Assessing the Gender‑Sensitivity of International Financial Institutions’ Responses to COVID‑19: Reflections from Home (with Kids) in Lockdown

• Autores: Bohoslavsky, Juan Pablo Raimundo; Rulli, Mariana
• Año de publicación: 2020
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Ciencias Sociales; Austerity; COVID-19; IFIs; Impact assessment; Loans; Privatisation; Ciencias Sociales
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

Fil: Bohoslavsky, Juan Pablo Raimundo. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Río Negro, Argentina.
Fil: Rulli, Mariana. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre Derechos, Inclusión y Sociedad. Río Negro, Argentina.
This reflection considers recent United Nations’ normative developments in international human rights law and their potential to assess, with a gender perspective, retrogressive economic policies being promoted by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Orthodox and androcentric economic policies, such as structural adjustment, austerity, privatisation and deregulation of labour and financial markets, normally have devastating effects on women’s rights. Yet, the financial responses with which IFIs are trying to help states manage the effects of the pandemic seem to continue promoting those androcentric economic policies. This piece concludes that ex ante human rights and gender impact assessments of multilateral loans’ conditionalities should be conducted and that women’s participation in this process as well as access to adequate quantitative and qualitative data to understand the differentiated effects of those economic policies on gender equality, are crucial. These reflections were born out of the authors’ own family and country challenges.
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