Wither Reconciliation? The Factors at Play in the Upcoming Ivoirian Elections

Photo by Eva Blue on Unsplash)

Written by Adou Djané Dit Fatogoma, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques and Institut National de Santé Publique and Briony Jones, University of Warwick and WICID

(You can read this post in French)

On the 24^thAugust 2020, President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire was granted leave by the Commission éléctorale indépendante(CEI) to stand for election for a third term in October 2020. Ouattara had previously said he would not stand, instead anointing Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly to succeed him as his party’s candidate, a political ally he described in the following way: “His loyalty has never faltered. Amadou is more than a colleague, more than a brother; he is a son” (Africa Confidential 19^th March 2020). When Coulibaly died in July 2020, Ouattara did not have a ‘plan b’ (Le Monde 8^thJuly 2020) and announced that he would stand for election to the sounds of unrest in the country which left 2 dead (Africa Confidential 27^thAugust 2020). At the same time as he was granted permission to do so, the CEI also banned the former President, Laurent Gbagbo, and former Parliamentary Speaker, Guillaume Soro, from voting, let alone standing in the election (Africa Confidential 19^th March 2020). A vicious circle of politics and violence continues – Ouattara had himself been banned from standing in Presidential elections until the 2010 elections and post-election unrest which left more than 3,000 dead. In this blog we reflect on what this means for reconciliation in Côte d’Ivoire, and how an open and inclusive political dialogue is more important than ever.

Hot on the heels of his contested victory, Ouattara implemented an internationally sanctioned transitional justice process with trials of his opponents in domestic courts, a National Commission of Enquiry, and a Truth, Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission. He did not let accusations of victor’s justice stand in the way and instead promised national reconciliation founded on economic prosperity and social cohesion. In 2015, he made clear his understanding of reconciliation in a public speech:

“Being reconciled is first for me, to have a peaceful country, where people live in harmony with the same equalities of opportunities and I can tell you that this is the case. There are no areas reserved for any ethnic group. In all districts of Abidjan, all ethnic groups are together. Can we better reconcile that? If you go to Korhogo, Gagnoa, etc., you will find people of all ethnic groups. Basically, it should not mislead the notion of national reconciliation as to link it to a person or an event. […] The post-election crisis was very serious. More than 3,000 people were killed. It is necessary that those involved be tried here or elsewhere. Besides, if we do not, international courts will do it one day. Everyone will be judged here. […] There is a key element in what I have read about reconciliation. This is the well-being of the population. This is what we are doing: a growth rate of 8 to 9%, reducing poverty, building schools, cleaning up the environment, etc. Once we will finish all this, tensions will drop” (President Ouattara’s speech, Fraternité matin, vendredi 26 juin 2015. N° 15164 p 6 et 7)

The controversies surrounding this year’s upcoming elections demonstrate the dangers of short-termism when it comes to dealing with the past, as well as the risks of a ‘tick box’ democracy without substantial debate and transparency to provide a foundation for the kinds of economic prosperity vital to Ouattara’s version of reconciliation. It is not clear that his approach can speak to a history of excluding individuals from presidential races, to the deep crisis of democratic legitimacy or the continuing cycles of violence. The history of the Ivorian political system has been one of exclusion: either exclusion of the opposition by the regime in power, or self-exclusion by opposing powers who refuse to participate. Since the introduction of multi-party politics in the 1990s, this dynamic has continued to shape the political landscape and continues to shape the debate about reconciliation today. We can see this in the political jostling and re-shaping of the party-political space in the lead up to this October’s elections. The former political alliance which ruled the country from the post-election crisis until 2019 is now scattered, and the leaders of the formerly supportive political parties are now opponents of Alassane Ouattara. The main reproach against him is the failure to achieve reconciliation for all Ivorians, including those still in exile and those in domestic prisons. On 31^st August, the Archbishop of Abidjan, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Kutwa, organised a press briefing during which he spoke about the socio-political situation in Côte d'Ivoire and declared that in his opinion the candidacy of Alassane Ouattara for a third term "is not necessary… reconciliation is more important than elections…”. This prompted immediate outcries of both support and opposition, demonstrating how the path to reconciliation is potentially extremely divisive.

(Photo by Adou Djané)

The leader of the former rebellion, Guillaume Soro, is now under a prison sentence in absentia and many of his supporters, including members of parliament, are also in prison. The Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire - African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) and the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) of the former President Laurent Gbagbo have signed a framework document for collaboration on the ‘Reconciliation Project of Ivoirians for a Lasting Peace’ on the 30^thApril 2020, at the PDCI-RDA headquarters in Cocody. The objectives of the new ‘alliance’ are to find forgiveness in truth and justice, to eliminate the after-effects of successive crises, to find original solutions to the problems which are the basis of these crises, and to build together a ‘new Côte d’Ivoire’ based on principles, rules and values ​​shared by all Ivorians and all foreigners residing in Côte d’Ivoire. Mabri Toikeuse, leader of the Union for Democracy and Peace (UDPCI) and the last to leave the alliance in power, has announced his candidature and has launched a new electoral platform in collaboration with a series of other parties: “We have just completed the first series of signatures to launch this electoral platform. It is also a platform for peace. I would like to say thank you to all those parties who trust us by joining us in our fight for peace”.

On Monday, 14^th September 2020, the constitutional council announced its decision to retain 4 candidates out of the 44 applicants to stand in Presidential elections. This decision of the constitutional council gave Bédié the opportunity to present himself as the candidate standing up against political exclusion: “I have taken note of the validation of my candidacy by the Constitutional Council. However, I denounce the validation of the unconstitutional candidacy of Mr. Alassane OUATTARA and the arbitrary and undemocratic exclusion of major political leaders, in particular Laurent GBAGBO, Guillaume SORO, Mabri TOIKEUSSE, Mamadou KOULIBALY and Marcel Amon TANOH. We must remain in working order for democratic alternation with a view to building a reconciled, united and prosperous Côte d'Ivoire.” In the context of Ivoirian politics this has a certain irony as it is Bédié himself who was associated with the introduction of the concept of “ivoirité” designed to exclude Ouattara from the presidential race between 1994 and 1999 on the basis of claims of his Burkina Faso lineage.

When we observe what is happening now around the upcoming election, we thus have exactly the same situation as in 1995, 1999, 2000, 2010 where we saw political violence. The reconciliation which Ouattara promised has not come to fruition, not because it is the fault of any particular individual or political party, but because coming to terms with a long history of political violence, political exclusion, and inequality between ethnic groups, is a long-term process which is neither predictable nor linear. Research undertake by Interpeace and Indigo Côte d’Ivoire identifies a number of challenges to social cohesion, including inequalities over land ownership, lack of economic opportunities for young people, and reduced civic engagement. The capture of the political space, previously by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled from independence in 1960 until 1993, and then in successive attempts to exclude individuals from the Presidential races, has severely restricted space for safe public dialogue about the challenges and realities of reconciliation. There has also been a lack of acknowledgement that reconciliation may look very different to different people. This is not a problem unique to Côte d’Ivoire but is a tension inherent within calls to reconciliation wherever we hear them. To what extent can different points of view be accommodated within a national project to reconcile? For if reconciliation is to lead to the kind of social cohesion that Ivoirians have been promised for generations, it must be founded on dialogue, acknowledgement of others, and be able to accommodate varied experiences and points of view. If reconciliation itself disappears from view while the politicians argue over it, it will be Ivoirians who continue to suffer the effects.

You can read this post in French.

Mouzayian Khalil : 18 Sep 2020 01:42 |  Tags: African Politics Cote Divoire Elections Reconciliation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Global Insights: COVID–19 and the Future of International Order

Authors: Renske Doorenspleet, Abdul Mohammed, Michael Saward, David Welch

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). This series of Global Insights has finished and the next series will resume in September. You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panellists: Ann Fitz-Gerald (Chair, BSIA), Renske Doorenspleet (University of Warwick), Miles Kahler (American University), Abdul Mohammed (African Union High Level Implementation Panel), Michael Saward (University of Warwick), David Welch (University of Waterloo)

What impact has the pandemic had on the current rules-based international order of the post-World War II era?

The breakdown of the international order started long before COVID-19, but it has accelerated during this period. If major national governments do not see the COVID-19 crisis as a cause for collective response, the international order will decline. One must acknowledge that there are different kinds of international orders, including the liberal, rules-based, and American hegemonic orders. COVID-19 has clearly had different effects on each. The world has seen challenges to all aspects of democratic practices and structures and is experiencing widespread democratic disengagement. Representative democracy, closely linked to liberal democracy, faces all sorts of challenges. Who speaks for whom? Where does credibility and authenticity come from? The pandemic has threatened global supply chains and may indeed lead to isolationist policies in which countries ‘go it alone’ if they are faring better socioeconomically.

From the perspective of the African continent, the multilateral world order is in turmoil and breaking apart, or indeed paralysed, in many places. This paralysis has far reaching implications for peace and security in Africa. Transactional politics and the use of resources, coercion and deceit over rules-based institutional politics has increased. In many cases, the conduct of politics has become akin to running a business as opposed to governing a polity for the common good, which the pandemic only exacerbates. Substantial gains should be recognised and defended, but transactional politics need to be understood in the context of resurgence of power competition. The pandemic has created a deep divide between the fact of being elected and the inclination to represent. In countries such as Brazil and the United States, individuals have been forced to represent themselves, in the Black Lives Matter movement, for example. Questions remain about what further challenges and crises the pandemic will provoke in the coming months and years.

Traditionally, liberal democracies have been the champions of the rules-based international order. But can democracies survive the pandemic?

It’s too early to understand what kind of political systems have responded the best to the pandemic. Some democratic governments have performed well, such as South Korea and Taiwan, whereas others have performed poorly, such as the United States and Brazil. Taking a global view, the structure of a political system alone is not necessarily the key to success or failure. Similar variance in the success of authoritarian regimes reinforces this idea.

In general, governments that responded early, quickly, and strategically have seen the best successes. In many cases, these are small liberal democracies able to mobilise resources quickly. Many of these are ruled by women. New Zealand, Iceland, South Korea, and Taiwan have been particularly successful. On the other hand, many larger countries typically understood as main actors in the international order, such as China, the USA, and the UK, have been criticised for lack of transparency and late and sometimes even cavalier responses to the crisis. Minority ethnic groups have been hit particularly hard in liberal democracies, especially the USA and the UK, in terms of health and unemployment during the pandemic. Additionally, countries led by populist governments have generally fared poorly, perhaps signifying a moment from which populism’s appeal may decline in the longer term. When looking to the context of the African continent, most African governments are now the product of some sort of election, of varying degrees of legitimacy. The pandemic has also highlighted that Africa is in a position to manage tension between China and the USA’s interests in Africa.

We have seen a rise in illiberalism and a reaffirmation of state sovereignty since 2016, and the pandemic seems to be accelerating this trend. Is the future illiberal?

The pandemic may not extend the trend toward illiberalism, but it has indeed had a strong impact on polarisation. Although illiberalism is unlikely to triumph, the polarisation that it generates will lead to deep problems for global governance and may threaten collaboration in future crises, such as the climate crisis. The countries that have fared better in managing the pandemic are countries with a strong, people-oriented state history and robust public health systems. Countries like Germany and Taiwan, for example, have fared better. Others however, such as the USA and the UK (since the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions) have dismantled the state and privileged the private sector at the expense of public goods and thus have not fared well. Countries with a strong tradition of a capable state that delivers public goods could re-organise themselves and play an important role in the restructuring of the global order and serve as influential leaders moving forward.

Strong-man governments, whether democratic, authoritarian, or populist, have performed very poorly (India, USA, Russia, Brazil). In their refusal to consult experts or admit to the true nature and scale of the virus, these regimes have been most disruptive to the international order. In Africa, the anti-scientific perspective has not been as much of a problem, as countries within the continent have a history of dealing with pandemics more than others, relatively speaking. Dictatorships have used this crisis to decrease civil liberties, as in the case of Chinese journalists, the censorship of information, and other tools. However, it is important to acknowledge that illiberal trends within the established liberal democracies have also increased during the pandemic, such as new surveillance technologies in contact tracing apps. This is not necessarily antidemocratic, but it is a significant risk, as political abuse of these new measures is likely. Citizens may get used to measures of control that include not only surveillance, but the quashing of protest and civil disobedience. This ‘new normal’ could lead to a reduction of individual rights and freedoms after the peak of the crisis. It is important to keep a close eye on how those rights can be protected, and checks and balances, transparency and oversight are more important than ever.

The defining features of the concept of democracy, or the interpretations of the defining features, may be debated moving forward. The idea of burden sharing and a more collective form of social democracy as a kind of modifier or diluter has interesting potential. Similarly, the idea of protective democracy—the idea that states are there to protect the rights of individuals, takes on a wider meaning of protection of citizen lives and wellbeing during the pandemic. Finally, the machinery of democracy has new questions posed against it, not least how to run elections and conduct deliberative forums while keeping social distancing. With regard to the conduct of elections, we have seen good examples from South Korea, and more concerning examples from the USA, in Wisconsin for instance.

Is the sun setting on the rules-based international order?

The danger to this new future of the international order is that liberal democracies have granted themselves significant powers that may not disappear, making a conversation about such powers necessary. There may be a new high-water mark in terms of state intervention into individual lives and businesses, and emergency powers may need to be debated openly. To what extent and over what timeframe and how much accountability are emergency powers tolerable, legitimate, and acceptable? Equally as concerning, many conversations around COVID-19 have excluded children, who are not well-represented in our current political systems - we do not talk much about them, let alone talk with them. The pandemic is having devastating consequences for children and their rights. It has had a massive impact on education, socialising, poverty and more. Children in conflict zones and refugee camps suffer most. COVID-19 will undoubtedly add to varying forms of trauma that children everywhere experience. The international community needs to take measures to protect children in health, education, and other areas of rights. Save the Children and World Vision, among other organisations, have a role to play. In April 2020, Terre des hommes launched the #CovidUnder19 initiative by mobilising a group of young people, child rights activists, civil society organisations and UN stakeholders. The initiative set out to understand children’s views about and experiences of life under Coronavirus, and amplify their voices to inform policymakers, professionals working with children, and governments.

What might the future of international order look like?

The economic consequences of the pandemic are grave and there will be a tendency to withdraw and look inward, which is as much as a threat to the international order as disruption by one country or another. As states look inward, the pandemic could facilitate the end of state-centric politics, as there are a host of influential non-governmental actors, civil society organisations, and international corporations that are becoming more aware. These actors maintain a certain level of interest and engagement when governments are so focused on inward domestic affairs. The future could allow us to redefine what constitutes a fair, democratic, and accessible participatory global order. Right now, the global order is defined by military and economic power. We can play an important role in having other public goods form a part of this global order. Importantly, the new global order should not reorganise itself based on the current status quo.

The pandemic has created an incredible opportunity for cooperation in a self-selected, voluntary way. Countries previously excluded from playing a dominant role in international order (such as Finland, Norway, Iceland, Germany, France, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) now have the opportunity to take a creative leadership role. Such a group could think about real policy options that would boost international cooperation and strengthen the existing structures for promoting and defending democracy. The decentralisation of power could also play an interesting role in the idea of a rules-based international order. The pandemic has highlighted the role of local and city governments that were previously often unacknowledged.

While a new international order could have positive elements, there are also grave threats that could lead to the potential for stagnation and fragmentation in global order due to disengagement and deepening conflict between the USA and China. The USA presidential elections in November will play a significant role in the future international order. Similarly, changes in the EU could have an impact on its capacities in the international order, as the EU in some ways lacks democratic legitimacy and it lacks a hold on the imaginations of European citizens. Its mechanisms are effective but capacity to generate legitimacy is weak. The pandemic will have a significant impact on economic inequality and the role of democracy in our societies, as tendencies toward authoritarian regimes may rise. We need a new multilateralism that is suited to the contemporary order and leadership that will make it possible for us to facilitate this. Collective leadership of countries that had previously been content to follow the United States must now provide leadership and come together to articulate a new collective global order. Leadership will need to address the global challenges of gross inequality, climate change, and other challenges in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recommendations for Policy Makers

1. Revise democratic practices to be more participative and heal the disconnect with citizens.

2. Be more aware of illiberal trends in established democracies, so protect rights and liberties while also safeguarding transparency and oversight, checks and balances, because they are more important than ever.

3. Include children in the democratic process and let them be heard.

4. Do not lose sight of other key global challenges and crises, particularly climate change. Consider the lessons to be learned from this crisis in order to deal with the next.

5. Create a more cooperative and open international order that includes a much larger public than it has in the past.

6. Defenders of liberal order should get together and collaborate (particularly countries indicated previously: New Zealand, Taiwan, etc.)

Mouzayian Khalil : 27 Jul 2020 11:53 |  Tags: Covid 19 Democracy Hegemony International Order |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

COVID–19: Surveillance, Intelligence and Security

Authors: James Goldgeier, Florian Kerschbaum, Tom Sorell, Berhan Taye

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). This series of Global Insights has finished and the next series will resume in September. You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panellists: Ann Fitz-Gerald (BSIA), James Goldgeier (American University), Florian Kerschbaum (University of Waterloo), Tom Sorell (University of Warwick), Berhan Taye (Access Now)

COVID-19 and efforts to contain it have raised important questions about surveillance, security, and government protection of populations. The recent use of contact tracing apps in a number of countries has renewed debates surrounding privacy and surveillance and rendered them more complicated. Such apps, among other technological aspects of the pandemic like misinformation, spark important discussion surrounding the use, and misuse, of technology in the age of the pandemic.

Governments have often “declared war” on a wide range of issues, including drugs and terrorism, among others. Is COVID-19 a National Security threat? If so, how does it differ from other national security issues of the 21st century?

The crisis of COVID-19 is indeed a collective one, however we raise the question of whether war should be used for the narrative that we are facing at the moment. For those who are in the peacebuilding space, the recurring narrative of war and repetitive use of militarised language is concerning. Indeed, if the COVID-19 crisis really were a war then we would have expected those states who have invested heavily in the military, such as the USA, to have better controlled the pandemic. As such, the crisis and its narrative need not reflect the action of declaring war, but rather the action of building resilience. Whereas security is often defined as national, in that it protects a country and/or a people, recent work has expanded notions of security, including individual and societal security surrounding health, socioeconomic status, and other markers of safety. If we embrace such notions of security, the pandemic will allow us to connect demands from populations that their governments keep them safe in many facets of quotidian life. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent increased activism surrounding Black Lives Matter in the United States, the UK, and elsewhere, have demonstrated that the topic of security is not only a question of whether the government protects their people from threats, but whether the government itself becomes a threat. Thus, COVID-19 is a threat to ‘national security’ however not necessarily under the militarised terms in which it is traditionally defined.

We hear a lot about contract tracing apps as a tool for combatting COVID-19. How is technology being used to contain the COVID-19 virus, and what are the implications for human rights and civil liberties like the right to privacy and freedom of association?

There is an important difference to be articulated between COVID-19 surveillance, which Edward Snowden identified as part of a longer-term surveillance architecture, and other forms of surveillance related to challenges such as terrorism. The scientific basis for the COVID surveillance – in virology and epidemiology – has no counterpart in the war against terrorism. Moreover, the national health authorities, and not the government, typically collect COVID-19 data, thus separating it from traditional surveillance. However, valid concerns exist about the ways in which these tracing apps are able to change people’s behaviours, and the ways in which they are becoming part of the critical infrastructure. If we consider the possibility of misuse of this app technology, we could envisage a reduction in public trust and a significant impact on public life. This leaves critical infrastructure potentially vulnerable and encourages us to think about what these apps do and what role they play. Primarily, they store and provide location and health data, and of course these databases already exist through platforms such as Goggle and Apple. One could argue that the app is a more privacy preserving solution, and a social contract for how we gather and store this information. We see, however, some challenges for democratic governments persuading their populations to use these apps. Liberal democracy has operated with a notion of a private sphere that is off limits to the government, and yet these apps require that we give up some of this privacy. In some countries, such as the USA trust in the government is already so low and it is even difficult to encourage the population to wear masks, let alone to use these apps. In others, the freedom of association and civil liberty is under threat, as the government controls internet traffic and thus can quash social movements that may be trackable through COVID-19 tracing apps. As countries around the world ease lockdown restrictions and enter a ‘new normal’ time will tell how this new technology will impact our societies.

Greater surveillance is a key element in the toolbox for containing the pandemic. Is there a danger that invasions of privacy will be normalised after the pandemic?

It is important to contextualise ideas and debates over privacy. There are no guarantees that this technology will not be used against the populations it purports to be serving, and we need to remain vigilant to the historical use of these technologies beyond the current COVID-19 tracing apps. This has a gendered aspect, when we consider the possibility of tracing the health choices of women in particular. Large technology companies, who provide this tracing app technology, are the same companies who have been implicated in monitoring human rights and civil liberties defenders previously. There are, of course, implications for the right to protest and the right to organise in the context of COVID-19 restrictions and surveillance during lockdown. If we look to the UK we can see increased forms and receptivity to solidarity, first with regards to the National Health Service (NHS) and now with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. But the timing and local context matters when balancing the breaking of lockdown rules against health risks. The lived experience of many black people in the UK and the heightened sense of solidarity renders these questions particularly important. Moreover, there are questions to be answered regarding what has become normalised in these contexts of ‘war’. The sharing of data between private companies and government, increased levels of police brutality, limited regulation, and government decisions without public participation are all concerning. The privacy paradox describes how we are prepared to give up privacy for a small incentive, even though we are at the same time very concerned about our private information. In the case of the COVID-19 app this paradox does not apply because it is not to the benefit of the individual but for the others who are protected if they stay at home. We should keep in mind this element when debating privacy, and acknowledge the differences between privacy concerns pre and during COVID-19.

Are there safeguards that can be enacted to ensure the technology used to address COVID do not undermine human rights?

There is significant debate as to how to construct a trustworthy app, and this is both a technical exercise as well as a democratic one. Many of the apps are being developed by those who do not have the proper expertise in privacy technology and this undermines trust in the public debate. There is a great variety between countries in terms of data protection laws and enforcement of those laws. For the human rights community this is a dangerous and worrying moment. We need oversight to generate checks and balances and public awareness of the development of such technologies. Regulators need to be at the forefront of this. We should consider whether new data laws are required, how data laws should be interpreted, and the limits of safeguards such as anonymisation. This is a process of ensuring that greater technical information provides the basis of data laws. Technology of course is also not the only solution, and investment in other aspects of social infrastructure is essential. Countries will need to build communities and offer social resources to demonstrate that they are not at war and that human rights should continue to be protected.

We’re also living in a world where disinformation and misinformation about COVID is rampant. Is there anything that can be done about this at national and global levels to address disinformation?

More self-conscious fact-checking resources which are prominent in social media would be helpful. In addition, the presentation of COVID updates should come from public health professionals without politicians present. We need an independent channel of communication to the wider world of public health without a partisan political spin. We see politicians and leaders who are the source of misinformation, and this needs to be countered. The issue of misinformation from a technological perspective is very difficult to handle. It is not easy to determine automatically what is misinformation, most attempts at that have failed. This is not only a technological problem but also one of a ‘grand truth’ where myths may take hold and become very dominant amongst a population. Governments can help by generating transparency and involving the public in a continuous debate over privacy issues and data collection. In Germany, trustworthy actors have been used in rolling out the COVID-19 tracing app and have been involved in ongoing public discussion and this can act as an example for other countries. However, this case also illustrates the challenges of this issue as take up of the app has nonetheless been lower than hoped. There is a question of where the responsibility lies for fact-checking, whether it should be individuals or whether platforms themselves should have some responsibility. We have seen cases in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, of journalists being arrested or targeted because of sharing facts regarding COVID-19. In such sensitive contexts we need to be clear about where responsibilities lie and protections can be ensured. This requires more effective and inclusive international leadership on privacy, security and regulation during this time.

What recommendations would you make to policy makers?

1. Promote and elevate science in the discussions about COVID-19 and responses, in particular de-coupling it from politicians.

2. Use national risk registers as a point of reference as well as discuss them publicly.

3. Collect data in a transparent way, explaining to the public what you are doing and why.

4. Make policies for people at the margins.

5. The United States Government need to show more humility and commit to multilateral organisations such as the World Health Organisation.

Mouzayian Khalil : 20 Jul 2020 12:24 |  Tags: Contact Tracing Covid 19 Intelligence Security Surveillance |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

COVID–19 and the Crisis of Social Reproduction in the Middle East and North Africa

COVID-19 and the Crisis of Social Reproduction in the Middle East and North Africa: Implications for Gender Relations and Women’s Activism

'Fish for Supper' by Laila Elsadda

Nicola Pratt, University of Warwick

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have not (yet) been a major hotspot in the global COVID-19 health pandemic. Nonetheless, the region’s economies, already facing a number of challenges, have been negatively impacted by measures taken to contain the spread of the virus, compounded by the wider global economic downturn. Without proper social safety nets, let alone furlough schemes, millions of families in the Middle East and North Africa are facing a loss of livelihoods as a result of lockdown measures. Before the pandemic, 60 per cent of Egypt’s population was either poor or vulnerable. A recent study found that around half of Egyptians have borrowed money and the incomes of 73 percent of Egyptians have reduced since the pandemic. Even before the outbreak of coronavirus, Lebanon was facing an economic crisis. Rising prices, as a result of a collapse in the currency, alongside increasing unemployment, due to COVID-19 lockdown measures, have made even basic food items such as bread unaffordable to many Lebanese. Anti-government protests have continued despite the lockdown as people fear that the economic crisis could be even more lethal than coronavirus. In Jordan, strict lockdown measures have disrupted aid to the 750,000 refugees living there as well as threatened the livelihoods of large sections of the Jordanian population. The UN agency responsible for the Arab region (ESCWA - the Economic and Social Commission for West Asia) estimates that there could be more than 1.7 million job losses as a result of the pandemic, with the services sector, the region’s main employment provider, particularly hard hit. Meanwhile, the risks of the COVID-19 crisis are amplified in Syria, Yemen, Libya and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where conflict and siege have debilitated the economy and infrastructure.

Whilst the effects of COVID-19 and related measures are most detrimental to the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the population, including refugees and displaced persons, it is also important to understand the different consequences of the crisis for men and women and how this may have longer term impacts on gender relations. As in other parts of the world, COVID-19 is revealing and exacerbating gender inequalities in society. Given that women’s participation in the formal economy in the region is one of the lowest in the world, job losses caused by economic downturn will be experienced mostly by men. However, the contracting labour market will further aggravate female unemployment, which was 19 per cent in 2019, compared to 8 per cent for men. In Iraq, under the sanctions regime (1991-2003), we saw how women’s declining participation in the workforce led to increasingly conservative gender norms (Al-Jawaheri 2008), which, in turn, created longer-term negative social attitudes towards women’s participation in public life. Meanwhile, female headed households, whose number reaches 14 per cent of all families in Egypt, are particularly exposed to economic shocks due to the bias in Arab government policies that assume a male head of household. This not only impacts on the well-being of women but of their families too. In addition, the lockdown has made women, as well as LGBTQ+ individuals, even more vulnerable to violence in the home. One anti-violence NGO, ABAAD, in Lebanon, reports that the number of calls to its helpline in 2020 have more than doubled compared to the first quarter of 2019.

A more hidden impact of the COVID-19 crisis concerns the increased care burdens on women, who are expected, with often no support, to fill in the gaps left by school closures, overwhelmed health systems and lack of state support for combating the virus and its effects. Feminists have termed this unpaid labour conducted within the home and community as “social reproduction” (amongst others, Bakker 2007) and highlighted how women everywhere continue to be disproportionately responsible for it. As in other parts of the world, millions of women find themselves having to home school their children, look after sick relatives, deal with the increased difficulties of shopping for food and other household necessities, even whilst continuing to engage in paid work from home. Already before the pandemic, women in the Arab world were doing 4.7 times more unpaid work than men, the highest rate among all regions globally. Poor women and female refugees shoulder the greatest burdens as they conduct social reproductive work in already difficult conditions (insufficient public services and infrastructure and a lack of adequate housing and sanitation). Whereas middle class women often outsource their reproductive work to low-paid working-class or migrant female workers, the economic effects of the lockdown have made this more difficult, and there are even cases of Ethiopian maids being dumped in front of the Ethiopian embassy in Lebanon because their employers can no longer afford to pay them. Women’s leadership in civil society organizations has also been crucial in responding to the pandemic in an absence of weak state institutions. Alongside this, women, who dominate low paid nursing and auxiliary work in hospitals, are also more likely to be caring for COVID-19 patients and, therefore, are more exposed to potential infection.

Whilst society, in general, often commends women for their sacrifices on behalf of their families, communities and nations, the effects of women’s increased workload on their health and well-being is largely unrecognized. Women are expected to be infinitely resilient and elastic in accommodating themselves to the repercussions of the crisis. Yet, as Shirin Rai et al have argued, without adequate support and replenishment, reproductive work can lead to “depletion”, physically, mentally and emotionally (2014). This is not only detrimental to individual women but also to their families and wider communities. Over the past decade, women have played a key role in demanding change, not only concerning women’s rights but also social justice, sectarianism and corruption, most recently in protests in Lebanon and Iraq. There is a danger that social reproductive burdens as well as depletion through social reproduction may undermine women’s continued involvement in these struggles and their public participation more broadly.

Women activists in the MENA have been outspoken in demanding gender equality in most areas of life, insisting on women’s participation in political transitions, ensuring that women’s rights are at the heart of any agenda for change, and pressuring governments to tackle gender-based violence. However, until now, they have been less vocal in challenging disparities in the gendered division of social reproductive labour, which are underpinned by personal status laws, which, in turn, are governed by religious law. This can be understood in light of the ways in which differential gender roles and inequality in the private sphere have been held up as a marker of national identity and culture, and, in the case of Lebanon, as the lynchpin of the sectarian political system. Political and religious leaders have portrayed any efforts to reform the ‘traditional’ family set-up as ‘Western’ interference in domestic affairs and as a threat to the fabric of society and even the stability of the nation (Pratt 2020). However, the pandemic is bringing into question the sustainability of social reproduction based on the current gendered division of labour and creating an impetus for women, based on their lived experiences, to challenge dominant gender relations in their everyday lives, whether overtly or covertly. This creates a vital moment to open a public conversation about gender roles and relations within the family.

It is not merely a question of persuading men to do more housework but also of ensuring that government policies support a redistribution of social reproductive burdens. Support for social reproduction is crucial to the economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and is essential to address gender inequality within employment and the economy and to combat gender-based violence. As governments in the MENA region consider ways to address the financial consequences of the pandemic and, towards that end, enter into negotiations with the IMF and World Bank to borrow money, governments need to listen to the voices of women and consider the gendered impacts of any proposed economic measures. Moreover, in a departure from the neoliberal prescriptions of the past decades, there needs to be increased public funding for health, education, housing and care provision to support social reproduction. Meanwhile, taking seriously the socio-economic and health costs of depletion through social reproduction is essential for ensuring women’s continued participation in the ongoing struggles for socio-political transformation in the Middle East and North Africa.

References

Al-Jawaheri, Y. H. (2008) Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of Economic Sanctions, Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Bakker, I.(2007)Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy, New Political Economy,12 (4):541-556.

Pratt, N. (2020) Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rai, S., Hoskins, C., & Thomas, D. (2014) Depletion: The Cost of Social Reproduction, International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (1): 86-105.

Mouzayian Khalil : 13 Jul 2020 12:15 |  Tags: Covid 19 Gender Middle East North Africa Social Reproduction Women Activism |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

COVID–19: War, Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution

Authors: Charles T. Call, Solomon Dersso, Timothy Donais, Ann Fitz-Gerald, Anthony King, Julia Welland

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). The first Global Insights series has finished, but the webinars will resume in September. You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panellists: Charles Call (American University), Solomon Dersso (Amani Africa), Timothy Donais (BSIA), Ann Fitz-Gerald (Chair, BSIA), Anthony King (University of Warwick), Julia Welland (University of Warwick).

COVID-19 and responses to it have raised important questions regarding the way we understand security, how best to use resources intended to protect civilian populations, and what the effects of the current pandemic might be on conflict globally. The reflections captured here urge us to be cautious concerning some worrying trends connected to global recession, geopolitical tensions, and decrease in resources for peacekeeping.

Broadly speaking, what impact is the Covid-19 outbreak having on international peace and security?

We see some worrying trends and direct impacts of COVID-19 which go beyond health. Fragility is a key concern as the coming global recession will deeply affect the poor and marginalised, particularly with respect to livelihoods and food security. Lockdowns will continue to put pressure on domestic factors and exacerbate domestic social cleavages, as we have already seen in the United States and Central African Republic. In turn, disengagement will mean that important donor countries will be preoccupied with domestic issues to the detriment of international conflict resolution over the coming years. We see this in the Central African Republic, the Sahel, or in Somalia, for example, in which humanitarian activities have already been impeded. Social and socioeconomic fallouts also have serious implications, including reduced remittances, increased food insecurity, and increased levels of corruption. As a result, new sources of fragilities and instability are sure to increase in this context, and we will see an increase in protests and riots, which have already been the most dominant conflict events in various African countries. Climate change combined with confinement make food insecurity a serious problem. Additionally, corruption in places like Honduras and Brazil, for example, may lead to large assistance packages that have little oversight or accountability. In regard to a race and class analysis, across the world we have seen pre-existing inequalities rendered even more visible in conflict and non-conflict settings due to COVID-19. In Sao Paolo, for example, black people are dying at a 62% higher rate than white people.

There will likely be increased geostrategic political tensions as a result of COVID-19 and the economic stresses it will put on the world; however, it’s unlikely that the pandemic will itself cause conflict. Certain world powers, like China, may very well emerge more powerful than before, although the great powers are pursuing responses largely on their own rather than collectively. Indeed, the connection between the role in peacekeeping and role as a global power are not necessarily closely related. Perhaps the pandemic can invite us to consider how we think about security and what that means. When we look at how economic and material resources are distributed on a global level, human security is far less of an imperative compared to state and military defense budgets. In the face of this global health pandemic, it will become harder for states to make the case to invest as heavily as they do in militarism and defense as they do in public health and other sources of everyday people’s insecurity.

What roles can militaries and International Organizations play with respect to containing the pandemic?

The coronavirus pandemic has been framed within a militarised language as we “wage war against the virus” and discuss essential workers as “on the frontline”. However, as feminist and peace researchers have shown for decades, when we militarise something we can end up exacerbating trauma and worsening the effects of a particular situation. We have seen many states using the armed forces to contain the crisis. In the UK for example, where the public sector has struggled, the army has been involved in national testing regimes, delivering Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and so on. While militaries may provide useful support for a broader inter/national approach to controlling and stopping the virus, that COVID-19 is first and foremost a health – not military – security issue should be borne in mind and an overly militarised approach viewed with caution.

African Union and member states acted quickly, actively, and preventatively. There has been significant coordinated action around PPE availability, testing capacities, and ensuring that targeted support goes to the most vulnerable populations, manifesting acceleration of multilateral cooperation within the framework of the AU. In theory, global crises produce collaborative global responses and multi-lateral collaboration, however that has not happened with the coronavirus pandemic if we look at the global level, which is in contrast to the coordinated continental approach as we have seen to some extent in Africa. The dysfunction between the great powers of China, Russia, and the United States, has not been overcome. The United States’ withdrawal from the WHO has demonstrated that multilateral leadership in the U.S. is disappearing. Industrial powers are looking inward to make sure that supply chains are covered and they will not be vulnerable in the future. We are likely to see a weakened United Nations (UN) in the future, but it may indeed be able to use the pandemic to improve its technological and communicative innovation.

What are the implications for peacekeeping and conflict resolution?

In the immediate future we are likely to see a decrease in political and budgetary will to ensure continued or increased capabilities in peacekeeping. This will contrast with continued or increase expectations of what peacekeeping will be possible and the impact it can have. This is concerning in a context of increased fragilities as highlighted above. The UN is terrified of a repeat of the 2010 cholera epidemic in Haiti, introduced by its own peacekeeping troops. We see a potential move towards socially distanced peacekeeping, which in some ways is sadly ironic given the recent push towards the idea of people-centric peacekeeping, with a greater emphasis on community engagement and civilian protection. Getting peacekeepers out of their armoured personnel carriers and into the community has been very important for the evolution of peacekeeping, but we will unfortunately see less of that for the foreseeable future. Staff will be in the field offices, while military staff will be in hermetically sealed patrols. Peacekeeping will look different in ways that are reverse some of the gains of recent learning.

Several peace operations are already being drawn down, and there is a risk that the disease will undermine the UN’s work. In South Sudan, the government is using roadblocks to control peacekeepers’ movements. Diverse actors can also use the pandemic for political gains at the cost of health. In Somalia there is already a timeline for a peacekeeping drawdown even though Al Shabbab is propagating misinformation and intensifying attacks. The ad-hoc coalitions that have taken form in the Sahel and AU and UN engagements have been severely affected. There have been reports within the AU that some of the countries such as those in the Sahel have to pull back their militaries from these engagements in order for their militaries to provide support for their COVID-19 response measures. We will thus also need to see more effective transitions between peacekeeping and peacebuilding, something which the liberal peace agenda has not easily achieved.

What opportunities and challenges does the pandemic present for international peace and security moving forward, including with respect to peacebuilding, conflict resolution and sustainable peace?

As it is in many sectors, COVID-19 serves as a liminal moment for scholars and practitioners in conflict resolution. We must look at lessons around the world and understand how the diversity of responses have impacted countries and how they relate to our own national contexts. Moving forward, COVID-19 provides an opportunity to reconceptualise the militarised international security agenda and that militarism may not be the ‘cure all’ solution it is often presented as. One concrete step towards a less militarised security agenda would be the immediate halt of all weapons and international arms transfers in line with the UN Security General’s call for a global ceasefire. Taking place against the backdrop of recent weeks in which hundreds of thousands of people across the US and Europe have taken to the streets in protest of the racial and social injustices that structures these societies, it should be clear that a militarised response is inappropriate and insufficient if there is to be a chance at moving towards a more socially just and peaceful global order.

The Black Lives Matter movement and protests in recent weeks, reacting to historic systemic racism, have been tremendously important. However, they are not necessarily causally related to COVID-19. This crisis and the themes it focuses on could lead to demilitarised responses to public safety and open global thinking to demilitarised approaches to national budgets and human security. There are promising alternatives to heavily militarised cultures of policing. We need to see a shift from policing to social services and ensure resources to support local, population led initiatives for conflict mediation. Increased partnerships and attention to the urban domain will be vital, as will a re-thinking of the security model that we employ for thinking about insecurities and injustices both within and between countries.

What recommendations would you make to policy makers?

1. Pay attention to what feminist and critical race scholars have been saying for decades: Listen and lead from the most marginalised and vulnerable positions and do not initiate policies that will exacerbate the traumas they are already experiencing. Look at the Feminist Alliance for Rights statement on COVID-19 policy.

2. In the context of Canada, use this crisis – and the imminent Security Council elections - as an opportunity to commit itself to a full foreign policy review and do a thorough reflection on how Canada can make a real contribution to reducing conflict in the world.

3. Increase negotiations between China and the U.S.A.

4. Involve communities in finding solutions to their problems and ensure inclusive, diverse populations are part of analysis and implementation.

5. Provide damage control, ensure that emergency measures are not institutionalised. Bring in soft security issues to the center of peace and security analysis and policy-making. Feel more concerned about healthcare, climate change, and issues COVID accentuated. Water, education, social sanitation and housing.

Mouzayian Khalil : 06 Jul 2020 18:29 |  Tags: Conflict Resolution Covid 19 Peacebuilding War |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Global Insights: COVID–19 and Gender Divides

Authors: Ann Fitz-Gerald, Juanita Elias, Jenna Hennebry, Sehin Teferra, Liane Wörner, Thespina (Nina) Yamanis

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). This series of Global Insights has finished and the next series will resume in September. You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panellists: Ann Fitz-Gerald (Moderator – BSIA), Juanita Elias (University of Warwick), Jenna Hennebry (Wilfrid Laurier University, BSIA), Sehin Teferra (Setaweet), Liane Wörner (University of Konstanz), Thespina Yamanis (American University)

COVID-19 has exposed the deeply gendered inequality that defines many aspects of our society. The burdens associated with everyday tasks like caring, maintaining and provisioning for the home have multiplied for women. The panel consisted of five female professors all with specific qualifications in different gender studies, all of whom are working full time. Their reflections are thus both professional and personal.

Broadly speaking, what has the pandemic meant for women’s rights?

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on women across the educational, professional, and personal spheres. On the one hand, the pandemic has allowed for widespread recognition of the key roles that women play in the economy, paid and unpaid work, and greater attention to female leadership. However, the pandemic has also exacerbated gender inequalities, as we have seen women’s double day in paid and unpaid work significantly exacerbated, the re-entrenchment of gender roles and heightened gender inequality, and increase gender-based risk with a rise in domestic violence. Studies have already shown that mothers have spent 36% more time with their children during the pandemic, whereas fathers have only spent 9% more time. Given that men generally earn more due to the gender pay gap, many families have to choose economic stability thus requiring the woman to stay at home. The pandemic has also limited female participation in the labor force, particularly for women who have children, many of whom may permanently exit the labor force. In low and middle income countries, girls education is at risk and food-security is a particularly significant concern. In Ethiopia for example, 36% of women work for pay while women and girls are primarily responsible for securing food and water, both of which are in high demand due to the stay at home orders and increased hygiene.

Some commentators have called the economic downturn a “She-cession”? What is the impact in terms of economic equality and participation?

Income inequality rises for five years after a pandemic. In the U.S. female unemployment has exceeded male unemployment, which differs from the Great Recession of 2008 because many women are in jobs that require face to face work. In terms of professional participation, women are under increased pressure to do the triple burden of childcare, work, and societal care. Some evidence suggests that female business owners are not taking advantage of the payment protection program. In the academic sector, for example, women’s journal article submissions have declined significantly, and women are often expected to reduce teaching and project responsibilities in order to care for their families. In the Global South, we will see low-income households seeing worse effects as women are called upon to serve as a caregiver and exit the labor market. Many women participate in the informal sector, meaning that they do not have social protections such as unemployment benefits or social security. With respect to gendered migration and remittances, countries in the Global South are already feeling the effects of this. Ethiopia receives more money in remittances than exports and foreign direct investment. In the UK, the social care sector for the elderly has been catastrophically impacted by UK government austerity policies since the 2008 crisis. Such policies have decreased funding in the sector, further deterioration of work conditions, increased privatization, and reliance on women to take over unpaid care work. The policy response has centered on the response to the National Health Service at the expense of the social care system, for nursing homes, special needs care, and childcare. This has disproportionately placed ethnic minority women and migrant women, who make up the majority of employees in the sector, in a particularly vulnerable position due to low wages and exposure to COVID-19.

How is the pandemic affecting women’s physical and mental security, as well as other health outcomes?

The pandemic has had a significant impact on women’s physical and mental security around the world. In Ethiopia, for example, child marriage is on the rise since the closure of schools in March. Families who do not wish or are unable to spend money on their daughters arrange such marriages as children are no longer in school. According to UNFPI, women represent 70% of health and social sector globally. Their work environments already expose them to increased risk in the workplace and in the home. COVID-19 related deaths are higher among healthcare workers and those caring for people with COVID-19, who tend to be women. We must also consider indirect deaths due to COVID-19, as people not going to the doctor for normal chronic conditions, or providers who have to shift to pandemic response and are not available. As in the case of Ebola in Sierra Leone, there is potential for a decrease in vaccination rates, an increase in facility maternal mortality ratio, and an increase in teenage pregnancy, all of which occurred during the Ebola outbreak. Even further, there is a high likelihood that we will see a decline in ability to control HIV, particularly in countries that are heavily impacted by HIV, in Sub-Saharan Africa, where girls have 2-3 times more cases than men.

Women’s shelters have been closed during lockdown measures, help lines were unavailable, and many female police officers, who play an important role in cases of gendered violence, are home taking care of their own children. Initial studies show that women have been less likely to call the helpline or shelter due to a fear that they will not be answered. Additionally, gender inequality is part of a wider tapestry of injustice, as such we can’t just look through the gendered lens. In the UK and the USA, Black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to die from COVID-19, exemplifying COVID’s deeply entrenched impacts reflecting societal inequalities. How do you stay at home if you don’t have a home? How do you stay at home if you are a migrant worker far from home? Marginalized groups have not gone away simply because of the virus, and in many cases are particularly impacted due to misguided responses to the pandemic.

What might the pandemic mean for feminism going forward?

COVID-19 is both a challenge and a chance for feminism. As we have seen, countries with female leaders have been extraordinarily successful in pandemic response like Angela Merkel in Germany and Jacinda Arden in New Zealand. Rethinking gender roles on behalf of men and women is important and indicates the value of, and care for, everyone. However, the pandemic does not bode well for women in political positions of leadership, as women can’t take on new responsibilities while caring in the home. Governments must ensure that women’s voices are heard and women’s ability to engage in participatory decision making in all areas of government is not further constrained. When we look to gender and sexual orientation, transgender people face a panoply of difficulties. As we’ve seen across sectors, vulnerable communities are made more vulnerable by the pandemic. People who identify as transgender may be reluctant to seek healthcare if it is not their normal healthcare provider, gender reassignment surgeries may have been halted, hormones which need to be taken on a regular basis may have been altered (physical and mental health). Transgendered people face more homelessness, and many may not have a safe place to stay. May experience more discrimination within employment and are over-represented in sex work. Gender, of course, is not just about women. It’s about a whole range of intersecting identities and precarities. Some of which are about social norms, others about the treatment of populations.

Recommendations

1. Reinvest back into public infrastructure for social provision, which includes childcare, parental benefits, among other things. These provisions must be available not only for citizens but those without documentation status and in informal work sectors.

2. Sustain social protection beyond the pandemic (stimulus payments, business protection, etc.) because income inequality will continue beyond the pandemic.

3. Invest in childcare and elder-care to create a sustainable social infrastructure in which gender inequalities can be properly address.

4. Do not turn away from global human rights agreements and instruments that are trying to move forward (SDGs, Global Compact for Migration, Gender Responsiveness, Beijing Platform etc.)

5. Engender the response in real time, not afterwards.

6. Strengthen the gender-based violence response mechanism

Mouzayian Khalil : 29 Jun 2020 11:17 |  Tags: Coronavirus Pandemic Gender Gender Divide Inequality |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Security or Development: UK Government’s changing priorities

WICID Executive response to the announcement merging DfID with the FCO

Shirin M Rai, Briony Jones, Oyinlola Oyebode, Maeve Moynihan

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that his government will merge the Foreign Office (FCO) with the Department for International Development (DfID) should not come as a surprise. Johnson has previously said overseas aid needs to be spent “more in line with Britain’s political, commercial and diplomatic interests” and told the Financial Times in 2019 that Britain cannot keep operating as if it were a “Scandinavian NGO”. Although unsurprising, this merger signifies yet another regressive step in Britain’s attitude to international relations. It represents the intent of current political leaders’ to restructure the British civil service. In January, former international trade secretary Liam Fox, who still influences policy making, said of the Conservative’s huge majority in parliament: “the Conservative victory has created a political moment which is as important as Mrs Thatcher’s victory in 1979”. Conservatives are seizing that moment.

Tony Blair’s government set up DfID in 1997 after a long list of scandals about British foreign aid being used to leverage lucrative trade deals. For example, the UK government spent £243m on a controversial dam in Malaysia in exchange for an arms agreement in the Pergau Dam case. A cross-party committee on international development this year noted DfID’s good reputation internationally and said, “it is clear that it stands head and shoulders above other overseas development aid spending departments”. However, the danger in this merger lies in the potential for old aspects of corruption, like the Pergdau Dam case, to return. The aid budget for the most vulnerable communities, if such areas are not attractive to trade, may be reduced and have a highly detrimental impact on low- and middle-income countries that currently receive support.

The same cross-party committee noted above found that more than a quarter of the UK’s £15bn (0.7% of GDP) annual aid budget was administered through departments outside DfID, with accountability becoming increasingly “eroded”. Between 2014 and 2019 spending outside DfID rose from £1.6bn to £4.1bn. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact warned this meant a greater focus on middle-income countries; countries which are of interest to the UK from a security, climate or economic perspective, reinforcing the neoliberal agenda and the potential threat for old aspects of corruption to return.

Despite warnings, many have expected this merger to go ahead. Civil servants have expressed concern about the merger being forced through and Labour have accused the government of making changes “by the back door”. Nevertheless, despite a brief delay due to COVID-19, the merger is now going ahead as Conservative leaders look to Britain’s future relationships across the globe.

When he announced the plan in the House of Commons, Johnson said the departments were “designed to achieve the same goal”, which suggests he sees the role of DfID as primarily diplomatic, lubricating the wheels for greater commercial and political cooperation between Britain and its partners. He also said it was no use to have a British diplomat seeing the leader of a country and “urging him not to cut the head off his opponent” if the next day another representative of the British government arrived “with a cheque for £250m”. Not only is Johnson acknowledging Britain’s relationship with governments and dictators involved in oppression and human rights abuses, but he is also rehashing colonial-era tropes about uncivilised countries that the British try to civilize. Either way, the future doesn’t look bright for how British international development money is spent abroad. As countries around the world reckon with their colonial past and oppressive societal structures after the murder of George Floyd, Johnson’s decision to merge DfID with the FCO only reinforces such problematic antiquated tendencies and pushes the UK further into the past, rather than the future.

Mouzayian Khalil : 24 Jun 2020 17:23 |  Tags: Dfid Fco International Development |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Global Insights – COVID–19: Migration, Refugees and Borders

Authors: Ann Fitz-Gerald, Maria Koinova, Alison Mountz, Maurice Stierl

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). Global Insights webinars take place every Thursday at 16:00h (BST). You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panelists: Ann Fitz-Gerald (Moderator - BSIA), Allehone Abebe (UNHCR), Maria Koinova (University of Warwick), Alison Mountz (IMRC, Wilfrid Laurier University, BSIA), Tazreena Sajjad (American University), Maurice Stierl (University of Warwick)

Although the swift closure of borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic shocked many, such closures were a familiar reality for many refugees, displaced people, and migrants. In the past year prior to COVID-19, over 70 million migrants (including refugees and internally displaced people) moved around the globe. Meanwhile, international organizations adopted two global compacts, with varying degrees of success and implementation. COVID-19 has changed the landscape for people on the move in a multitude of ways.

What was the situation for migrants and refugees like before COVID-19?

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the situation for migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and internally displaced people was dire. Only 1% of displaced people have access to resettlement, demonstrating that for many people on the move, national borders were already closed. For some, the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration, published in December 2018, served as symbolic markers of change, however for others selective or minimal enforcement has yielded little concrete change and questions surrounding accountability remain. The compact is non-binding, as nation-states continue to be the bodies that enforce the compact, making implementation uneven. The Global Compact for Migration advocates for “safe, orderly and regular migration,” however nation-states continue to use deterrence methods that paradoxically make migration unsafe and disorderly and provide very few legal paths for movement. While both global compacts served as an achievement and recognition of current challenges, it failed to implement the basic human rights, non-discrimination, and gender responses. The compacts focused on state perspectives rather than the perspectives of people on the move. In doing so, it neglected the rising xenophobia and vilification of migrants and refugees, which warrants a legitimate human rights response.

How is COVID-19 affecting migration globally and in different parts of the world?

The pandemic has illuminated and exacerbated the stark inequalities present in the world prior to the outbreak. In an extreme sense, as millionaires escaped to private compounds, those that were already displaced or seeking protection were driven into more precarity. Those seeking protection or entry however, are forced into more fragile situations, demonstrating how the pandemic has affected people very unequally. For example, Qatar has barricaded migrant labor work areas, called “Cordons Sanitaires,” creating unequal conditions for migrant workers and others. People have framed migrant health-workers as heroes, but society has not acknowledged the plethora of other essential migrant workers, like agricultural workers. For example, while most flights remained grounded the UK considered chartered flights to bring agricultural workers from Bulgaria and Romania, and other places, to bring people and expertise to support agricultural flow and production in the UK. Meanwhile, European countries have misused the pandemic to impose further restrictions on movement, particularly in the Mediterranean. For example, the Maltese government continues to intercept migrant boats and direct them back to conflict-ridden Libya, breaching human rights and maritime conventions. However, Europe remains silent about these violations at the external borders of Europe.

What does COVID-19 mean for the protection of refugees?

The so-called refugee crisis of 2015, which is perhaps more accurately referred to as a European governance crisis, obscured the history of refugee movement and placed the focus on Europe alone as a refugee reception destination. However, countries in the Global South historically and contemporarily continue to see the largest flows of refugees, rather than countries within Europe or North America. Despite the focused attention on the Global North, the top refugee-reception countries, like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Pakistan are in the Global South. COVID-19 creates a different dynamic of emergency, people are both being forced to flee, whether related to COVID-19 or otherwise, meanwhile border restrictions are increasing forcing people to cross highly-militarised borders. In Africa alone, there are over 7.8 million refugees and an estimated 90 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), which presents an immense challenge. Key protection issues have arisen such as: diminishing asylum, the closure of borders, and a crisis of education. Principles that have come to define life during the pandemic, such as rigorous hygiene care, teleworking and online schooling, are often not easy to access from a refugee camp. This lack of access generates knock-on effects like lack of nutrition for children unable to attend school and thus unable to get meals. For refugees outside of camps, who may be residing ‘illegally’ in difficult conditions, accessing healthcare is feared as entailing potential detainment, presenting another set of challenges.

Similarly, detention centres represent threats to hygiene and medical care. Prior to the pandemic, immigrant detention had proliferated across the globe in a variety of forms. When the outbreak took hold, governments provided a panoply of responses in their decision-making processes. Within facilities, physical distancing is nearly impossible, personal protective equipment and testing are unavailable for both detainees and staff. Some governments, such as Canada, which held very few immigrants in detention, have released individuals in detention. Others, however, such as the United States, have used the pandemic to further detain and deport quickly, holding over 38,000 people in detention in March 2020. Large crowded facilities have seen significant outbreaks, such as Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego (U.S.), where Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia became the first person to die in immigration detention from COVID-19 on May 7. One can also point to the ‘floating’ detention centres near Malta, where currently about 425 people who fled from Libya are still held by Malta, now for about 5 weeks and without the ability to claim asylum.

What effect is the crisis having on border controls?

On one side, governments have used the pandemic to exacerbate human rights violations and fortify hostile practices. However, at the same time, the pandemic has made migrants more visible. For example, at the Croatian border, border police marked the heads of migrants with spray painted crosses, presenting migrants as objects to be categorised. Meanwhile, the dialogue surrounding migrant health workers in the National Health Service in Great Britain has rendered migrants more visible and their contributions and presence more important. Governments have used moments of crisis to further enforce limitations on migration and asylum. 160 countries have put restrictive border closures into place since the pandemic began, and more than 50 of them did not make an exception to refugees in such closures. Countries in the Global North are effectively containing people displaced in the Global South 84% of displaced people remain in their region of origin. The European Union and the United States dominate in ‘sophisticated’ fortifications and use technological advancement of biometric surveillance that supports the wall-building enterprise. Although there has been extensive action in the Global North surrounding walls and fortification building, the literature does not support connections between migration patterns and physical borders. Walls do not deter migration, but in fact render mobility more difficult and expensive, leading to an expansion of human smuggling, trafficking, vigilante groups, visa overstays, environmental destruction, and lost lives. In addition to such dangerous physical borders, countries have implemented bureaucratic and external borders, such as third country gatekeepers as we see with Morocco for the EU.

What might the future of refugee and migration governance look like?

Despite the current restriction on movement around the globe, people will not stop migrating. Tools of global governance to ‘manage’ migration are highly reactive in response to crises. Border externalisation and securitisation of the sea, two concerning trajectories in migration governance have already grown since the outbreak of the pandemic. The border externalization process, in which European countries outsource border control to non-democratic regimes, contributes to increased militarization and ‘militia-ization’ of border control. Governments in Turkey, Morocco or Libya are intercepting hundreds of migrant boats on behalf of Europe, often in close coordination with EU authorities. EU border externalisation in the Sahel serves as a noteworthy example of such practices. In places like Libya, Sudan and Niger, not only state authorities but also sub-state forces, including rebel groups and criminal networks, profit from Europe’s border externalisation process, and become involved in the deterrence and containment of migrants.

Securitisation of the sea, in Malta for example, exonerates nation-states from responsibility for migration management and blocking NGOs from intervening in many cases. Despite obvious negative and alarming impacts, the pandemic also provides an invitation to step back and look at the big picture. For example, as countries rethink elderly care, they may also rethink refugee management and resettlement. In what ways are existing policies causing harm. Where do people who are resilient continue to go to survive, seek livelihood, seek protection?

Key Conclusions: Five pieces of advice for policy-makers

• Do not rely on border externalisation and third-party agreements (whether with sovereign states or militias) to have responsibility over migration control as it most often leads to human rights violations and unnecessary deaths. Instead the focus should be on allowing safe passage of people in need of protection.

• As you consider solutions, take all forms of forcible displacement into account (including de jure and de facto refugees and Internally Displaced People). Furthermore, recognize that most of the world’s refugees live in informal settlements, not camps. As such, greater attention needs to be paid to their agency, leadership and perspective when considering solutions.

• Take diasporas seriously as an actor embedded in global processes (apart from their cherished remittances) and engage them in new institutional arrangements rather than ad hoc forums, to coordinate transfers of finances, expertise, and more.

• In the realm of research, take a step back to look at the big picture and ask questions about demographics, gender, and ways in which resource access has shaped individual realities. Consider to what extent existing policies are effective and how actual movement can be brought into better alignment with demand in labor markets.

• Show leadership and solidarity with international human rights law and refugee law and offer greater opportunities for refugees and asylum-seekers to engage with, lead in, and be supported for solutions that directly impact their lives.

Any solution needs to consider their perspectives, experiences and context. Furthermore, it is critical to keep in mind that most of the world’s refugees also do not live in camps—many live in informal settlements, in semi-urban and densely population urban centers in close proximity to a country’s urban poor and its internal migrants, and at times with stateless populations. Greater attention needs to be paid to the needs and agencies of these different groups and more attention needs to be paid to context, and solutions need to incorporate the experiences, perspectives and local leadership of these communities.

Mouzayian Khalil : 12 Jun 2020 10:09 |  Tags: Border Control Coronavirus Pandemic Displacement Migration Refugees |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Healthcare workers ‘at the frontline’ of COVID–19

Image created by Kevin Kobsic. Submitted for United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives - help stop the spread of COVID-19.

Written by Dr Sharifah Sekalala

In Susan Sontag’s seminal essay on ‘Illness as Metaphor’ (1978), she argued that military metaphors profoundly shape our responses to public health crises. ‘Fighting’ against a disease positions it as an ‘enemy’ that must be defeated, and risks stigmatising those who ‘lose their battle’ as weak or lacking courage. In the same way, describing healthcare workers at the ‘frontline’ of an offensive invokes warlike language, and the gendered nature of this discourse may lead us to misperceive the complexity of caring during a crisis.

There has been no shortage of military metaphors relating to Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the United Kingdom (UK). The prime minister, Boris Johnson, talked of a fight in which everyone is directly enlisted, and, on his return from hospital after contracting COVID-19, he referred to the coronavirus as “an unexpected and invisible mugger”, which he praised for being “suitably muscular”. Likewise, the Queen, in a rare speechin April 2020, drew on the phrase “We’ll meet again”, taken from the 1939 British song popularised by singer Vera Lynn, which invokes the idea of soldiers leaving their families to go and fight in a war.

However, these metaphors are a blunt instrument. They are designed to garner public support, and tend to emphasise the part played in the response to COVID-19 by men, overlooking serious and structural gendered inequities in healthcare. Many speeches have mentioned doctors and nurses, but, as in war, the generals at the top are valorised for their heroism, while those in the trenches at the frontline are forgotten. These most vulnerable and exposed healthcare workers are (unlike frontline troops in war) predominantly female and are overrepresented by those from poor socio-economic and racial backgrounds. For many weeks the UK government even refused to release data on BAME deaths, making it harder to know who exactly was dying. Carers in care homes were also not given Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) until there was a public outcry.

In the UK, healthcare workers have been hailed as heroes, and the country is out on the streets every week clapping for them. The prime minister has even named his newly-born son after one of them, and they have been given preferential treatment by many retailers, with some restaurants even providing them with free meals. But who exactly are the people shouldering the sharp end of the burden of COVID-19? Occasionally, we read headlines about particularly brave surgeons or nurses – far less often about healthcare workers, who constitute the vast majority of those risking their lives every day to support the healthcare system. The entire system is also being sustained by largely women carers who are now doing much more caring at homeas children are off school even when they are still working remotely.

Care work in the UK is grossly underpaid and largely unrecognised. Many cleaners and healthcare workers are no longer directly paid by the NHS, and therefore do not enjoy the same employment rights as NHS workers. They are not unionised and therefore they cannot demand health and safety measures that many other workers take for granted. Many are migrants and consequently in a weak position to articulate their rights when they are violated. By celebrating carers as heroes we may make ourselves feels better while overlooking society’s responsibilities to them. Warlike rhetoric portrays the noble togetherness of a fight against this great evil, but many of the most vulnerable foot-soldiers would be better served by focusing attention on structural changes that would help the most disadvantaged of these people.

The way in which the aftermath of caring has been dealt with illustrates the erasure of some of these categories of carers. A UK backed scheme in which dependants of NHS carers who died from COVID-19 were automatically given indefinite leave to remain free of charge (giving dependants the right to remain in the UK without any time limit on their stay and allowing them to take up employment or study), had been limited to certain occupations such as doctors, radiographers, nurses, biochemists and phycologists leaving social care workers, hospital cleaners and porters ‘out in the cold’. It was only after an extensive outcry that the government relented and added these carers to this scheme.

The valorisation of certain kinds of carers is not unique to the UK and is a global problem. In the Ebola crisis in West Africa many international discussions focused primarily on the risks of violence faced by frontline health workers ‘in the field’, and the scarcity of professionally trained health workers. In so doing, the international community failed to recognise that caring during complex emergencies often necessitates that caring not only falls to professional carers but relies largely on non-professionals. This care work was gendered, and it often fell on women to provide it. Just as in the COVID-19 crisis, the Ebola crisis had different hierarchies of carers from those most protected from harm, to those least protected. The first category comprises international aid workers, primarily employed by humanitarian aid agencies (e.g. Oxfam, Mercy Corps, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), International Committee of the Red Cross, and foreign public health agencies such as Public Health England and the Centre for Disease Control. These international health workers retained a high level of autonomy in that they had clear contractual terms about the kind of work that they could reasonably be expected to do, and always had the option of leaving the country.

The second category, medical professionals at the domestic level, consisted of doctors, nurses and other highly trained domestic health workers, such as nurse aides, nurse assistants and midwives, referred to here as domestic nurses. In both West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a severe shortage of domestic health workers, especially in the public health system, created an overreliance on nurses. In global health crises, domestic nurses are often the first responders, due to a shortage of local doctors. The nurses often worked in very poor conditions, lacked sufficient knowledge of haemorrhagic fevers, and in the early days of the epidemic often worked without PPE. Their vulnerability to infection was borne out by a systematic review(Selvaraj et al, 2018) of research on health workers in West Africa, which found that nurses and midwives — predominantly women — were particularly vulnerable to Ebola because of the intimate care they provided during the epidemic. In the West African crisis, nurses accounted for more than fifty percent of infected health workers. As employees of the state, the nurses had low bargaining power, though some managed to negotiate more lucrative employment with humanitarian aid agencies. Others had no choice but to remain at their stations in low-paid government hospitals, thereby, suffering differential and disadvantageous economic reward compared to the higher remuneration packages paid to foreign humanitarian workers and nurses who worked for humanitarian agencies. The third category was Community volunteers, such as Water and Sanitation (WASH) staff, who performed the highest risk jobs: cleaning and disposing of blood, vomit, waste, burying bodies, and educating local communities about the epidemiology of the disease. Many worked as cleaners in hospitals and treatment units, some washed clothing, while others (primarily traditional healers) helped wash and bury bodies. In the West African Ebola crisis, many of these staff were volunteers, and, although they received training, their lack of experience, and their poor work conditions, placed them at greater risk of contagion. As non-medical professionals, these community health workers fell between the category of professional workers and citizens. Due to their legal status as volunteers, their pay and working conditions were less favourable, making them particularly vulnerable.

Finally, there were individual carers in homes – who were predominantly women - who looked after families during and after the crisis. In a patriarchal culture, women’s primary designation as carers meant they were more likely to have responsibility of nursing and caring for extended families. They performed various care roles in homes, and sometimes, as a result of quarantine, had to leave their own home to reside near Treatment Units to care for loved ones in isolation — and then had to manage the precarity posed by living in temporary accommodation in a male-dominated environment.

The comparisons between the hierarchies in West Africa and those in the UK are startling and they must make us seriously rethink the ways in which caring is organised, recognised and compensated. We use the language of heroism to obscure; the very nature of the ‘hero’ identity requires that only a few people can be identified as such, and those that do meet the criteria require self-sacrifice in order to do so. In reality, both in the UK and globally, the group of people who provide care is much bigger. At the bottom are people who we have severely oppressed, and we owe it to these carers to move beyond the metaphors, and to examine and document the experiences of the categories of carers in the COVID-19 crisis if we are to remove the structural barriers to caring for them.

Mouzayian Khalil : 09 Jun 2020 16:30 |  Tags: Care Work Coronavirus Pandemic Healthcare Workers NHS |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Global Insights – COVID–19: Climate Change and Energy

Authors: Ann Fitz-Gerald, Simon Dalby, Selam Kidane Abebe, Caroline Kuzemko, Jatin Nathwani, Malini Ranganathan

Editors: Briony Jones and Maeve Moynihan

This post is part of a larger collection covering the Global Insights webinar series, hosted jointly by Balsillie School of International Affairs (Canada), the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick (UK), the Institute for Strategic Affairs (Ethiopia), American University’s School of International Service (USA), and Konstanz University (Germany). Global Insights webinars take place every Thursday at 16:00h (BST). You can access a recording of this week’s webinar here.

Panellists: Ann Fitz-Gerald (Moderator – BSIA), Simon Dalby (Wilfrid Laurier University, BSIA), Selam Kidane Abebe (University of Reading), Caroline Kuzemko (University of Warwick), Jatin Nathwani (University of Waterloo, BSIA), Malini Ranganathan (American University)

As journalists around the world speak of a ‘dual-crisis,’ this Global Insights panel invited listeners to reflect on the COVID-19 crisis and the climate crisis. While the COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges for climate change, there are a number of promising opportunities to rebuild our societies for a more sustainable future.

How does the COVID-19 crisis intersect with climate change, certainly in the short to medium term?

The climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic very accurately reflect our deeply interconnected and rapidly globalizing world. The two crises intersect not only with one another, but with the stark inequalities that have come to define our world as well. Society has failed to appropriately prepare, and has been slow to respond to, both the pandemic and severe climactic events. Given this lack of preparation and response, those who are already at the margins of society are pushed further away. In this way, the pandemic is not only a double-crisis, but a triple-crisis at the intersection of health, climate change, and inequality. In the United States, the racial geographies of both the pandemic and of environmental harm are alarmingly similar. For example, in Chicago 30% of the population is African-American, yet people of color account for 50% of coronavirus deaths. Such deaths are concentrated in the Southwest part of the city, where coal plants and steel smelters have driven a rise in asthma and lung disease, making residents, most of whom are African-American, particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. The intersection of these crises demonstrates that people experience multiple threats simultaneously. As such, innovative, comprehensive, and multilateral responses are necessary.

Before COVID-19, how much progress, if any, did we have with this agenda?

Although pre-pandemic society may feel distant, that the clean energy agenda had made noticeable progress prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. Before the outbreak of coronavirus, many companies had already started to recognize the liabilities surrounding fossil fuels, and noticed that they have the opportunity to shift to renewable energy. Such changes present a positive narrative of the clean energy agenda, suggesting that the pandemic could provide a test-commitment for sustainable change. Sustainable energy could provide dual-pronged benefits of improved efficiency and reduced poverty. However, our societies continue to be built on fossil fuels. In 2020, 85% of global energy continues to come from fossil fuels, the same share that they occupied in 1990. Furthermore, at a multilateral level, international treaties on climate change have not necessarily sparked extraordinary change at a national level, as national politics and economic situations govern such decisions.

In light of COVID-19, what does this mean for the Green New Deal, Environmental and Health Justice, and the postponement of multilateral conversations?

This is a historic opportunity to transition to a low-carbon energy future through a ‘Green New Deal’ and restructure our economies for a sustainable future. As governments around the world develop stimulus packages and economic recovery plans, such plans must turn to renewables and sustainable change. There is a very good case to do so, as such investment can have strong returns in terms of jobs and economic growth. At a time when economies are shrinking and unemployment is rising quickly, renewable energy could provide not only a climate-friendly society, but new job opportunities. These opportunities can only be taken if stimulus packages include re-skilling opportunities for those leaving the fossil fuel industry. However, the postponement of multilateral discussions on climate change, such as the cancellation of COP26 in Glasgow for example, serves as a concerning challenge with respect to international treaties on climate change and the implementation of the Paris Agreement in 2021.

Are there any opportunities which COVID-19 throws up for climate change and the Cleaner Energy Agenda?

COVID-19 provides crucial and interesting opportunities for a shift to renewable energy, environmental justice, and health justice. Governments are now focused on how best to respond to and recover from the pandemic and have the unique opportunity to incorporate sustainable solutions into these plans. While the lockdown measures have allowed for cleaner air in places like New Delhi ecological regeneration in the natural world, we must not allow such imagery to distract from issues of environmental and health justice, such as the suffering of migrant laborers under India’s lockdown, many of whom were forced to return to their villages on account of the lack of social safety nets in cities. Once back in rural areas, however, they continue to face climate and environmental distress.

The COVID-19 crisis provides a unique opportunity to address both. The crisis allows societies to shift our gaze from individuals who have pre-existing conditions to societies that pre-dispose those particular groups to such conditions due to environmental factors, such as the case in Chicago above.

How do societies move forward during this liminal moment?

Whereas governmental financial support for the climate crisis was hard to come by, there is suddenly an incredible amount of capital available in the form of stimulus packages. Such funds can be used effectively to develop greener and more just societies that no longer rely on fossil fuels. However, if such stimulus monies are distributed to fossil fuel companies, as may happen in the United States for example, future consequences could be dire. Demand for coal, oil, and gas has declined, however such demand has not fallen for renewable energy, so it provides a greater share for energy than it did previously. Emissions have fallen 5% in the first quarter of 2020 when compared to 2019. While emissions may continue to decline by almost 8% as they did during the financial crisis of 2008, they may indeed return to normal as societies emerge from confinement stages of pandemic management. In order to make a more permanent shift, subsidies for fossil fuel companies must be removed and societies must take the social cost of carbon into account. Societies must continue to restructure social practices to continue emissions reduction for many years to come. For example, societies need to think systematically about a return to city-planning, transportation, and energy-efficiency at home and in the workplace. As governments move to address the pandemic nationally and multilaterally, the climate crisis must not be forgotten, and the situation in developing countries must be included in the recovery process.

Key Conclusions: Six pieces of advice for policy-makers

1. Develop legally mandated and politically consistent exits for low carbon societies.

2. Invest stimulus funding in renewable energy not fossil-fuels as we rebuild our economies.

3. Consider the collective multilateral global response as we build individual national responses.

4. Valorize and strengthen safety nets for essential workers in a greener economy, and think about health, environmental, and social justice together.

5. Create a just transition to greener economies by reskilling fossil fuel workers and phase out old systems appropriately.

Mouzayian Khalil : 01 Jun 2020 11:34 |  Tags: Cleaner Energy Agenda Climate Change Covid 19 Green New Deal Paris Agreement Sustainable Energy |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem