View previous stories
	Covid-19 has exposed the negative impact of privatising vital public services by present and former UN special rapporteurs   Global markets have failed to provide people with basic needs like housing and water, say present and former UN special rapporteurs - Leilani Farha, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Koumbou Boly Barry, Leo Heller, Olivier De Schutter, Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona.   The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the catastrophic fallout of decades of global privatisation and market competition.   When the pandemic hit, we saw hospitals being overwhelmed, caregivers forced to work with virtually no protective equipment, nursing homes turned into morgues, long queues to access tests, and schools struggling to connect with children confined to their homes.   People were being urged to stay at home when many had no decent roof over their heads, no access to water and sanitation, and no social protection.   For many years, vital public goods and services have been steadily outsourced to private companies. This has often resulted in inefficiency, corruption, dwindling quality, increasing costs and subsequent household debt, further marginalising poorer people and undermining the social value of basic needs like housing and water. We need a radical change in direction.   There was a glimmer of hope when people seemed to recognise the crucial centrality of public services to the functioning of society. As French president Emmanuel Macron put it on 12 March, the pandemic had revealed that there are goods and services that must be placed outside the laws of the market.   Take water, a commodity all the more vital as washing your hands is one of the best ways to protect yourself from the virus. About 4 billion people worldwide experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year.   In the Chilean Petorca province, for example, one avocado tree uses more water than the daily quota allocated to each resident. Despite increasing daily water allocation to residents, the ministry of health revoked this decision just eight days later – an indication of how authorities continue to put the interests of private companies above the rights of their people.   And what about the long-awaited vaccine? Recognising that we cannot rely on market forces, more than 140 world leaders and experts have called on governments and international institutions to guarantee that Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines are made available to all, without charge. But the reality is that pharmaceutical companies around the world are competing to sell the first vaccine.   The global mantra to practise physical distancing to avoid spreading the coronavirus is meaningless for the 1.6 billion people living in grossly inadequate housing, let alone the 2% of the world’s population who are homeless. Yet most governments seem unwilling to step back into the housing arena to regulate the financial organisations that have helped create these conditions.   The financialisation of housing by these actors has for years resulted in higher rents, evicting low-income tenants, failing to properly maintain housing in good repair and hoarding empty units in order to increase their profits.   By continuing to opt for contracting out public goods and services, governments are paying lip service to their human rights obligations. Rights holders are transformed into the clients of private companies dedicated to profit maximisation and accountable not to the public but to shareholders.   This affects the core of our democracies, contributes to exploding inequalities and generates unsustainable social segregation.   We are six UN independent experts from many different backgrounds, current and former special rapporteurs on a range of economic, social and cultural rights. It is in this capacity that, together, we want to share this message: if human rights are to be taken seriously, the old construct of states taking a back seat to private companies must be abandoned.   New alternatives are necessary. It is time to say it loud and clear: the commodification of health, education, housing, water, sanitation and other rights-related resources and services prices out the poor and may result in violations of human rights.   States can no longer cede control as they have done. They are not absolved of their human rights obligations by delegating core goods and services to private companies and the market on terms that they know will effectively undermine the rights and livelihoods of many people.   It is equally crucial that multilateral organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, stop imposing financialised models and the privatisation of public services on countries.   This is also a pivotal moment for the human rights community. We call on all those committed to human rights to address the consequences of privatisation head on. Human rights can help articulate the public goods and services we want – participatory, transparent, sustainable, accountable, non-discriminatory and serving the common good.   We are in a state of emergency. This is probably the first of a series of larger crises awaiting us, driven by the growing climate emergency. The Covid-19 crisis is expected to push another 176 million people into poverty. Each of them may see their human rights violated unless there is a drastic change of model and investment in quality public services.   * Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky is the former UN independent expert on foreign debt and human rights; Koumbou Boly Barry is UN special rapporteur on the right to education; Olivier De Schutter is UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; and former UN special rapporteur on the right to food; Leilani Farha is the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context; Leo Heller is UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation; Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona is the former UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. http://bit.ly/3mGu8iR   http://www.gi-escr.org/latest-news/enough-is-enough-privatisation-and-public-sercices-a-well-attended-conversation-with-current-and-former-un-special-rapporteurs http://bit.ly/3keJni4 http://www.gi-escr.org/publications/states-human-rights-obligations-regarding-public-services-the-united-nations-normative-framework http://www.gi-escr.org/latest-news/gi-escr-and-the-center-for-economic-and-social-rights-publish-new-briefing-paper-on-public-services http://www.gi-escr.org/private-actors-public-services http://mediaspace.nottingham.ac.uk/media/1_clbn2789 http://www.cesr.org/envisioning-rights-based-economy-new-report-cesr-and-christian-aid http://www.cesr.org/covid-19-resourcing-rights-december-round Visit the related web page
	Our Development priorities have shifted to the immediate task of saving lives & livelihoods by Hugh Hilton Todd Guyana - Chair, 134-member Group of 77   Nov. 2020   We have come to the point in the agenda where we must take a ‘deep-dive’ in reviewing the lessons learnt so far in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to chart a way for the future. Flexibility and change will define policy making and the scope of action needed for development.   According to the World Health Organization, confirmed cases of COVID-19 now exceed 44.8 million worldwide, with over 1 million deaths as of October 30th, 2020. The human toll of death and destruction has been staggering.   We commend the speed of global collaboration in the search for vaccines, particularly through the ACT-Accelerator initiative of GAVI – The Vaccine Alliance and the WHO, with the hope that it will benefit all countries.   We also note the good news of support for the building up of manufacturing capabilities, the maintenance of global supply chains, and plans for the distribution of up to 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021, once initial testing is completed – through the COVAX Facility.   The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of our public health systems, putting immense strain on healthcare provision, and widening socio-economic divides. In short order, our development priorities shifted to the immediate task of saving lives and livelihoods.   Rapid building up of capacity for the effective distribution of social services became imperative, in the face of deepening inequalities, increased gender-based violence and greater vulnerability among children, youth and marginalized households. But we cannot relent in our primary aim to eradicate poverty and inequality.   The World Bank is projecting that between 71 million and 100 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty this year alone.   One thing is certain, that the gains of development of the past decades, and the progress made in the fight against extreme poverty have been eroded.   The social cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is unfathomable or incomprehensible. Children in poor households suffer disproportionally from the closure of schools, with limited or often no access to digital learning facilities and often missing out on school feeding initiatives.   The World Bank conservatively estimates that school closures could cause over 7 million students to discontinue their education, drastically increasing their chances of living in poverty. Millions of children globally will face acute malnutrition, with a doubling of the number of people facing acute food insecurity in 2020 relative to 2019 (WFP: 270 million people).   Globally, 243 million women and girls aged 15-49 have been subjected to sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner in the previous 12 months. The number is likely to increase as security, health, and money worries heighten tensions and strains are accentuated by cramped and confined living conditions.   Our policy response has evolved, firstly, around the need to save lives and provide critical household support; secondly, in maintaining financial stability, and; thirdly, in providing liquidity and other support to business, particularly small and medium enterprises.   Estimates of global GDP contraction in 2020 range from 3.2 percent to 5.2 per cent – potentially the largest contraction in economic activity since the Great Depression. For regions like my own, this contraction is estimated to be 8.1%, with our CARICOM Small Island Developing States (SIDS) bearing the brunt of this, given the heavy reliance on tourism and services.   In the informal sector, including the gig economy, up to 1.6 billion people are estimated to be at risk of losing their livelihoods, this is according to the ILO. Many lack access to any form of social protection and youth are more likely to be in informal employment and in most cases are unemployed when compared to adults.   Again, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a 20 percent contraction in employment in the second quarter of 2020 alone.   Not only are our Governments forced to consider shifts in policy priorities, but there are clear signs of even greater shifts by our development partners.   An estimated ten trillion dollars were spent by G20 developed economies in COVID-19 stimulus packages, in the first few months of the pandemic. McKinsey and Company reports that Japan has spent 117.1 trillion Yen, equivalent to 21.0 percent of its gross domestic product.   And Germany reportedly spent 33 percent of its gross domestic product on COVID-19 rescue programmes, compared to 5.5 percent for Brazil, 10 percent for India and 8.6 percent for South Africa. At issue is, of course, the limited policy space available to G-77 countries.   The upshot of this is that the liquidity to weather this storm is severely lacking in many of our countries. With limited scope for raising revenue, coupled with contracting economic activity, we have found ourselves mainly reliant on access to financial flows from IFIs. Sadly, this access is severely restricted for the majority of our members due to outmoded systems of classification.   Official development assistance – ODA – could be the most assured form of financial support in our response to the pandemic and in our efforts to rebuild economic and social structures. We know that Official development assistance volumes declined in 2018 and 2019, and the OECD has recognized that the need for concessional development finance like Official development assistance is unparalleled in 2020, in response to COVID-19.   Now more than ever, we call on our developed partners to honor the commitment to increase Official development assistance flows as a percent of gross national income.   Trade as an engine of growth is especially tenuous, with UNCTAD estimating that COVID-19 could trigger as much as fifty billion dollars in export losses across global value chains.   Many of our countries are heavily reliant on remittance flows, which are expected to decline by 20 percent for this year. UNCTAD also projects a decline in foreign direct investment of between forty and fifty percent in the 2020-2021 period.   These factors put together, make a compelling case for greater international solidarity and cooperation. We must refocus our attention on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in this Decade of Action and Delivery of sustainable development.   Collectively, we must redouble our efforts to eradicate poverty and inequality, deal with the impacts and threat of climate change and work towards achieving the seventeen interconnected and indivisible Sustainable Development Goals.   The frameworks exist. But accelerated implementation will require the requisite financing, and, as always, the political will, to give meaningful effect to our aspirations.   * Hugh Hilton Todd, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, in an address to the Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 on 17 November, on the thematic debate on “Global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the obstacles it poses to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and achievement of the SDGs” The 134-member Group of 77 is the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations, currently chaired by the Republic of Guyana.   * State of the Least Developed Countries 2021. Building back better in response to COVID-19: http://www.un.org/ldc5/stateLDC_2021   http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/11/development-priorities-shifted-immediate-task-saving-lives-livelihoods/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/11/covid-19-compounding-inequalities/ http://www.dw.com/en/un-covid-19-to-worsen-poverty-in-47-poorest-nations/a-55799928 http://unctad.org/topic/vulnerable-economies/least-developed-countries/ldc-report http://www.socialwatch.org/node/18568 http://sdgintegration.undp.org/accelerating-development-progressduring-covid-19 http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/265-policy-papers-archives/53259-financing-sustainable-development.html http://www.eurodad.org/arrested_development http://www.eurodad.org/never_let_a_pandemic_go_to_waste   http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/ http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_759106/lang--en/index.htm http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/why-all-countries-should-contribute-ending-global-poverty http://www.wider.unu.edu/news/press-release-covid-19-fallout-could-push-half-billion-people-poverty-developing-countries http://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/handle/10546/621080 http://www.developmentpathways.co.uk/publications/the-social-contract-and-the-role-of-universal-social-security-in-building-trust-in-government/ http://www.acaps.org/projects/secondary-impacts-covid19/data
	View more stories