By Kavita Naidu and Misun Woo

It is hard to believe that it has been just around four months since the World Health Organisation announced COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.  This public health crisis has foundationally changed almost every sphere of human life, starting from how we interact with one another to what we perceive as a ‘new normal’ as a society.  However, the interconnected socio-economic inequalities and political crisis that COVID-19 pandemic is revealing is not something new at all. 

The COVID-19 has revealed so clearly how the interconnected systems of oppressions have massively and systemically facilitated the inequalities of wealth, resources and power between countries, between rich and poor and between men and women in all their diversities.  There have been overwhelming  stories and evidences on how the most marginalised communities are affected by the pandemic - from the loss of jobs and livelihoods, a plunge into deeper hunger, poverty and household debt, rapid surges in domestic violence, women’s ever-increasing burden of unpaid care workload, lack of adequate healthcare to arbitrary restrictions on social movements and democratic spaces with security laws being introduced to suppress any form of dissent.  Meanwhile, oil and gas companies are leveraging the pandemic recovery by pushing for rollbacks on environment and climate safeguards and seeking bailouts to consolidate fossil fuel hegemony.   

Decades of neoliberal globalisation has resulted in: privatisation of essential public services including health, education, water and energy; commodification of nearly everything from human life to our planet; and unprecedented levels of corporate power which has been exploited to rewrite government policies for maximum profits.  While COVID-19 has given our world a wake-up call, especially exposing the failure of neoliberal capitalism, there are worrying indications that the same neoliberal forces are acting fast to continue securing their political and economic power and profits. 

The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund have allocated at least US$ 14 billion and US$ 100 billion respectively to help countries respond to immediate health consequences of the pandemic as well as mitigate social and economic impacts of the pandemic.  At least 14 countries from Asia and the Pacific region received the funding varying from US$ 5 million to US$ 1 billion per country.  However, all of these funds were disbursed in the form of loans, with a high possibility of pushing these countries deeper into the external USD debt burden.  In addition, not much is known about each of the loans including if there are any conditions or review mechanisms, or to which sectors support has been provided.  The global call for permanent cancellation of all external debt payments in 2020 (and beyond) must be implemented as well as the creation through the United Nations, of a systematic, comprehensive, and enforceable process for sovereign debt restructuring.  Debt is an explicit legacy of racist colonialism which enabled the rich countries and their companies to build wealth by grabbing land, resources and people’s labour from the global south for centuries.

More than a decade of ‘structural adjustments’ or ‘austerity’ measures - sometimes disguised as ‘sound economic policy ’- have fundamentally broken the States’ capacity to deliver their human rights obligations.  The fundamental right to life depends on accessing affordable and safe health care, but the reality is the world’s poor and vulnerable can neither access nor afford basic health services.  In Asia and the Pacific, out of pocket expenditure has been on the rise since 2016 with people in South Asia under the highest burden.  Coincidentally, public health spending has been on the decline since 2016 while global military expenditure has rapidly expanded.  Austerity should never be used to weaken social protections; and military budgets must be redirected for essential public services such as universal and free public healthcare.    

Trade rules restrict governments’ regulatory power and policy space to prioritise the needs of the people and environment over corporate interests.  Of particular relevance is the patent-based drug regime that allows corporations’ complete control over life-saving treatment such as Remdesivir - a potentially key COVID-19 treatment.  Under the current trade and investment regime, progressive actions such as nationalisation of privatised essential public services or compulsory licensing could be subjected to Investor State Dispute Settlement resulting in large payouts, sometimes of billions of dollars to compensate foreign investors for their alleged lost profits.    

So what now?

The challenges COVID-19 has brought us are at an unseen level, intensified by uncertainties, distrust and subsequent fear.  This moment of shared crisis is also providing us with an extraordinary chance for public agreement that deep structural changes must take place.  A new social contract is required – it must be feminist and designed to build a more just, equitable and sustainable future where all persons can exercise their human rights, fundamental freedoms and power to make decisions over their own bodies, communities, and the planet.  The post-pandemic ‘recovery’ plans must redefine the future of work that secures a just and equitable transition, with gender-equitable benefits and intergenerational justice at the core.  The key to this system change is to completely dismantle the neoliberal economy through joining our efforts to realise Development Justice for redistribution of power, wealth and resources centering people’s sovereignty. 

Kavita Naidu is the Climate Justice Programme Officer at the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) in Thailand. She works with grassroots women in all their diversity from Asia and the Pacific to build a feminist climate justice movement. Twitter: @kavnaidu

Misun Woo is the Regional Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD).  APWLD is a feminist, membership-driven network committed to building the power of feminist movements and cross-movements solidarity for women's human rights and Development Justice.  Twitter: @misunwoo77