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The Czech Republic’s new Health Minister Petr Arenberger, who took office on 7 April, has been challenged to explain alleged substantial irregularities in his tax returns, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said on Thursday. The PM’s words come after recent...

Hungary launched a mobile app allowing holders to certify their vaccination status on Thursday (13 May), though several users encountered problems with using the tool, Telex reported. Unlike the country’s vaccine certificate, which carries information on both those who got the...

The “green certificates” to be introduced across the EU will “significantly hinder or even make it impossible for tens of millions of people, including at least 10 million Polish citizens to travel in Europe,” Michał Wawer, a lawyer and treasurer...

Portugal's secretary of state for tourism hopes that a high-level forum on Friday (14 May) will resolve "two major concerns": the commitment of member states to sustainable tourism and funding lines for this transformation.

Greece’s big public projects will now be under the supervision of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, according to a last-minute amendment in a bill that triggered the strong reaction of the opposition. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Costas Karamanlis told the Greek...

“There is not a single thing that can solve the climate crisis. We need a multiple approach,” said US special envoy for climate, John Kerry, who on Thursday met with Italy’s foreign and ecological ministers, as well as with CEOs...

Im Zuge rückläufiger Corona-Zahlen erleichtert die Bundesregierung das Reisen in Europa. Das Bundeskabinett billigte am Mittwoch (12. Mai) die neue Einreiseverordnung von Bundesgesundheitsminister Jens Spahn (CDU), die insbesondere Hürden für den Urlaub von Familien abbaut.

Près de la moitié des ressortissants de l’Union européenne vivant au Royaume-Uni craignent de voir le respect de leurs droits se dégrader et de ne pas être traités comme les Britanniques à l’avenir, indique une étude publiée jeudi (13 mai).

Economic growth in Finland will see a boost in 2021 after which it will start to normalise substantially, the finance ministry said in a report published on Wednesday. According to the report, the country’s gross domestic product is expected to...

Israel’s ambassador to Ireland Ophir Kariv has accused some Irish politicians of directing hate towards the Jewish State in an emotional outburst at a parliament committee on Thursday, the Irish Times has reported. Kariv said it was “very surprising and...

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he will “certainly not resign” despite being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption for allegedly giving false testimonies to the parliament’s investigation committee. Kurz told Austrian public broadcaster ORF that he has...

« Il n’y a pas une seule chose qui puisse résoudre la crise climatique », a déclaré l’envoyé spécial des États-Unis pour le climat, John Kerry, qui a rencontré jeudi (13 mai) à Rome les ministres italiens des Affaires étrangères et de l’écologie, ainsi que les PDG des principales entreprises énergétiques du pays.

Serbia and Greece are set to sign an agreement cancelling roaming fees next week, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić announced on Thursday. “We have negotiated a roaming agreement with Greece, according to which all our citizens who visit Greece will...

Die USA lockern die Regeln für Menschen, die vollständig gegen das Coronavirus geimpft sind. Diese müssen im Freien und in den meisten Innenräumen künftig keine Maske mehr tragen. Präsident Biden stellt Nichtgeimpfte vor die Wahl: «Impft euch oder tragt die Maske.»

A healthcare worker collects samples for COVID-19 testing at Mimar Sinan State Hospital in Buyukcekmece district, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2020. New numbers reveal that men outnumber women 3-1 in 225 COVID-19 task forces around the world, while 70 percent of the frontline healthcare workers are women. Credit: UNDP Turkey/Levent Kulu

By Raquel Lagunas
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 2021 (IPS)

There are teams of experts around the world right now tackling the coronavirus pandemic, providing pathways to put an end to this deadly global scourge and charting the course for recovery.

These task forces comprise health experts, economic leaders, policy makers, and more to ensure the best holistic solutions are put forward. But what they don’t have is gender balance and, in some cases, any women at all.

There are three men to every woman on national COVID-19 task forces around the world, according to recent data from the United Nations Development Programme, UN Women and the University of Pittsburgh.

The data show that women, on average, still make up only 24 percent of members among the 225 COVID-19 task forces examined across 137 countries. And in 26 task forces, there are shockingly no women at all.

This is a problem. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in recent remarks, the pandemic has provided yet another opportunity for men to dominate decision-making. And when women are missing from decision-making, we see the world through only one perspective.

Male-dominated decision makers will lead to male-dominated policies. With each new recommendation or proposed policy towards pandemic recovery, assumptions will be made on behalf of women, because women aren’t in the mix.

When male-dominated task forces recommend economic measures, for instance, are they considering the mass exodus of women workers who were forced to leave their jobs to take care of their families during this crisis?

Tracking governments’ pandemic responses will help us better understand the gender gaps in global policies and actions. That is why the COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, developed by UNDP in partnership with UN Women, collects data on national COVID-19 measures taken by governments and showcases them in a one-stop shop for policy makers to see where they need to correct course.

The tracker, which includes over 3,100 policy measures across 219 countries and territories, indicates that the global response to the economic fallout remains, so far, largely gender blind. It shows, for example, that only 13 percent of all the fiscal, labour market, and social protection policy measures analyzed target women’s economic security.

We know that women’s full participation is essential for democracy and can lead to more sustainable peace and greater climate action. It also brings more inclusive perspectives that can influence public policies and institutional practices to include a gender lens.

So, why are women’s voices still missing from COVID-19 leadership, especially when they are being disproportionately affected by this crisis?

Many factors play a role in this exclusion. Among them are perceptions and bias. Last year UNDP released data that showed 90 percent of people surveyed had some bias against women. The index also showed that about half of the world’s men and women feel that men make better political leaders, and over 40 percent feel that men make better business executives and that men have more right to a job when jobs are scarce. How women are viewed by society places them at the back of the line.

There’s also a gender gap in public administration. We know that having more women in the public sector and civil service brings women’s perspectives and needs to policy and public service delivery, but women are still missing from leadership positions in this area.

Data from 2018 show that women made up 45 percent of the public administration workforce but only 34 percent of decision-making positions.

Over the past year the pandemic has worsened these longstanding gender inequalities and revealed just how deep and pervasive these inequalities are in our political, social and economic systems. Women’s economic security is in jeopardy as their jobs are hardest hit, their unpaid care work continues to dramatically rise, and a shadow pandemic has emerged as domestic violence surges globally.

At the same time, women are “the shock absorbers of society” and make up the majority of the global health workforce, working at the frontlines of the pandemic. Women should have the opportunity to shape their own future and the post-pandemic world, and to bring their different views and perspectives to the table.

It’s not too late to change this.

Women have the skills, the knowledge and the expertise to lead in all decision-making spaces, including the COVID-19 response. What they lack though is power. We must work together – UN agencies, governments, civil society, the private sector and others – to shift the power into women’s hands and to close this power gap.

To create this change, we need to break down the structural barriers and alter discriminatory social norms and attitudes that are holding women back. Strengthen constitutional, legislative, and political processes, for example by establishing quotas.

Address the increasing violence that women in public life face, both online and offline, as well as reform our workplace cultures so women can harness their full leadership potential. Recognize women’s unpaid care and domestic work and address the crisis of care to ensure women have equal conditions to participate fully in decision-making in their societies.

As we determine the best way forward from this pandemic, let’s not waste this opportunity to do things differently. Now is the time to work together to ensure that women finally have a seat at the decision-making table, in the COVID-19 response and beyond.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Gender Team Director at UN Development Programme (UNDP)

An unnamed great power is launching a demand to withdraw NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) and United Nations Mission (UNMIK) from Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said on Thursday, adding that he will ask NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to step...

Österreichs Bundeskanzler Sebastian Kurz hat in den vergangenen Tagen mehrfach betont, er werde trotz der aktuellen Ermittlungen “selbstverständlich nicht zurücktreten". Ihm wird vorgeworfen, im Ibiza-Untersuchungsausschuss eine Falschaussage gemacht zu haben.

Der Eisenbahnhersteller Stadler Rail will bis Ende 2021 die pandemiebedingten Verzögerungen wettgemacht haben. Dies sagte Konzernchef und Hauptaktionär Peter Spuhler in einem Interview mit dem St. Galler Tagblatt.

Die griechischen Touristiker geben zum Saisonstart Gas: Auf einigen Inseln rechne man schon bald mit Impfquoten von bis zu 90 Prozent. Das soll endlich wieder die Touristen anlocken.

Lengvarský bemutatta az új COVID automatát. Változások várnak ránk jövő héttől például a vendéglőkben, a boltokban, a szolgáltatások terén, a múzeumokban és a galériákban, valamint a színházakban és a mozikban is. Változnak a maszkviselés szabályai. Enyhülnek a tömegrendezvényekre vonatkozó szabályok is. Május 14-től bizonyos feltételekkel engedélyezik a kórházi beteglátogatást. Június végére vakcina-útlevelet is kaphatunk. Dolgozik a parlament – a koalíció valószínűleg rendkívüli helyzetre cseréli a veszélyhelyzetet.