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Posted on In order to prioritise the needs of humans over those of the state, migration and asylum governance needs to shift towards utilising a human security framework. A case in point ...
By Dorothea Hilhorst and Rodrigo Mena
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As the Omicron variant continues to spread across the globe, Western nations have taken the decision to impose travel bans to African countries. This measure to contain the virus, is the latest -but neither the only nor the most outrageous- example of how Covid-19 responses have been instrumentalised for political purposes, write Dorothea Hilhorst and Rodrigo Mena.
This weekend, BBC News featured an interview with the co-chair of the African Union Vaccine Alliance Dr Ayoade Alakija. Visibly angry, she explains in a nutshell how it was inevitable that a variation of the Covid 19 (Omicron) would develop in Africa, and that the travel bans imposed on African countries only are more politically-motivated than scientifically-justified. Dr Alakija’s anger concerns both the lack of action beforehand and the immediate reaction when Omicron evolved, even before it has been properly established where the variation comes from and what its exact properties are. At the moment of writing this post, the travel ban is restricted to African countries, whereas the Omicron variation has already been found in several other countries too, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Israel. This ban shows how, once again, measures related to Covid-19 are not always taken based on scientific knowledge, but maybe on political agendas and strategies.
Multiple examples of the instrumentalisation of Covid-19 responses can be found in a recent article based on a research conducted by a group of ISS students on responses on Covid-19 in conflict-affected countries, including Brazil, Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, India, Philippines, and Zimbabwe (see in the links blog post in the cases). The country studies found ample evidence for the claim that Covid-19 policies were often instrumentalised and subsumed to non-Covid -19 politics. The pandemic was either over-securitised (where its impacts were exaggerated), or under-securitised (where impacts were denied), and there were many examples of governments seen to use the pandemic as an opportunity to tighten their control over the population at large and political opponents in particular. In several of the countries, governments used the COVID restrictions to curb opposition or even arrest opponents on grounds that they violated these restrictions. Even though the global situation today is in many ways different from these country cases, they have in common that COVID responses are highly politicized and subject to geo-politics interests.
Another example of the instrumentalisation and injustices that Covid-19 measures may carry is found in Calais, France. The knee-jerk European reaction in response to the Omicron variation reminded us of the stories that Cambridge PhD candidate Maria Hagan heard from irregular migrants residing near Calais, in the early months of the pandemic. When the Covid-19 crisis evolved last year in 2020, authorities in Calais and other surrounding municipalities were quick to take ´protective measures´. However, it soon appeared that the measures were not meant to protect migrants from the virus, but to protect the French population from the migrants while rumours started to circulate that the latter were particularly likely to carry the virus.
In a similar twist as with today’s response to Omicron, these rumours in Calais were loosely associated with ideas of dirtiness and lack of hygiene. It was glossed over that if indeed migrants could not maintain hygienic standards, it was because of the French policies denying them shelter and showers, and leaving them to sleep in small tents that did not enable maintaining distance. At some point, migrants were not even allowed to enter grocery stores. This left them hopelessly outside, unable to buy the most basic supplies, which were indeed necessary to strengthen their bodies against the virus. As Maria Hagan concludes in a forthcoming article: “The half-hearted humanitarian response by the French state to protect the displaced at the border from pandemic […] demonstrate the state’s prioritisation of protection from the displaced above their protection from infection”.[1]
There is a lot amiss with the reaction to ban travels from African countries. To some extent it is a case of under-securitisation, by assuming that a travel ban from Africa can keep the variation under control, although it has been found beyond the continent too. On the other hand, there seems to be over-securitisation because the strictest measures are already taken while the scientific evidence is still being collected about the level of danger the variation poses. Moreover, the travel restrictions come into play in a world where the access to and distribution of the vaccine is highly unequal.
Important then is also to ask: Would these restrictions have been imposed if the majority of the population in southern Africa countries had been vaccinated? llustrative is the map below that shows the geographical division between Europe and the global South regarding the position in relation to the waiving of patents for COVID-related medical tools. The map shows how European countries voted against vaccine patent wavers, and with it, contributed to (or are in part responsible for) the low African vaccination records, because of a lack of sharing technology and not making vaccines available[2]. Now they act all alarmed and resort to reaction to keep (unvaccinated) Africans out.
Politics that protect the economic and political interests of a few above general interest and that resort to a strategy to keep people out are not only blatantly unjust but also another example of the instrumentalisation and politization of Covid-19 measures. Unless vaccination becomes available at a global scale it is likely if not inevitable that the virus will evolve variations that become increasingly apt at spreading. To stop this, we require genuine global policies aimed to protect all.
The authors thank Isabelle Desportes for her inputs and comments.
[1] Forthcoming paper: “They tell us to keep distance, but we sleep five people in one tent” The opportunistic governance of displaced people in Calais during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maria Hagan; Department of Geography University of Cambridge
Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.
About the authors:
Dorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at ISS.
Rodrigo Mena is Assistant Professor of Disasters and Humanitarian Studies at ISS.
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By Hao Zhang
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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.
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 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.
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A remarkable ‘big switch’ has emerged from the turn of the millennium in terms of attitudes towards and discourses over globalisation. But while the world is currently witnessing a new backlash against economic globalisation, considerable support for globalisation within some parts of the Global South should not be overlooked.
While the world is currently witnessing a new backlash against economic globalisation, considerable support for globalisation within some parts of the Global South should not be overlooked. Supporters of the UK’s exit from the European Union seek to “take back control” from Brussels, while Donald Trump’s economic ethno-nationalism has promised to put “America first”. In contrast, the picture that emerges in the Global South is quite different, as part of a remarkable ‘big switch’ that has been taking place from the turn of the millennium in terms of attitudes towards and discourses over globalisation.
Support for globalisation in the global South
The polling company YouGov, in a 2016 survey of people across 19 countries, found that France, the US and the UK were the places where the fewest people believe that “globalisation has been a force for good”. In contrast, the survey found the most enthusiasm for globalisation in East and Southeast Asia, where over 70% of respondents in all countries believed it has been a force for good. The highest approval rate, 91%, was in Vietnam.
From a poor starting point, many in the Global South have experienced some improvement in basic development indicators in the 20th and 21st Centuries. People living in Asia accounted for the vast majority of those who experienced relative income gains from 1988 to 2008. In comparison with the 1990s, the Global South now earns a much larger share of world GDP, has more middle-income countries, more middle-class people, less dependency on foreign aid, considerably greater life expectancy, and lower child and maternal mortality rates.
Less of a backlash in the Global South necessarily means support for neoliberal globalisation—and the optimism in countries such as Vietnam may paradoxically be a result of an earlier rejection thereof. China, in particular, has not followed the same approach to economic globalisation as that which was encouraged by the US and organisations such as the IMF and World Bank in the late 20th Century.
Meanwhile, many of the world’s poorest in the Global South have seen very little improvement in quality of life in recent years, yet they are much more marginal and less well-positioned to express their frustrations than the ‘losers’ in countries such as the US and UK. They must not be forgotten.
China and India warn against deglobalisation
Most notably, the last two World Economic Forum gatherings at Davos have seen explicit statements from the respective leads of China and India warning against deglobalisation. In January 2017, China’s president Xi Jinping said that his country would assume the leadership of 21st Century globalisation. Defending the current economic order, Xi said that China was committed to making globalisation work for everyone—its responsibility as “leaders of our times”.
At Davos in 2018, Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, warned against deglobalisation:
It feels like the opposite of globalisation is happening. The negative impact of this kind of mindset and wrong priorities cannot be considered less dangerous than climate change or terrorism.
The ‘big switch’ on globalisation
It is remarkable that the backlash most associated with the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US has emerged from the right of the political spectrum, in countries long recognised as the chief architects and beneficiaries of economic globalisation.
At the turn of the millennium, the primary opposition to globalisation was concerned with its impacts in the Global South. Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank, in his 2006 book Making Globalization Work wrote that “the rules of the game have been largely set by the advanced industrial countries”, who unsurprisingly “shaped globalization to further their own interests.” Their political influence was represented through dominant roles in organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO, and the corporate dominance of their multinationals.
In the 1990s the anti-globalisation movement opposed neoliberal economic integration from a range of perspectives, with a particular emphasis on the Global South. The movement was populated by activists, non-governmental organisations and groups with a variety of concerns: peace, climate change, conservation, indigenous rights, fair trade, debt relief, organised labour, sweatshops, and the AIDS pandemic.
Yet, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, UK prime minister Theresa May offered a sceptical assessment at the 2017 World Economic Forum at Davos, arguing that “talk of greater globalisation can make people fearful. For many, it means their jobs being outsourced and wages undercut. It means having to sit back as they watch their communities change around them.” The US, under Trump, subsequently began renegotiating NAFTA and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Significant proportions of the population in the US and other countries in the Global North have experienced limited, if any, income gains in the most recent era of globalisation. Leading global inequality expert Branko Milanovic has explored changes in real incomes between 1988 and 2008 to show who particularly lost out on relative gains in income. He found two groups lost most: the global upper middle class—those between the 75th and 90th percentiles on the global income distribution scale, of whom 86% were from advanced economies—and the poorest 5% of the world population.
Emerging evidence indicates that increased global trade has played a role in economic stagnation or decline for people in the North, especially in the US. MIT economist David Autor and his colleagues suggest that the ‘China shock’ has had major redistributive effects in the US, leading to declines in manufacturing employment.
Economists had previously argued that the “losers” from trade could be compensated by transfers of wealth. Autor and his colleagues found that while there have been increases in welfare payments to regions of the US hardest hit by the trade shock, they fall far short of compensating for the income loss.
Not just globalisation
Not all of the stagnation and decline experienced in the Global North can be attributed to economic globalisation. Technological change is a big factor and national policy choices around taxation and social welfare have also played key roles in shaping inequality patterns within countries. In such a context, ‘globalisation’ has been deployed as a scapegoat by some governments, invoking external blame for economic problems made at home.
The current backlash is not just about economic globalisation. It has involved ethno-nationalist and anti-immigrant components, for example among supporters of Trump and Brexit.
A key lesson from the late 20th Century is to be wary of wholesale attacks on, and sweeping defences of, 21st Century economic globalisation. In light of the difficulties of establishing solidarity between ‘losers’ in different parts of the world, the challenge of our times is for an alter-globalisation movement which addresses all of them.
Moreover, if the stellar growth rates of the last 15-20 years slow down, the relatively positive view of globalisation in much of the global South may not continue, with the possibility of a backlash (re)emerging beyond the Global North.
Also see: Deglobalisation 2.0: Trump and Brexit are but symptoms by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk
