographical interest in the Southeast and East Asian regions, her academic interests include political rights, protest, state repression, and state-society relations.

Covid-19 | Gender and ICTs in fragile refugee settings: from local coordination to vital protection and support during the Covid-19 pandemic

By Posted on
Somali women Nairobi

ICTs are changing how marginalized communities connect with each other, including those in fragile refugee settings, where ICTs have been used to share information and organize in collective enterprise. This year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, WhatsApp has taken on a critical health function. Holly Ritchie here discusses how Somali women refugees are using this platform particularly in this challenging time and discusses the evolving role of ICTs in refugee self-reliance.

Somali women Nairobi
Somali refugee women in the turbulent but well-known economic hub of Eastleigh in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Holly Ritchie.

ICTs as fundamental ‘frugal’ innovations, and growing use during the pandemic

Information Communication Technology (ICTs), for example mobile devices and applications, are arguably the dominant technology of our time. From a consumer perspective, ICTs may be considered a form of ‘frugal’ innovation, as they present innovative, low-cost solutions to everyday problems that are flexible and accessible for users with limited resources. If used effectively, ICTs have been cited to be a major ‘game changer’ in human development, driving progress in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and fostering potential gender equality and empowerment.

Beyond basic connectivity, there is increasing use of mobile technology in humanitarian assistance, for example enabling cash transfers through mobile money, and facilitating access to basic utilities including energy, water and sanitation. During the current Covid-19 pandemic, governments and agencies in Africa have started to draw on mobile phone apps for public information and support, for example the establishment of WhatsApp chatbot services. Yet there has been little discussion on the use of such technologies by vulnerable groups themselves that may present both simple and socially embedded frugal solutions which can be employed during the health crisis and beyond.

Insights into Somali women refugees and ICTs in Kenya

My research with Somali refugees (in Kenya) and Syrian women refugees (in Jordan) has explored gender and the influence of social norms in refugee livelihoods.1 More recently, I have looked at the grassroots use of ICTs by refugees, and links to cultural dynamics in refugee inclusion and integration. On the back of these studies, in 2018, I started a small self-funded project to promote the well-being and leadership skills of a group of 25 Somali refugee women2 in the turbulent but well-known economic hub of Eastleigh in Nairobi, Kenya.3 As a trial in digital communication, in the early stages of the project I set up a WhatsApp group to facilitate coordination, despite limited smartphone ownership amongst the refugee women.4 It emerged that it was eventually possible to reach all of the women in the group however through either children’s or neighbours’ devices. And whilst the women were largely illiterate, women used voice messages and pictures to communicate on the platform.

Initially conceived as a means of simple coordination, the WhatsApp group soon took on a new social dimension with some women sharing inspirational Islamic messages during special days. Later as the women began a small tie-dye business, progress and designs started to be shared on the platform. The experience of the online group has permitted both a renewed sense of personal confidence and connection in a hostile setting, and the development of new collective agency and economic coordination. At a deeper level, for women that have direct access to smart phones, the technology enables new forms of cultural solidarity between the women, reinforcing identities through sharing of religious messages.

Refugee ICT experience during the pandemic – from health to livelihoods

This year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the platform has taken on a critical health function, as vital health information, advice, and government directives are shared with the refugee group in English and Somali.5 This is further shared by the refugee women themselves with close family and friends, indicating the importance of refugee-own networks during a crisis. 
Beyond health information, the group has also provided a forum for situational updates and social support, as Eastleigh has faced rising levels of Covid-19 cases, and there have been increasing reports of police violence as malls have been forcibly closed and street trading prohibited. Working primarily as petty traders, the lockdown in Eastleigh has had a significant impact on the refugee women’s (safe) daily work and wages, and households are struggling to make ends meet. Whilst this remains an extraordinarily difficult time, the combined experience of digital communication and physical restrictions has accelerated refugee women’s interest in online business and marketing of their new textile products, particularly by younger group members.

Emerging lessons learnt – the evolving role of ICTs in refugee self-reliance

The refugee WhatsApp group has illuminated various ways that ICTs can boost refugee women’s self-reliance and resilience:

  • Simple ICT tools can be useful in local digital communication, including reaching poor and illiterate refugee groups (through voice messages/pictures)
  • ICT tools can permit vital social solidarity and economic coordination and online marketing
  • ICT tools can also facilitate the sharing of public health and security information, and the countering of fake/false news that is often distributed via social media or ‘on the streets’

In this fast-moving digital world, it is clear that ICTs are playing an increasingly important role in refugee socio-economic lives, although actual usage and adoption may vary at a local level, with differing levels of connectivity, support and access.6 Notably, ICTs can also be misused at a local level, with apps being employed to instigate unrest or violence. Further, there may be additional access barriers in refugee settings with clampdowns on connectivity imposed by local authorities.

Despite such challenges, in times of crisis, it is crucial for policy makers and aid agencies to recognize and draw on locally established ICT platforms and community groups to facilitate critical information dissemination, and local exchange and support. Over time, to better appreciate ICTs and gender in fragile contexts, aid groups should consider both physical access to mobile devices, but also links to social norms, cultural ideas (and ideology) and the role of local actors. This will permit a more nuanced understanding of the evolving role of ICTs in refugee women’s empowerment, social protection, and broader integration.

1. Ritchie, H.A. (2018a). Gender and enterprise in fragile refugee settings: female empowerment amidst male emasculation—a challenge to local integration? Disasters, 42(S1), S40−S60.
2. With outreach of up to 100 refugee women.
3. Due to its high presence of Somali traders and concentration of Somali refugees, the district is also known as ‘Little Mogadishu’.
4. An estimated 40 percent of the refugee women had smartphones.
5. For example, health advice from the Ministry of Health in Somalia.
6. Ritchie, H.A. (forthcoming) ‘ICTs as frugal innovations: Enabling new pathways towards refugee self-reliance and resilience in fragile contexts?’ in Saradindu Bhaduri, Peter Knorringa, Andre Leliveld Cees van Beers, Handbook on Frugal Innovations and the Sustainable Development Goals. Edward Elgar Publishers.

This article was originally published by the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA) and has been reposted with permission of the author.

About the author:

Holly A Ritchie is a post-doc Research Fellow at the ISS and a CFIA Research Affiliate.

COVID-19: Should Europe embrace frugality?

By Posted on
Drawing of doctors wearing masks

The Covid-19 pandemic, emerging in the aftermath of the recent global financial crisis, could potentially further shake the confidence that Europeans have in their institutions. Rigid and slow decision-making processes and an excessive institutional reliance on super-specialisation and protocol-driven scientific evidence can at least partly explain why Europe finds it so difficult to predict disruptions and why it adapts its institutional machineries so slowly. Greater flexibility, including space for experimentation and improvisation, can help Europe to adapt more quickly to future contingencies, write Saradindu Bhaduri and Peter Knorringa.

Drawing of doctors wearing masks

Europe has offered a historically unprecedented degree of stability, prosperity, comfort and reliability to most of its citizens in recent decades. Many of its citizens have grown to take these benefits for granted, even when all this makes Europe a very high-cost economic system. Two recent disruptions, the earlier financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, are unprecedented in the history of Europe, at least since World War II. The pandemic has caused more than 150,000 deaths so far, with a mortality rate in Europe far exceeding that of countries outside the continent. Potentially, these two events could shake the faith of people in the institutional mechanisms of the continent developed brick by brick over the last half a century, especially if such disruptions are expected to recur more frequently in the future.

Understanding the European system

Few would disagree that the present European production and innovation system, inter-country variations notwithstanding, relies extensively on the super-specialisation of work and an overwhelming reliance on strongly protocolised ‘hard scientific evidence’. Together, they are supposed to uphold quality and transparency in economic decision making, even at the cost of being expensive and sticky, i.e. slow in its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. While specialisation and protocols are in themselves indispensable and desirable elements in a modern economy, too much of it creates its own challenges.

In this blog we argue that the excessive institutional reliance on super-specialisation and protocol-driven scientific evidence in all its decision-making processes can, at least partly, explain why Europe finds it so difficult to predict disruptions and is not able to quickly adapt its institutional machineries in the face of a crisis1. A remedy in our view lies in reducing over-formalisation in its decision-making processes and creating more space for experimentation and judicious improvisation. These steps can help Europe to adapt quicker to future contingencies2.

A discourse which has begun highlighting the importance of such experimentations and judicious improvisations is the one on frugality and frugal innovations. They suggest ways to re-introduce such experimentations and improvisations in innovation processes to reduce ‘over-engineering’ and costs while maintaining basic functionality and affordability3. A concurrently emerging discourse on frugality in policy making emphasises the need for improvised decision making based on seasoned, practical, context-specific experience and the importance of ‘experimenting while deciding’4.

Does Covid-19 challenge protocolised hard evidence-driven decision-making?

Indeed, the pandemic struck, and struck hard while the system often continued to wait for a ‘formal go-ahead’ informed by ‘hard evidence’ to be gathered by ‘super-specialised’ actors and processes, to take policy decisions on (i) whether to test ‘asymptomatic patients’, (ii) whether ‘to wear a mask’, (iii) whether it is okay ‘to use hydroxychloroquine’, or (iv) whether ‘to impose a lockdown’. Waiting for ‘hard evidence’ has often been given a priority over also making clever use of readily available ‘soft evidence’ by seasoned practitioners, presumably also not to disturb the comfort of its citizens 5,6,7,8. Moreover, this denial to act upon soft evidence is not specific to the context of the current pandemic; it is rather the routine. Incidentally, later more systematic studies seem to validate the soft evidence of wearing masks, and practising social distance9.

Is the system adapting?

Going beyond ‘super-specialised actors?’

While Europe initially responded slowly to the arrival of Covid-19, we do now observe quite a few deviations from the routine reliance on ‘super-specialisation’ and formal protocols surrounding innovation, production, and validation. Such improvisations are particularly visible in products and services related to public health deliveries, arguably to ensure their timely and affordable access at the time of the pandemic. Examples include the open-source development of a ventilator, where so-called lay persons can also contribute and participate. Similarly, many informal organisations have sprung up across the continent to produce open-source medical equipment and protection gear for patients and healthcare workers10. These organisations are not taking the routine protocolised path of regulatory approval. Instead, in order to ensure timely affordable access, they are relying on the viewpoints of physicians and clinical administrators on ‘whether it works’ in the ‘actual’ environment of their use11.

Going beyond ‘protocolised’ hard evidence?

A sizeable section of physicians and clinical researchers of repute have vouched for including hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the treatment protocol of Covid-19 based, once again, only on soft evidence of clinical acumen, ‘prudent observations’, and targeted, non-randomised, small-sample clinical studies12, 13, 14. While the opposition to rely on such soft evidence may be rational, the issue remains that we need fast decisions and therapies to deal with the pandemic, and ‘hard evidence’ of randomised controlled trials does not come fast, nor do they come cheap. Indeed, more than four months into the pandemic, we have conflicting evidence of its (non-) efficacy for advanced-stage treatment. While the WHO has stopped its randomised controlled clinical trial (RCT) citing ‘no benefit’[20], a recent ‘retrospective study’ by the Henry Ford Health System reports significant benefits.[21] For early-stage treatment or as a prophylactic, we are still guided by softer evidence of ‘clinical observations’ and ‘retrospective studies’15.

The evidence of low rates of mortality in places and countries using this therapy have triggered a diverse set of responses from scientists, politicians, and regulatory authorities16,17. Some of them have rejected it outright due to non-availability of ‘gold standard’ evidence from RCTs. Other responses have ranged from agreeing to conduct more elaborate studies (RCTs or otherwise), to continuing with the therapy based on ‘prudent clinical acumen’. Indeed, an emerging view in this context invites us to explore ‘doing while learning’ by integrating the urge of clinical practitioners to use untested therapies, while designing, if necessary, full-fledged protocolised clinical trials to evaluate efficacy of the therapy better18. These propositions challenge the sharp division of super-specialisations between clinical research and clinical practice: “clinical practice and clinical research are addressed by separate institutions, procedures, and funding”19. The crisis has underlined the necessity to adapt this structure.

So, is a new pattern emerging?

Many of the presently successful experiments can be defined as frugal innovations: they are affordable, retain basic functionalities, and are developed through extensive polycentric interactions, involving super-specialised experts as well as seasoned lay practitioners. Similarly, in line with the arguments of the frugality discourse in policy making, decisions are being made by localised, practical experiences of people in the field, focusing more on ‘what works’ rather than ‘what ought to work’, to ensure faster access to protective gear, medical equipment, as well as medicine therapies. Such a process of decision making arguably gives priority to arriving at ‘good-enough’, faster decisions, rather than waiting for a zero-error solution. Of course, we need to be careful here; most of these experiments show that results are contextual, local in their scope and feasibility, and difficult to scale up.

Still, an exclusive reliance on super-specialisation and protocols would hold fort only in an environment where lives and livelihoods are stable, prosperous, comfortable, and reliable. But now that the illusion of a zero-risk and fully controllable society is fading, we propose a more nuanced future orientation that creates space for experimentation and improvisation based on localised knowledges. Recent EU efforts to pay more attention to citizen science and frugal innovation, for example in a Horizon 2020 call, are promising stepping stones in this direction, i.e. to develop rigorous science that is also built on the bottom-up knowledge, practices, and the creativity of EU citizens. This will help make the society more resilient to future contingencies.

1. See for an elaborated account of Europe’s early response to COVID -19 ‘Coronavirus Europe failed the test’, Politico.Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
2. See ‘Better luck next time? How the EU can move faster when disaster strikes’,Sciencebusiness
Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
3. Knorringa, P., Peša, I., Leliveld, A. et al. Frugal Innovation and Development: Aides or Adversaries?. Eur J Dev Res 28, 143–153 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2016.3 . Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
4. Patil, K., Bhaduri, S. ‘Zero-error’ versus ‘good-enough’: towards a ‘frugality’ narrative for defence procurement policy. Mind Soc 19, 43–59 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-020-00223-7 Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
5. ‘Italy, Pandemic’s New Epicenter, Has Lessons for the World’, New York TImes, especially the section on local experiments. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
6. ‘Report on face masks’ effectiveness for Covid-19 divides scientists’, The Guardian Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
7. ‘In one Italian town, we showed mass testing could eradicate the coronavirus’, The Guardian Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
8. ‘Up to 30% of coronavirus cases asymptomatic’, DW Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
9. ‘Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis’  Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
10. Digital Response to COVID-19. Last accessed on 3 June 2020.
11. ‘Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do’, Creative Commons
12. ‘Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: What’s the Evidence?’, Medscape Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
13. ‘Hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis for high-risk COVID-19 contacts in India: a prudent approach, The Lancet’. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
14. See ‘He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19’, The New York Times. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
15. ‘Preventive use of HCQ in frontline healthcare workers: ICMR study’, The Indian Express. Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
16. ‘A Look at COVID Mortality in Paris, Marseille, New York and Montreal’, Covexit.com
Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
17. ‘Coronavirus: How Turkey took control of Covid-19 emergency,’ BBC. Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
18. ‘Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in covid-19′, the BMJ. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
19. ‘Optimizing the Trade-off Between Learning and Doing in a Pandemic’, JAMA network. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.

20. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/04-07-2020-who-discontinues-hydroxychloroquine-and-lopinavir-ritonavir-treatment-arms-for-covid-19

22. https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study

This article was originally published by the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA). This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

Saradindu BhaduriSaradindu Bhaduri held the Prince Claus Chair in Frugal Innovation for Development and Equity (2015-17) at ISS (EUR). He is Associate Professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, at JNU New Delhi, and the Coordinator of the proposed JNU-CFIA Transdisciplinary Research Cluster on Frugality Studies.Saradindu Bhaduri

Peter Knorringa is a Professor of Private Sector & Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2013, Professor Knorringa is the academic director of the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA).

COVID-19 | Remembering the ongoing assassination of human rights defenders in Colombia

By Posted on
Postales para la memoria

When a peace agreement was signed in 2016 in Colombia between the government and armed forces (FARC), citizens and activists seized the opportunity to make longstanding grievances heard and press for change. But between September 2016 and March 2020, 442 social leaders were assassinated. As death becomes part of the daily discourse, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, we should look beyond these shocking numbers and understand that the massive killing of social leaders is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a threat to the process of social transformation and local empowerment.

Illustrations of Temistocles Machado, María Yolanda Maturana, Mario Jacanamijoy Matumbajoi, Maria Efigenia Vásquez Astudillo, Sandra Yaneth Luna, Luis Hernán Bedoya Úzuga, Diana Patricia Mejía Fonseca, and José Abraham García. They are part of the group of 442 social leaders from the list.
Illustrations of Temistocles Machado, María Yolanda Maturana, Mario Jacanamijoy Matumbajoi, Maria Efigenia Vásquez Astudillo, Sandra Yaneth Luna, Luis Hernán Bedoya Úzuga, Diana Patricia Mejía Fonseca, and José Abraham García. They are part of the group of 442 social leaders from the list. Illustrations taken from the website of the project PostalesParaLaMemoria.com

Hope for change

The peace agreement signed in 2016 in Colombia signaled change. Since the political exclusion of government dissidents and others critical of the political regime is considered to have been one of the root causes of the conflict, the agreement sought to create spaces to promote the organization and participation of diverse actors with diverse voices and included a series of provisions to strengthen the presence of the state in marginalized areas to address issues such as poverty, inequality, and unequal distribution of land. In this context, the signature of the peace agreement opened a window of opportunity for activists and citizens to present to the state their long overdue demands for changes related to such issues, which had taken the back seat during the conflict.

The persistence of violent repression

In the period shortly before the peace agreement was signed in 2016, a reduction in homicidal violence and conflict-related deaths following the de-escalation of violence seemed to signify the end of an era characterized by violence. This reduction in violent acts provided space for activists and citizens to present their demands to the state in a way that was not possible in the preceding years, when violence made mobilization riskier. However, sectors within the country not interested in peace talks started to exert violence on citizens, continuing a growing trend since 2016. Consequently, during the post-agreement period, Colombia has experienced a dramatic increase in the cases of murders and threats against social leaders. According to figures from the NGO Somos Defensores, between September 2016 and March 2020, 442 social leaders had been killed. According to a recent report of the U.N., which we analyzed in a previous article, these worrying figures situate Colombia as the country with most killings of human right defenders in Latin America.

Assassinated activists and human rights defenders were individuals linked to organizations attempting to mobilize society for the implementation of the peace accords and strengthening of statehood. Those maimed were peasant leaders, environmentalists, land defenders, women, indigenous leaders, and afro-descendants representing marginalised communities.

COVID-19: obscuring intensified killings

This trend has worsened in Colombia during the COVID-19 pandemic, as illustrated by a sharp increase in assassinations of social leaders by 53% between January and April this year[1]. However, as the attention of political leaders and citizens is focused on the response of the government to address the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, civil society groups fear that the assassination of community leaders will go unnoticed and unpunished. As the attention of political leaders and citizens is focused on the response of the government to protect and ensure the health of their citizens from COVID-19, groups often resorting to violence in Colombia (right-wing paramilitary groups, drug traffickers, dissident guerrilla members, and other armed organizations) are taking advantage of the pandemic to divert attention from violence that would otherwise be observed.

As people are getting used to seeing figures of death daily, it is critical to remember that we need to see beyond the numbers and understand that the massive killing of social leaders is a humanitarian crisis with different impacts. At the individual level, the right to life of the leader is violated, and at the social level, the assassinations affect the representation of collective interests, becoming a threat to the process of social change and local empowerment.

Social leaders are the voice of the communities that have been historically forgotten. Hence, when they are threatened, there is a further weakening in the social fabric of these groups. According to the testimonies of several social leaders who were interviewed in a recent study by CNC, CODHES and USAID, after an attack, the members of the community became afraid to participate, to organize, and the formation of new leaders was also obstructed. That is how the killing of social leaders has a long-term effect that impacts the deepening of democracy in Colombia, benefiting the interests of those who want to maintain the status quo and continue to use violence to do so.

The effect of the COVID-19 response on social organization

Whereas civil society has improved its capacity to hold the government accountable with regards to the assassination of social leaders, their capacity to pressure the government has been diminished due to the restrictions on gatherings due to the pandemic, and due to the focus of public opinion on the risk of COVID-19. This makes it more difficult for organizations to centre the defence of the lives of social activists in public discourse and increases the likelihood of the assassination of community leaders being obscured.

In this context, we want to contribute to an ongoing campaign started by civil society groups in Colombia to use opinion articles and other spaces of communication to raise awareness about the severity of this situation and to tell the stories of those who are at risk. As part of this initiative, the newspaper El Espectador on its front page of June 14th 2020 published a list with the names of the 442 people who have been killed with the title “Let’s not forget them” (“No los olvidemos” in Spanish). Let this become the start of a movement to continue highlighting mass killings of social leaders and to problematize them. It is not okay, and we will not accept it. #NoLosOlviDemos.

Front page of El Espectador newspaper which listed in four pages the names of all the assassinated social leaders in Colombia since the signature of the peace agreement with the FARC EP. Source: https://twitter.com/EEColombia2020/status/1272185768363069441/photo/1
Front page of El Espectador newspaper which listed in four pages the names of all the assassinated social leaders in Colombia since the signature of the peace agreement with the FARC EP. Source: https://twitter.com/EEColombia2020/status/1272185768363069441/photo/1

[1] In comparison with the number of assassinations taking place between January and April 2019.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Fabio Andrés Díaz PabónFabio Andres Diaz Pabon is a Colombian political scientist. He is a research associate at the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa and a researcher at the ISS. Fabio works at the intersection between theory and practice, and his research interests are related to state strength, civil war, conflict and protests in the midst of globalisation.

 

Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo

Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo is a lawyer, specialist in Environmental Law and holds an Erasmus Mundus Master in Public Policy. She works as a legal consultant in Climate Focus, where she focuses on climate change policies and forest governance. Her research interests are the political economy of extractivist industries, environmental conflicts, and rural development. 

COVID-19 | How COVID-19 exacerbates inequalities in academia

By Posted on
Man with laptop in the dark

The COVID-19 crisis has brought to the fore gendered and racialised aspects of precarity that were steeping in academia long before the virus emerged. The increased burden of unpaid care work, still mostly borne by female academics, has skewed research output. Casualised staff, many of them early-career and/or international researchers, are expected to withstand the worst of the crisis, with their job security under threat. What action can academics take to challenge these negative developments? We need a post-pandemic vision, writes María Gabriela Palacio.

Man with laptop in the dark

COVID-19 has illuminated deep-seated inequalities overlooked during ‘normal’ times. As we grapple with the extent and severity of the outbreak, we have been required to isolate and contemplate the cessation of economic activities. The fragility of our systems has been thrown into sharp relief, evincing that it is not necessarily the virus, but the lack of regulation and protection that amplifies inequalities among us.

What is work? What is essential?

COVID-19 gave us a new grammar to talk about what we do and how it is valued: essential and non-essential work. What we now consider essential work is the kind of work that our economies have systematically devalued. Health workers have been at the forefront of the response, with many women and minority ethnic communities at the lower tier of the healthcare system, working in underfunded systems without the necessary compensation and protective equipment. Many do work that is neither considered essential nor ‘work’.

Women’s unpaid work has increased as lockdown measures disrupted childcare provision and increased other care obligations. School and daycare closures have created new forms of stress and anxieties among caregivers (predominantly women), with a sizeable social gradient in the extent to which families feel able to support their children and provide home schooling. Within the academe, the drop in the number of papers submitted by female academics and the skewed distribution of research grants illustrate the increased burden of unpaid care work that women shoulder.

What work is valued? What is disposable?

This crisis intersects not only with gendered but also with racialised aspects of precarity in academia. As the pandemic rages across diverse geographies and international students defer entry for a year, higher-education centres face operational challenges, resulting in recruitment freezes, contracts not being extended, or the scrapping of research projects. Early-career academics on temporary contracts—many scheduled to expire this year—are anxious about their job security. International staff members are more likely to participate in casual employment, often unable to make any long-term commitments as their residency is attached to their work status. The experiences of international and ethnic minorities often go unheard in academia as they are less likely to participate in decision-making: non-white female academics are heavily under-represented in professorial positions across the Netherlands.

These elements show that diversity in higher education has not been accompanied by a change in normativity, with tangible consequences in terms of career prospects. Academics of diverse backgrounds encounter themselves having to working harder to be accommodated in their work environment (to fit in), for example by doing more service work and being less protective of their research time (if any), thus hindering their chances in the labour market. One could consider this a sign of an increasingly fragmented and market-driven academia that fails to recognise differences.

Doing what you love is still work

Most jobs that involve ‘doing what you love’ make it more difficult to assert one’s position and demand better conditions. It is often expected of academics to be intrinsically motivated and concerned about the wellbeing of students—and the vast majority indeed are. Yet, this expectation makes it difficult for us to demand better work conditions, particularly during a crisis like the one we face today. Support and care for students have become central to our online teaching. It is assumed that in the next academic year, most teaching will continue online, supplemented with some on-campus activities.

Though new forms of work are highly welcomed, they need to be accompanied by a reflection on how these new forms of work would be valued and compensated. We need a post-pandemic vision of our institutional setting while we respond to the immediate challenges of online education, casualised employment, and intensified work demands. This is a crucial moment to reflect and raise awareness about how our experience in academia is affected by who we are (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship) and the challenges to measure and capture the value we create. What can we do to take action and tackle the privileges and systemic inequalities that this pandemic has illuminated? A first step would be to openly appreciate academics, as an online campaign at Leiden University using the hashtags #staffshouldstay and #koesterdedocent (‘treasure the lecturer’) is doing.

Another thing you can do is to engage in discussions within your faculty and/or programme to discuss how new forms of work derived from the COVID-19 crisis, e.g. mentor programmes, will be valued and compensated. Inclusion is central to such discussions: where would this work come from? Who will be asked? How would they be compensated? Because we as academics genuinely care for students, the conditions of and compensation for this type of work tend to become afterthoughts—and they shouldn’t.

This article was originally published on the Leiden Inclusion Blog and has been written by the author in her capacity of Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Chair of LUDEN: Leiden University Diversity and Equality Network. This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

About the author:

María Gabriela Palacio holds a PhD in Development Studies by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Her research contributes to interdisciplinary work on critical social policy and it seeks to understand how state interventions shape social and political identities. Increasingly, her research interests have expanded to include the study of processes of exclusion within academia. She is the chair of the network LUDEN, tackling racism and other forms of exclusion at Leiden University’s working and learning environment.