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Feminist organizations have insisted for decades on the importance of recognizing the systemic role of care work. This invisible work is indispensable for reproducing the labour force and more broadly for sustaining life. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed this feminist message into an accepted truth.

The new coronavirus has forcefully exposed the fragility of human life. All of us face the risk of catching a disease that can kill us. In this context, it is also made very visible that our lives are interdependent. To avoid contagion, we need to take care of ourselves, but we also depend on the whole of society adopting habits of caring.

Only a handful of political leaders decided to confront scientific advice, and one of these was President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, for whom COVID-19 was “just another little flu”. The result has been catastrophic, not just in terms of the pandemic (over 100,000 diagnosed deaths by mid-August 2020, second only to those in the USA) but also in terms of the economy that his denial policies tried to protect.

In June, the World Bank forecast an 8 percent decline in Brazil’s GDP in 2020 (from a previous forecast of 2% growth), while the global economy is estimated to decline by 4.9 percent and emerging market and developing economies, including Brazil, by 3 percent, in their first contraction in at least 60 years.

A range of different forms of confinement and quarantine were implemented around the world in order to slow down the spread of the pandemic and avoid a collapse of overburdened health systems. In that process, low-paid services such as home deliveries, food processing, garbage collection and care-giving were identified as “essential”.

In most comparatively affluent countries those services are largely provided by immigrants and yet, as reported from the UK by Imogen Richmond-Bishop of Just Fair, “COVID-19 has disproportionately affected migrant communities” through drops in income; limited access to welfare support; barriers for homeless migrants to access accommodation and overcrowded and substandard housing.”

Governments and international organizations have responded to the economic and health crises resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown on an unprecedented scale. The announced liquidity measures, rescue packages and recovery programmes total US$ 11 trillion worldwide. A total of 196 countries and territories have taken political measures, albeit of very different scale and scope, depending on their fiscal capacity and policy space.

If used in the right way, these programmes could offer the chance to become engines of the urgently needed socio-ecological transformation proclaimed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Some governments and international organizations have explicitly articulated this claim by promising not to return to the old normal after the dual crisis and to "build back better", for instance by a Green (New) Deal.

Nearly 380 civil society organizations have urged Members of the World Trade Organization to strongly support the adoption of a draft decision proposed by India and South Africa for a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement to combat the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

India and South Africa have submitted a proposal (IP/C/W/669) to the WTO TRIPS Council on a "Waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19".

Join the Conference and empower BDCSOprocess virtual annual conference 2020
“Toward A Self Esteemed Independent CSO/NGO Sector”

In Zoom with Bangla and English translation facilities. Non-member, please register in this link, you will receive the software link later.

Session 10th Oct. Dhaka time 11h30: UN in 75, Interfacing Government and Civil Societies for Development and Sustainable Peace

More than 500 organisations and academics from 87 countries have issued a statement today calling on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stop promoting austerity and instead support policies that advance gender justice, reduce inequality, and put people and planet first.

The IMF has already begun locking some countries into long term austerity-conditioned loans, while encouraging countries to take such recovery measures through its short-term, front loaded emergency financing packages. Such policies will further entrench gender and economic inequality and undermine any chance of an inclusive recovery, especially as many countries in the Global South are expected to need more long-term financing in the near future.

We are please to invite to attend their join side event during the Civil Society Policy Forum at the 2020 IMF-WB Annual Meetings, entitled:  “The Role of IFIs in a World of Intersecting Conflicts and Crises”.

This session will assess IFIs’ policies in contexts of crises and conflicts, mainly in the Arab region, by examining the existing policies and their impact on inequality. It aims also to look into countries with ongoing IMF negotiations, in light of country specific contexts, such as the economic failure in Lebanon and the inability to negotiate, and the case of emergency lending in Egypt. Finally, it will assess IMF policies on a regional level as they relate to the effect of the pandemic.

Our current civilization could have emerged only thanks to suitable climatic conditions which arose with the end of the last ice age about 10 000 years ago. A stable and favourable climate enabled people to settle, build settlements, engage in agriculture, and develop technically and culturally. Approximately 200 years ago, the discovery that it was possible to obtain energy through burning fossil fuels led to an industrial revolution, to a further acceleration of technical progress, and to a huge increase in the world’s population as well.

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