Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2021
By Constanza Tabbush
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27
2021 (IPS) – With over 90 million
confirmed cases and 1.9
million deaths globally, and
a second wave sweeping into
2021, the COVID-19 pandemic
continues to hold the world
hostage.
Less visible and talked about
is how its social and economic
fallout is hitting women hard
– and often harder than men.
The latest data shows that the
pandemic is poised to push 47
million women and girls into
extreme poverty, increasing
the total number of women
and girls living in extreme
poverty to 435 million.
The projections also show
that this number will not
revert to pre-pandemic levels
until 2030. To recover from
this crisis, decisive government
action is imperative
to safeguard the rights and
needs of women and girls.
As governments around the
world scramble to protect jobs,
pass fiscal stimulus packages
and social protection measures,
how can policymakers
ensure that their COVID-19
responses work for women
and girls, whose needs, priorities
and voices are chronically
absent from the data and analysis
that shapes policies?
Recently, UN Women and
UNDP launched the COVID-
19 Global Gender Response
Tracker, a real-time database
that includes more than 2,500
policy measures across 206
countries indicating how governments
are responding to
the pandemic from a gender
equality perspective.
This rich repository of policy
data – covering measures
on violence against women,
women’s economic security
and unpaid care – is now providing
evidence-based guidance
to policymakers about
gender-sensitive response
measures that protect the
lives, jobs and wellbeing of
both women and men.
Throughout 2021, UN
Women and UNDP will deliver
periodic updates of the Gender
Tracker, as well as incorporate
new data on women’s
leadership in the COVID-19
response.
Here are five key lessons
emerging from the Gender
Tracker, with a focus on social
protection and labour market
policies:
1. Put women’s needs at the
centre of the socioeconomic
response
The Gender Tracker shows
that countries around the
world mounted extraordinary
social protection and jobs
responses to the pandemic
in 2020. However, although
women are facing higher job
and income losses than men,
only ten per cent of the 1,310
social protection and job
measures taken so far explicitly
aim to strengthen women’s
economic security.
Cash transfers and food aid
that directly target or prioritise
women are among the
most common measures. Yet
this social assistance targeting
women is often smallscale,
temporary and offers
minimal benefits to women
in need.
This is especially worrying
because the economic uncertainty
triggered by the pandemic
is far from over and
forecasts predict female poverty
is likely to increase. In
2021, it is expected there will
be 118 women in poverty for
every 100 poor men globally.
Curbing the rise of poverty
among women needs robust
and interconnected social
protection measures from the
government that safeguards
them from risks and vulnerabilities
from childhood to old
age.
2. Prolong COVID-related
emergency measures benefiting
women
Policymakers will need to
sustain, scale up and replicate
existing measures supporting
women’s economic security
in 2021. So far, most social
protection programmes have
not lasted through the duration
of lockdowns or the
longer-term economic downturn,
often leaving beneficiaries
high and dry after a few
months.
Early in 2020, cash transfers
and food assistance were
key to women’s livelihood
security. Most of the schemes
were short-lived, lasting an
average of 3.3 months.
In Togo, for instance,
the innovative three-month
emergency coronavirus cash
transfer programme (Novissi)
targeting informal workers
included larger benefits for
women, but has now been
discontinued.
Togo is not the exception,
but the rule. Emerging evidence
suggests that out of
429 cash programmes, only
32 were extended for an additional
period.
3. Extend assistance to
informal workers to prevent
more women from falling
into poverty
In many developing countries,
women work mostly in
the informal economy – in
areas such as domestic work,
market trading or agriculture
– and are often vulnerable
to poverty and fall through
the cracks of existing welfare
systems.
Sustaining and scaling up
the extension of social protection
to informal workers
in 2021 is vital in supporting
women and their families
economically.
By Xamayla Rose & Crystal
Rose
Growing up in East Flatbush,
Brooklyn, our mother used to
say, “If yuh cyaa ketch quaco, yuh
ketch him shut” in Jamaican patois,
which translates to “If you
can’t catch Quaco (someone or
something that evades you), grab
his shirt or the closest thing to
Quaco. When we think of Ranked
Choice Voting in New York City,
this idiom resonates and rings true
because that is what it will be, if
you don’t get your first pick, you
get your next best option. Yes,
ranking your candidates in June
will be just that easy!
New York City is currently facing
challenging times — from
the long-standing effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, budget shortfalls,
a housing and homelessness
crisis, shuttered small and midsized
businesses — the financial
outlook is uncertain. Additionally,
more than 300 candidates are running
to fill citywide positions like
mayor, public advocate, comptroller,
as well as borough president,
and all 51 City Council seats are up
for re-election. The good news is
that we get to rank our policymakers
from our first to fifth choice.
Most New Yorkers still want to
know how Rank Choice Voting
(RCV) even works! But before we
go there, it is critical to understand
how we got to RCV in the
first place. Let’s rewind and come
again! In November 2019, voters
went to the polls and voted on
several ballot initiatives. One of
those propositions was to implement
RCV in 2021 — thank you,
voters! RCV is new in New York
City, but it wasn’t born yesterday. It
is already successfully used across
the country in other major cities
such as San Francisco, California.
It has also been proven to upend
status quo loving political systems
and usher in more women and
racially and ethnically diverse leaders.
These are all great attributes,
but it’s not magic.
Empowerment will only come
with our ability to use and master
this new tool effectively — so here
is how it works. RCV allows you to
rank candidates running for the
same seat from your first to your
fifth-best choice. So think hard,
and make an informed decision
about which candidates and policies
you want for your first choice
and the others. It only applies to
primaries and special elections.
The races that will use RCV are the
ones listed above, including public
advocate and the comptroller. If no
candidate wins with 50 plus 1 vote,
that is when RCV gets activated to
avoid highly expensive runoffs during
a fiscal crisis. For example, In
2013, New York City held a runoff
that cost taxpayers $13 million. As
our favorite Jamaican restaurants
would infamously say, “We nuh
have dat!”
All jokes aside, RCV does away
with our old voting system that
allowed candidates to be elected to
office with less than a 50 percent
majority support — meaning a
majority of people wanted someone
else. In the new system, if
no one gets more than 50 percent
in the first round, the candidate
with the fewest votes is eliminated.
Then, anyone who voted for
the eliminated candidate will have
their vote redistributed to their
second choice. This will continue
until a candidate gets more than
50 percent.
OP-EDS
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COVID-19’s social & economic
fallout hits women harder
How to ‘rank your vote’
in upcoming elections!
/schnepsmedia.com
