A Commentary by Jai Krishna Ponnappan

COVID-19 - Fiscal And Financial Crisis Responses.

First and foremost, save yourself?

COVID-19's quick proliferation and economic ramifications throughout the globe were aided by the global economy's strong integration.

The economic implications of the pandemic have disproportionately harmed poorer countries and more vulnerable families.

The capacity of the economy to respond was quite unequal.

While wealthier nations took extraordinary macroeconomic measures to alleviate the effect on their populations' lives, most of the worst-affected countries lacked such economic resources.

Multilateral measures should have given a buffer, but they proved inadequate.

The Battle for Vaccine Access.

There was undoubtedly a higher understanding than previously of the need for a worldwide response, particularly the need to preserve lives, in Spring 2020.

With the help of the national government, the quest for and manufacture of dependable vaccinations got off.

On a global scale, the World Health Organization (WHO) acted quickly to establish the ACT2 Accelerator and COVAX.

The goal of these methods was to speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines, ensure the availability of sufficient doses for all nations, and distribute those doses equitably, starting with the highest-risk populations and gradually expanding to cover the whole world population.

However, due to limited and declining domestic resources in poor nations, vaccine manufacturing and distribution were still heavily biased in favor of servicing the populations of high-income countries by April 2021.

More nearly a year into the epidemic, the COVAX was still severely financed, unable to purchase the vaccinations required to cover even a portion of the population of poor countries, since worldwide supplies had been mostly seized by richer nations.

In consequence, differences in vaccination availability have been a reflection of how financial reactions to the epidemic have played out.

The fact that emerging nations fall behind in vaccination rates has important ramifications for global immunity rates, since the virus may still evolve and create new worldwide infections, compounding the already severe economic implications.

Another complicating element is that vaccine manufacturing in poorer nations is complicated by the survival of patent rights that provide pharmaceutical firms a monopoly of production, either directly or via the acquisition of production licenses.

Forced licensing is permitted under the WTO agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health has an explicit section allowing compulsory licensing of vital medications in the event of a public health emergency.

Rich nations' failure to put existing restrictions in international trade regulations into effect, as well as underfunding of financial assistance for the procurement and development of vaccines in poorer countries, led in a very uneven distribution of vaccines to these countries.

130 nations have not yet given their citizens a single dose of vaccine by Spring 2021, and at current distribution rates, some individuals in underdeveloped countries would not get a vaccination until 2024. (INET, 2021: 7).

The potential of COVID-19 contamination persisting in nations with low vaccination rates raises social and economic uncertainty, impeding economic recovery and growth.

Furthermore, it is no surprise that developing nations with limited vaccination access also have less resources to boost their economies.

Inequalities in Financial Response Capacity are pronounced.

Governments require additional resources not only to address the health effects of the COVID-19 crisis and to develop and distribute vaccines, but also to finance the costs of the various lockdowns required to stop the virus from spreading, as well as to stimulate the economy to compensate for the drop in fnal demand caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Fiscal and monetary stimulus, as well as emergency assistance measures, totaled US$14 trillion, or 13.5 percent of global GDP.

The total cost of fiscal stimulus measures came to about $8 trillion (or 8 percent of world GDP).

The government's reaction was much greater than that in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008–2009, and it is likely to have averted a considerably deeper worldwide recession.

Inequalities in monetary and fiscal response capabilities are as severe as the total reaction has been.

The dramatic contrasts between high-, middle-, and low-income nations are clearly visible.

In relative terms, high-income nations supplied fiscal stimulus worth 12.5 percent of GDP on average, which was three times more than emerging and other middle-income countries could contribute and almost 10 times more than governments in low-income countries.

In terms of per capita disparities, the disparities are considerably more pronounced.

According to UN-DESA (2021), rich nations' stimulus packages per capita were about 580 times larger than those adopted by the UN category of least developed countries (LDCs).

In comparison, industrialized nations' average per capita income is "only" 30 times that of LDCs.

Lacking sufficient local resources to maintain their economies, emerging nations must search for foreign resources to pay for health care and boost their economies.

For a variety of reasons, this proved difficult for many developing nations.

First, following a period of declining external debt levels aided by the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) effort in the 2000s, many low-income developing nations' external debt loads increased again in the 2010s.

In 2019, the IMF estimated that half of low-income countries were at danger of or currently in financial crisis, up from a quarter in 2013.

Low-income nations' average foreign debt ratio has already risen to 65 percent of GDP in 2019, up from 47 percent in 2010.

Many nations' public debt burdens have grown significantly as a result of increased borrowing from private lenders, with the percentage of private non-guaranteed debt in total foreign debt stocks of low-income countries rising from 3.2 percent in 2010 to 10% in 2019. (Chandraskhar, 2021).

With dramatic decreases in GDP and export profits due to the worldwide recession triggered by the pandemic, these high levels of foreign indebtedness prompted much greater misery in 2020.

The IMF erased US$213.5 million in loan payment commitments for 25 qualified HIPCs in 2020 to relieve some of the pressure.

While this debt relief was welcome, it was insufficient to prevent further financial turmoil.

Similarly, the G20's debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) has given no debt relief and, in effect, has just served to kick the can down the road, since no debts have been cancelled and interest has continued to collect throughout the all-too-brief suspension period (Chowdury & Jomo, 2021).

Second, in 2020, poor nations will confront a capital outflow to rich countries, as well as a dollar appreciation (and depreciation of their own currencies).

According to Gallagher et al. (2021), market panic and volatility were exacerbated by a high level of uncertainty and an initial lack of coordinated policy responses, which resulted in the largest outflow of portfolio capital from emerging market and developing economies in history, as well as a global shortage of dollar liquidity.

At the same time, most developing countries' external financing requirements grew dramatically, as export profits fell as a result of the global demand slump (and, for many, this was exacerbated by falls in main commodity prices), and currency depreciation raised their import costs.

As previously stated, their financial demands have escalated as a result of the necessity to tackle the pandemic's health and economic effects.

Despite widespread knowledge and G20 vows, the IMF and the World Bank's responses were far from proportional to the severity of the crisis (see Afesorgbor et al., 2021).

While the IMF said that it would commit its US$1 trillion loan capacity, it has only offered US$107 billion in financial assistance to 85 countries as of March 15, 2021.

In September 2020, the World Bank launched a US$160 billion pandemic assistance package.

While important, several aspects of this program have been criticized for failing to assist eliminate financial barriers and failing to pay attention to accessible healthcare.

Only 8 of the 71 COVID-19 health initiatives (financed by the World Bank) incorporate steps to assist low-income people who are currently facing financial obstacles to health care (Oxfam, 2021a).

The greater resources made accessible were accompanied by conditions that rendered them less effective as a reaction to the pandemic's effects.

Oxfam's (2020) analysis of the contents of recent and ongoing IMF agreements revealed that, between March and September 2020, 76 of the 91 IMF loans for 81 countries with a total value of US$89 billion had conditionality attached that required recipient governments to slash public expenditure in ways that could result in deep cuts in the funding of public healthcare systems and pension schemes, as well as requiring economy-wide wage freezes and reducing public sector remuneration.

Even in the middle of the epidemic, over one-third of the nations receiving IMF loans are subject to interest surcharges (totaling more than $4 billion), significantly boosting debt-servicing costs (INET, 2021: 10).

In summary, the existing IFFS has proven insufficient as a financial safety net for countries that have been hit hard by a pandemic.

As a result, it only exacerbated global inequalities, as countries with abundant fiscal and monetary resources were able to take unprecedented fiscal and monetary support measures to protect the livelihoods of their own populations, while paying little attention to the international ramifications on the livelihoods of populations in less affluent nations.

This apparent lack of international cooperation during the pandemic is reflected in a nearly 40% reduction in bilateral official development funding expected for 2020. (Development Initiatives, 2021).

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan.

You may also want to read more analysis about the COVID-19 Pandemic here.

Sources & References:

Afesorgbor, S. K., van Bergeijk, P. A. G., & Demena, B. A. (2021). COVID-19 and the threat to globalization: An optimistic note. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and international development. Springer.

Chandrasekhar, C. P. (2021). The challenge of LDC debt. Economic and Political Weekly, 56(3).

https://www.networkideas.org/news-analysis/2021/02/the-challenge-of-ldc-debt/.

Chowdhury, A., & Jomo, K. S. (2021). IMF, World Bank must urgently help finance developing countries. Blog. Available at: https://www.ksjomo.org/post/imf-world-bank-must-support developing-countries-recovery. Accessed on 30 Mar 2021.

Development Initiatives. (2021). Aid data 2019–2020: Analysis of trends before and during COVID-19. Briefing. Available at: https://devinit.org/resources/aid-data-2019-2020-analysis trends-before-during-covid/#downloads.

FACTI Panel. (2021). Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development. Report of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda. Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI), New York.

Available at: https://www.factipanel.org/explore-the-report

Gallagher, K., & Carlin F. M. (2020). The role of IMF in the fight against COVID-19: The IMF Covid Response Index. Covid Economics 42, 19 August 2020.

Gallagher, K., Gao, H., Kring, W., Ocampo, J. A., & Volz, U. (2021). Safety first: Expanding the global financial safety net in response to COVID-19. Global Policy, 12(1), 140–148.

Goolsbee, A., & Syverson, C. (2020). Fear, lockdown and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020 (NBER Working Paper 27432). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Haan, R. (1971). Special drawing rights and development. Stenfert Kroese.

Herman, B., Ocampo, J. A., & Spiegel, S. (2010). Overcoming developing country debt crises. Oxford University Press.

ICRIT. (2020). The Global pandemic, sustainable economic recovery, and international taxation. Independent Commission for the Reform of International Taxation. Available at: https://www.icrict.com/icrict-documentsthe-global-pandemic-sustainable-economic-recovery-and-international-taxation.

ILO. (2021). ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. Seventh edition updated estimates and analysis. International Labour Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/coronavirus/impacts-and-responses/WCMS_767028/lang%2D%2Den/index.htm.

IMF. (2021a). World Economic Outlook, January 2021. International Monetary Fund. Available at:

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/01/26/2021-world-economic-outlook-update.

IMF. (2021b). Fiscal monitor. Database of country fiscal measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. International Monetary Fund. Data available at: https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/imfand-covid19/Fiscal-Policies-Database-in-Response-to-COVID-19.

The pandemic and the economic crisis: A global agenda for urgent action(Interim report of the commission for global economic transformation). Institute for New Economic Thinking. Available at: https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/

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Laborde, D., Martin, W., & Vos, R. (2020). Impacts of COVID-19 on global poverty, food security and diets (IFPRI Discussion Paper 01993 December). International Food Policy Research Institute.

Laborde, D., Martin, W., & Vos, R. (2021). Impacts of COVID-19 on global poverty, food security and diets. Agricultural Economics, 52(3), 375–390. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12624.

Mahler, D., Lakner, C, Castaneda Aguilar, R., & Wu, H. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) on global poverty: Why Sub-Saharan Africa might be the region hardest hit?

World Bank Data Blog. Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates impact-covid-19-global-poverty.

Mukhtarov, M., Papyrakis, E., & Rieger, M. (2021). Covid-19 and water. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and international development. Springer.

Murshed, S. M. (2021). Consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for economic inequality. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and international development. Springer.

Ocampo, J. A. (2015). Reforming the international monetary and fnancial architecture. In J. A. Alonso & J. A. Ocampo (Eds.), Global governance and rules for the post-2015 era(pp. 41–72). Bloomsbury Academic.

Oxfam. (2020). Behind the numbers: A dataset on spending, accountability and recovery measures included in IMF Covid-19 loans. Online database. Oxfam. Available at https://www.oxfam.org/en/international-fnancial-institutions/imf-covid-19-fnancing-and-fscal-tracker.

Oxfam. (2021a). The inequality virus (Oxfam Briefing paper (January)). Oxfam. Available at

https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621149/bp-the-inequality virus-250121-en.pdf.

Oxfam. (2021b). Austerity is not a fair shot: 4 observations on the IMF’s latest COVID 19 loans(Oxfam Briefing paper (April)). Oxfam. Available at: https://medium.com/@OxfamIFIs/austerity-is-not-a-fair-shot-fdc4e11a06b6.

Sumner, A., Hoy, C., & Ortiz-Juarez, E. (2020). Estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on global poverty (WIDER Working Paper 2020/43). World Institute for Development Economics Research. Available at: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/fles/Publications/Working paper/PDF/wp2020-43.pdf.

UN-DESA. (2021). World economic situation and prospects (Monthly Briefing No 146 (5 February 2021)). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/world-economic-situation-and-prospects february-2021-briefng-no-146/

R. van der Hoeven and R. Vos 27 United Nations. (2012). World Economic and Social Survey 2012: In search for new international development finance. United Nations. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wess/wess_current/2012wess.pdf.

Liquidity and debt solutions to invest in the SDGs: The time to act is now (UN secretary-general policy brief (March 21)). United Nations. Available at: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/fles/sg_policy_brief_on_liquidity_and_debt_solutions_march_2021.pdf.

Van Bergeijk, P. (2021). Pandemic economics. Edward Elgar Publishers.

van der Hoeven, R. (2020). Multilateralism, employment and inequality in the context of COVID-19. In UN committee for development policy (UNCDP), 2020, development policy and multilateralism after COVID-19. United Nations.

Vos, R. (2017). From billions to trillions: Towards reform of development finance and the global reserve system. In P. van Bergeijk & R. van der Hoeven (Eds.), Sustainable development goals and inequality. Edward Elgar. World Bank. (2020a).

Poverty and shared prosperity 2020: Reversals of fortune. The World Bank.

Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34496.

World Bank. (2020b). Global economic prospects 2020. The World Bank. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-economic-prospects.

COVID-19 - Changes Required To Address The Current International Financial And Fiscal System's (IFFS) Flaws.

The COVID-19 crisis revealed that the current IFFS is incapable of providing adequate emergency and development finance to the world's most vulnerable countries and populations, exacerbating global inequality and impeding the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 (see also Mukhtarov et al., 2021).

As a result, reforming the IFFS is a first-order priority.

The pandemic's global dimension may provide momentum for change, but political impediments remain formidable.

Without attempting to be comprehensive, we focus on four key reform proposals:

(i) Much stronger international tax coordination, including harmonizing higher corporate tax rates (especially on profits of globally operating firms) and reducing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) in developing countries;
(ii) Sovereign debt restructuring and relief;
(iii) Reform of policy conditionality attached to lending by international financial institutions (IFIs); and
(iv) Reform of policy conditionality attached to lending by international financial institutions ( In the aftermath of the COVID-19 epidemic, lower taxes and different types of tax dodging have left governments with less resources to address vital concerns.

40% of overseas profits are diverted to tax havens due to tax evasion.

This "profit shifting" is predicted to cost the government between $500 billion and $600 billion per year in income (FACTI, 2021).

Rich people's tax evasion and illegal financial activities contribute to the huge sums of money lost to the government.

During the epidemic, the number of illegal fowl is believed to have risen.

The following modifications to the international tax system have been recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Taxation (ICRIT): a higher corporate tax rate for large corporations in oligopolistic markets, allowing them to earn higher rates of return; a global minimum effective corporate tax rate of 25% to prevent base erosion and profit shifting; progressive digital services taxes on the economic rents captured by multinational corporations; country-by-country reporting for all corporations receiving government support; publication of data on offshore wealth to enable all jurisdictions to adopt eft (ICRIT, 2020).

These policies would significantly expand fiscal flexibility in low- and middle-income nations.

Restructuring and Relief from Sovereign Debt.

Many countries are still in precarious debt positions twenty years after the start of the HIPC initiative for debt relief and restructuring.

The Commission on Global Economic Transformation (led by Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Spence) observed that while attention to poor countries' debt relief and restructuring needs regained some traction in 2020 when the pandemic broke out, this soon fzzled out: 'in the beg of the beg of the beg of Others, particularly the business sector, were expected to join.

They did not, though.

The absence of comprehensive involvement has a terrible effect: individuals who would be ready to participate are unwilling to do so because they view the net beneficiary as the refractory creditors, rather than the impoverished people in the poor nation (INET, 2021: 11).

The international community should make it easier for governments to restructure their debt.

The catastrophic situation created by the COVID-19 epidemic provides enough justification for accepting the concept of force majeure, which states that governments should not be compelled to repay debts they cannot afford.

Gallagher et al. (2021) suggest the establishment of a suitable Sovereign Debt Restructuring Regime, drawing on earlier ideas made in the aftermath of the global financial crisis (see, for example, Herman et al., 2010).

Although current processes for renegotiating sovereign debts with private creditors have improved, they are still insufficient due to the complexity of debt arrangements, some of which lack collective action provisions.

As a result, a worldwide institutional process for renegotiating national debts should be established as soon as practicable.

Many developing nations were already on the verge of defaulting on their external debt, thanks in part to the recent spike in private foreign borrowing, as previously mentioned.

The massive capital flight and exchange rate depreciation that occurred in 2020 has exacerbated developing-country debt distress, raising the risk of default and emphasizing the need for orderly sovereign debt workouts, not only to bailout debt-stressed countries, but also to protect global financial stability.

Policy Conditionality Attached to IFI Lending Reform.

In response to the COVID-19 issue, we highlighted the substantial inequalities in fscal assistance between nations at various stages of development.

The IMF has a significant influence in the macroeconomic policies pursued by borrowing developing nations, particularly those who are experiencing balance-of-payments difficulties and seek its guidance and assistance.

The Commission on Global Transformation is pleased that the IMF leadership has aggressively supported the United States' and most European nations' massive multi-year fiscal stimulus for COVID-19 recovery.

The IMF has also acknowledged the necessity for developing-country governments, even those in financial crisis, to increase public expenditure.

Unfortunately, the IMF has continued to provide pro-cyclical policy advice to borrowing countries, as seen by the policy conditions connected to its loans, which advocate for fiscal restraint rather than deficit spending when economies are in recession.

The IMF authorized a another US$18.6 billion in fresh loans to 16 countries between October 2020 and March 2021, bringing the total amount of funding sanctioned during the epidemic to US$107 billion.

Only 3% of the increased financing went to Sub-Saharan Africa, 2% to Asia and the Pacific, and 2% to North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, with almost all (93%) going to relieve financial stress in Latin America and the Caribbean.

17 of the 18 new loans required recipient governments to implement fiscal austerity measures (Oxfam, 2021b).

The IMF has included flexibility provisions in certain non-emergency loans, enabling nations to expand social expenditure if the epidemic develops, according to the Oxfam study.

The significance of safeguarding social expenditure is emphasized even more in the context of fiscal consolidation.

However, the wording in the Letters of Agreement is often ambiguous when it comes to this flexibility, but plain and specific when it comes to fiscal consolidation and expenditure cutting objectives.

For example, when the IMF urges countries to safeguard social expenditure, it simultaneously recommends states to reduce pandemic-related social spending as soon as "the crisis subsides" in the same documents.

This is concerning, given that the majority of nations were woefully equipped to deal with the crisis, with significantly inadequate social investment.

The IMF's focus on fiscal restraint by countries receiving financial assistance highlights the inadequacy of contingency financing to offer the fiscal space required to alleviate the pandemic's severe effects on livelihoods.

As reviewed by Gallagher and Carlin (2020) after evaluating a pre-pandemic collection of IMF loans, the practice of IMF policy conditionality appears very much like it did before the pandemic.

Any policy conditionality attached to lending policies by IFIs should be more consistently based on principles of supporting a countercyclical macroeconomic policy stance by recipient countries; any policy conditionality attached to lending policies by IFIs should be more consistently based on principles of supporting a countercyclical macroeconomic policy stance by recipient countries.

In addition, short-term financing to address balance-of-payments issues should be balanced with enough long-term development finance to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals.

An Increase in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) with Special Use for Developing Countries.

The IMF was anticipated to authorize the issue of US$650 billion in additional Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) at the time of writing, and it did so in June 2021.

The benefit of this method of generating foreign liquidity is that it is practically free.

Fears that this may be inflationary were unfounded in the present global economic environment, particularly as it pales in comparison to the monetary growth in developed nations.

This rise offers poor nations with an instant boost in reserves, allowing them to participate in much-needed public spending without having to worry about the impact on the external balance; it may also provide a method of repayment for countries with severe external debt difficulties.

However, since SDR allocations are presently determined in accordance with IMF quotas, this effect of the new SDR production is not automatic (which in turn are linked to voting rights).

As a result, the majority of the additional SDRs will be made accessible to wealthier nations with less need for balance of payments financing, and many of the new SDRs may end up as unused reserves at the IMF.

In a variety of methods, any unused SDR reserves might be made accessible to poor nations (INET, 2021: 9; United Nations, 2021).

First, it may be chosen to utilize a portion of the funds to write off or reduce impoverished nations' external public obligations.
Second, certain nations with substantial balance-of-payments stress might be provided or loaned SDRs.
Third, as has been suggested in the past (see, for example, Haan, 1971; United Nations, 2012; Ocampo, 2015; Vos, 2017), a portion of idle SDRs that are not required as a fair reserve buffer might be utilized to finance development (through issuance of international bonds backed by those unused SDRs).

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan.

You may also want to read more analysis about the COVID-19 Pandemic here.

Sources & References:

Chandrasekhar, C. P. (2021). The challenge of LDC debt. Economic and Political Weekly, 56(3).

https://www.networkideas.org/news-analysis/2021/02/the-challenge-of-ldc-debt/.

Available at: https://www.factipanel.org/explore-the-report

Gallagher, K., & Carlin F. M. (2020). The role of IMF in the fight against COVID-19: The IMF Covid Response Index. Covid Economics 42, 19 August 2020.

Gallagher, K., Gao, H., Kring, W., Ocampo, J. A., & Volz, U. (2021). Safety first: Expanding the global financial safety net in response to COVID-19. Global Policy, 12(1), 140–148.

Goolsbee, A., & Syverson, C. (2020). Fear, lockdown and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020 (NBER Working Paper 27432). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Haan, R. (1971). Special drawing rights and development. Stenfert Kroese.

Herman, B., Ocampo, J. A., & Spiegel, S. (2010). Overcoming developing country debt crises. Oxford University Press.

IMF. (2021a). World Economic Outlook, January 2021. International Monetary Fund. Available at:

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/01/26/2021-world-economic-outlook-update.

the-pandemic-and-the-economic-crisis-a-global-agenda-for-urgent-action.

Laborde, D., Martin, W., & Vos, R. (2020). Impacts of COVID-19 on global poverty, food security and diets (IFPRI Discussion Paper 01993 December). International Food Policy Research Institute.

Laborde, D., Martin, W., & Vos, R. (2021). Impacts of COVID-19 on global poverty, food security and diets. Agricultural Economics, 52(3), 375–390. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12624.

Mahler, D., Lakner, C, Castaneda Aguilar, R., & Wu, H. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) on global poverty: Why Sub-Saharan Africa might be the region hardest hit?

World Bank Data Blog. Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates impact-covid-19-global-poverty.

Mukhtarov, M., Papyrakis, E., & Rieger, M. (2021). Covid-19 and water. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and international development. Springer.

Murshed, S. M. (2021). Consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for economic inequality. In E. Papyrakis (Ed.), Covid-19 and international development. Springer.

Oxfam. (2021a). The inequality virus (Oxfam Briefing paper (January)). Oxfam. Available at

https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621149/bp-the-inequality virus-250121-en.pdf.

Van Bergeijk, P. (2021). Pandemic economics. Edward Elgar Publishers.

Poverty and shared prosperity 2020: Reversals of fortune. The World Bank.

Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34496.

World Bank. (2020b). Global economic prospects 2020. The World Bank. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-economic-prospects.

Dalit Feminism At The Crossroads Of Difference, Solidarity, And Dual Patriarchies.

The concept that the 'dalit woman,' its major constituency, is positioned at the intersection of caste and gender, lies at the heart of Dalit Feminism.

Dalit women are not homogeneous groups that can be cleanly classified as 'women' or 'dalits.'

Caste and gender are two separate and mutually incompatible characteristics that define 'women' and 'dalits' in mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics, respectively.

As a consequence, dalit women and their issues are obliterated or obfuscated.

Urmila Pawar notes, "The Dalit movement is a movement for whole human freedom." In a brief understanding of the dalit women's condition and its prospective resolution, Urmila Pawar says, "The Dalit movement is a struggle for total human freedom."

However, it does not seem to give enough attention to the women's issue.

The women's liberation movement should also be a component of this human emancipation movement.

It isn't the case.

There is a popular misconception that, unlike Brahmin women, Dalit women are not bound by suffocating constraints.

In this position, the grief of the Devadasi, the forsaken lady, and the Murali is overlooked....

Dalit educated women should also shed the misconception that they can only succeed in the world with the support of males.

Both as dalits and as women, these women must struggle for their rights.

Pawar's speech highlights two critical analytical omissions: gender in Dalit politics and caste in mainstream Indian feminist thought.

Dalit Feminism, according to Pawar's remark, is an interventionist approach that aims to address the multifaceted aspect of dalit women's identities.

The gap between Dalit Feminism and mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics is therefore expressed via the concept of intersectionality.

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for looking at how oppressive regimes interact with one another.

Intersectionality first appeared in the legal academia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with Kimberlé Crenshaw's seminal work 'Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.' Its main goal has been to provide a paradigm for analyzing power that takes gender, class, and race-based subordination into account and links them.

The concept of intersectionality emerged from the theorization of triple oppressed black women by feminists of color.

Using black women as an example, Crenshaw demonstrates how intersectionality rejects the single-axis paradigm espoused by both feminist and anti-racist researchers, instead examining "the different ways in which race and gender interact to determine the multiple aspects of black women's...

lives." By identifying the multiplicities and diversity within categories like "woman" and "black," intersectionality calls into question the homogeneity of these categories.

By presenting an approach that identifies various axes of oppression impacting black women and challenges the homogeneity assumed by both feminist and anti-racist discourses, intersectionality offers an enabling technique for feminist analysis.

Leslie McCall's theorization of intersectionality via inter-categorical and intra-categorical techniques is particularly relevant in this situation.

The inter-categorical approach recognizes "relations of inequality among social groups and changing configurations of inequality along multiple and conflicting dimensions," whereas the intra-categorical approach "interrogates the boundary-making and boundary-defining process itself," maintaining a critical stance toward categories that are primarily seen through a single axis of identity.

Theorists of intersectionality have harshly critiqued political formations centered on a single axis of identity.

The issue with identity politics, according to Crenshaw, is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some detractors argue, but rather that it often conflates or overlooks intra-group distinctions.

She claims that black males and white women acquire prominence in minority politics such as anti-racism and Western Feminism, obscuring black women who endure both racist and sexist oppression at the same time.

As a result, one of identity politics' key flaws is its incapacity to view individuals via different axes of identification and comprehend the multifaceted aspects of oppression.

Through its recognition of diversity, intersectionality is considered as an enabling tool in this more nuanced strategical option.

Black Feminism uses the notion of diversity to problematize the category of 'woman' in Western feminist politics.

Women in general were seen as a'minority group' by White Feminism, who saw them as a homogenous category in which oppression is tied to gender.

'Woman' was portrayed as a single subject that transcended race, class, and ethnicity as a result of this universalization.

In an effort to homogenize feminist politics, such an epistemological postulation emphasises a unitary form of patriarchal oppression and a universalized experience of womanhood, culminating in the erasure of diversity among women.

As a result of the categorization of the category 'woman' and its subjective experience, women from minority groups, such as women of color, become structurally excluded.

While the feminist notion of sisterhood aids in the formation of a collective resistance, it empowers only some groups of women while marginalizing others, according to black feminists.

This Bridge Called My Back by Moraga and Anzalda raises concerns about the Feminist constituency of 'woman,' emphasizing its diversity.

Moraga highlights in her prologue to the second edition that this book departs from Feminism's nearly exclusive emphasis on sex connections, instead focusing on relationships between women.'

They encourage a feminist voice that highlights the divisions within the category of woman.

This book began as a response to White Feminism's bigotry and has evolved into a celebration of the emergence of unity among feminists of color.

As a result, according to Baca Zinn, "many women began to argue that their lives were affected by their location in a number of different hierarchies: as African Americans, Latinas, Native Americans, or Asian Americans in the race hierarchy; as young or old in the age hierarchy; as heterosexual, lesbian, or bisexual in the sexual orientation hierarchy; and as women outside of Western industrialized nations, in subordinated geopolitical contexts." These arguments demonstrated that women were disadvantaged not just because of their gender, but also because of historical and systematic denials of rights and benefits based on other characteristics.

The knowledge that general issues are far distant from the reality of many women's life illustrates the power dynamics that generate gender hierarchy.

It becomes clear that a singular and exclusive emphasis on gender emphasizes concerns affecting a single group of women while diverting attention away from other structures and systems, such as race, which are vital in sustaining the oppression of other categories of women.

As a result, women of color have challenged Western Feminism's sisterhood concepts, contending that it is white middle-class-centric.

They claim that concepts of gender and women's oppression fundamentally disregard marginalized women, and that efforts to attain a universal politics often result in a single point of view being prioritized.

In interventionist politics like Black Feminism, recognizing diversity becomes vital in order to avoid the effects and traps of prevailing structural paradigms and construct a more effective politics.

Intersectionality emphasizes not just the diversity of black women's experiences, but also their similarities.

This intracategorical difference is noticeable between white women and black males.

The Combahee River Collective's 'The Black Feminist Statement' describes how they realized that "as children...

we were different from boys and that we were treated differently, for example, when we were told to be quiet both for the sake of being "ladylike" and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people." As a result, Black Feminism reveals the complexities and uniqueness of race and gender oppression of black women that both antiracists and White Feminism overlooked.

According to black feminists, black women are either portrayed as victimized objects by black male authors or are featured as tokens by white feminists out of guilt.

Furthermore, as Kimberly Springer points out, Black feminists have been accused of inauthentic blackness by the black community because of their gender issues.

According to the Sandy Springs transcript, black women also had to be wary of white feminists who labeled them "the worst sort" of black women for allegedly betraying their race.

Both black nationalist and white feminist assessments of black women's racial authenticity thought that a really revolutionary black woman valued her racial oppression above her gender.

In this debate, white feminists, like black males, refused to acknowledge the complexities of racial and gender oppression.

Instead, they opted to perceive black women as just that: black.

As a consequence, black feminists learned that "the master's tools will never deconstruct the master's home." They may allow us to defeat him at his own game for a while, but they will never allow us to effect meaningful change.'

Black Feminism and Dalit Feminism share an emphasis on the significance of acknowledging diversity in building an understanding of oppression and resistance in connection to diverse forms of power.

While Black Feminism looks for black women at the junction of race and gender, Dalit Feminism looks for dalit women at the confluence of caste and gender in establishing and informing feminist politics.

Similar to how Black Feminism articulates its politics in opposition to White Feminism and anti-racism, Dalit Feminism uses intervention to distinguish itself from mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics.

Despite the fact that the phrase was not invented or used in India, Nivedita Menon points out that the practice of intersectionality has long been prevalent among India's oppressed communities.

She expresses reservations about using intersectionality as a theoretical framework to analyze and comprehend "the Indian experience," arguing that "theory must be located" and that "the practice of validating any study on the "non-West" by reading it through a "Western" theory should be challenged." Menon emphasizes that intersectionality is a 'buzzword' that got popularity owing to the significance of the site of its birth, and that intersectionality is unsuited in the Indian context due to the various layers of identities that already exist in India.

Menon focuses on caste, community, and sexuality in particular to show how they continue to split the category of "woman" and destabilize feminist politics.

In India's marginalized politics, such means of recognizing and tackling difference are already in practice.

'How does intersectionality feature in this analysis?' Menon wonders.

She criticizes the exact discipline from which intersectionality emerges, arguing that law has been the most limiting vehicle for binding and fixing identities according to convenience.

As a result, going to law and looking for solutions is pointless.

Furthermore, Menon points out that Crenshaw believes that identities are a-priori when he proposes the concept of intersection of identities.

Mary E. John revisits Menon's piece to discuss intersectionality, which allows all disadvantaged voices to be heard rather than prioritizing one over the other.

John points out that Crenshaw and other intersectionality theorists do not claim to have invented the concept.

They often reference Black Feminism, which dates back to 1851, when Sojourner Truth delivered her now-iconic speech, 'Ain't I a Woman?' As a result, John contends, intersectionality should not be seen as a new phenomena, despite the fact that it has become a catchphrase.

John goes on to say that, although emphasizing difference, Indian Feminism has not always dealt with intersecting identities.

With the exception of community, Feminism in India is still focused on sex differences rather than the 'unequal patriarchies' that are responsible for the creation and perpetuation of hierarchies among women of various classes, castes, and communities.

Instead of rejecting intersectionality outright, John thinks that it should be used to analyze current identities and politics and generate unity.

As a result, intersectionality has the ability to serve as a jumping off point for dialogues.

Dalit Feminism examines how conventional Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics erase or disregard dalit women, and how the constructs of 'woman' and 'dalit' privilege savarna women and dalit men.

Invoking intersectionality, Dalit Feminism confronts these erasures and additions.

As previously stated, Dalit Feminism's relationship to the notion of difference may be traced by recognizing its constituency, the "dalit woman," as intersectional and hence unique from "woman" in mainstream Indian Feminism and "dalit" in Dalit Politics.

We are concerned that dalit women in India suffer from three oppressions: gender, as a result of patriarchy; class, as members of the poorest and most marginalized communities; and caste, as members of the lowest caste, the 'untouchables,' according to the National Federation of Dalit Women's (NFDW) VIII National Convention on June 26, 2009 in New Delhi.

This proclamation highlights three overlapping variables of gender, class, and caste, demonstrating that inequality and difference exist not just between those in the rich/poor, upper-caste/dalit dichotomy, but also between women and men within the dalit community.

The Dalit Mahila Samiti notes in a 2008 report, "The national objective of the women's movement is still defined by middle-class women's ideas.... Identity politics and objectives are challenging to include into the national movement, and mainstream Indian feminists must include other groups' politics and values.

For example, national women's organizations decided that the emphasis of Women's Day festivities would be violence against women, while access to water was a significant concern for local women.

This signals a change away from enforcing uniformity and toward acknowledging diversity in terms of how various systems, when combined with gender, influence diverse groups of women in different ways.

Catharine MacKinnon, commenting on the relevance of particularity in intersectionality, points out that particularity does not imply seeing information derived from a particular group's experience as limiting, stagnant, or restrictive.

Instead, specificity is used to provide a more nuanced understanding of systems.

Intersectionality, according to MacKinnon, "reveals the simple falsity of the standard post-Enlightenment opposition between particularity and universality not only by exposing that particularity is universal but also by making a universally applicable change—including men—by embracing, rather than obscuring, denying, or eliding, particularity." Dalit Feminism, meanwhile, develops as an intersectional politics since it accounts for differences within and across communities, transforming the frameworks of mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics in the process.

According to DMS's report, We recognize that from a feminist viewpoint, dealing with a broad variety of concerns has been necessary, although our perception of a movement is fairly limited.

The 'enemy' (patriarchy) has various forms and so may be found wherever.

It is not a monolithic construction that can be demolished.

As a result, the definition of a movement must be broadened to include the whole range of actions and processes that a feminist group striving for fundamental change must engage in in order to establish a movement.

This remark underlines the need of incorporating diversity into mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics.

While autonomy has always been seen as the most important element of Dalit Feminism, dalit feminists have fought against the ghettoization of Dalit Feminism into a politics practiced only by dalit women.

According to the DMS study, a dalit feminist movement is not separatist.

In DMS, the women 'ask the males to become sathi dars, or supporters.' Even though "the call for a separate platform" by dalit women's organizations like NFDW "could be interpreted as a divisive move by both dalit men and non-dalit women," Ruth Manorama clarifies that "the proponents of such a special forum emphasize that their initiative must not be mistaken for a separatist movement." 'Rather, they claim that if their shared goal of social, economic, and political equality and justice for all is to be fulfilled, strong coalitions between the dalit movement, the women's movement, and the dalit women's movement are required,' she continues.

In truth, this demand for solidarity isn't limited to dalit males and upper-caste women joining hands with dalit women.

As stressed during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and the World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001, the need for solidarity goes beyond international societies.

Ruth Manorama recounts how her involvement in a cross-cultural research comparing African-Americans in the United States and dalits in India in 1986 helped her recognize the need of having talks between dalit and black women in an interview with Meena Kandasamy.

Shailaja Paik argues, "Despite the seemingly vast differences in the history and contemporary politics of India and the United States, by focusing on the interlocking engagements between feminist work and histories of colonialism, nationalism, law, culture, the nation-state, capital, labor relations, religion, human rights, and struggles around sexuality, [practicing solidarity] helps to rethink and revitalize feminist theory and praxis.

It demonstrates how understanding specificities and differences, as well as forging a common cause between dalit and African American women, is critical for building solidarity, laying out certain political possibilities, and combating various forms of Brahmanism in India and white supremacy in the United States. "

Dalit Feminism emphasizes discussion rather than antagonism by stressing the possibility of solidarity across gender and ethnicity without eliminating specificities and disparities.

Comprehending Dalit Feminism in terms of the notion of difference allows us to illustrate how understanding the intersectionality of caste and gender may lead to more fruitful intellectual debates, rather than just highlighting the flaws in mainstream Indian Feminism or Dalit Politics.

In Dalit Feminism, the notion of difference extends beyond distinguishing 'dalit women' as distinct from 'women' and 'dalits,' and includes the development of an affinity-based politics that acknowledges the potentials of the unique.

The identification of two patriarchies: brahmanical and dalit patriarchies is another key contribution of the notion of difference in Dalit Feminism.

The acknowledgment of brahmanical and dalit patriarchies has been crucial in exposing the reality that Indian women's subjugation is multifaceted.

Brahmanical patriarchy, according to Uma Chakravarti, is "a system of laws and institutions in which caste and gender are intertwined, one molding the other, and women are vital in sustaining caste borders." The caste system may be repeated without compromising the hierarchical order of closed endogamous circles, each unique from and higher and lower than the others, thanks to patriarchal norms in this framework.

Furthermore, brahmanical norms for women varied depending on the caste group's position in the caste structure, with the most strict control over sexuality reserved for the highest castes.

Finally, it incorporates both an ideology of valued chaste wives and pativrata women, as well as a system of norms and institutions that sustain caste hierarchy and gender inequality via the manufacture of consent and the use of compulsion.

The beliefs of brahmanical patriarchy are structurally intertwined into the caste system, providing separate sets of laws for upper-caste and dalit women in terms of sexuality, marriage, and labor, as codified in brahmanical prescriptive writings like as the Manusmriti.

54 Because the word 'brahmanism' permits multiple sorts of repressive qualities impacting different groups of women, interpreting patriarchy as brahmanical patriarchy becomes an enabling aspect of dalit feminist politics.

In their memoirs Karukku and The Grip of Change, Dalit women authors like Bama and Sivakami explain how institutional oppression of caste and gender act in simultaneity, with dalit women facing sexual and physical assault not just from upper-caste people but also from dalit males.

Dalit Politics has sought to dismiss any such claims by claiming that there is no such thing as dalit patriarchy since all dalits are oppressed.

Even if there are evidence of patriarchal oppression, they argue that brahmanical patriarchy is to fault for presenting dalit males with models of dominance.

Kancha Ilaiah connects women's subjugation to brahmanical ceremonial practices in Why I Am Not a Hindu, pointing out that women in dalit communities do not face the same patriarchal domination as their upper-caste counterparts.

A Dalitbahujan lady is not required to conduct padapuja (worshiping the husband's feet) to her husband in the morning or evening, according to him.

She is not required to address her spouse in the same manner as she would a superior.

In a conflict, word for word is the socially visible standard, and abuse for abuse is the socially visible norm.

Although Patriarchy as a system exists among Dalitbahujan, it is far more democratic in this regard.

While Ilaiah acknowledges that patriarchy exists in dalit communities, he emphasizes that it is emancipatory in comparison to upper-caste patriarchy.

As a result, dalit women are only acknowledged in connection to brahmanical patriarchy in order to emphasize their distinction from upper-caste women.

In his essay, Gopal Guru highlights this point: 'Dalit males are recreating the same methods against their women that their high-caste rivals used to oppress them.' The unexpected absence of scholarly interest in this subject also reflects a widespread belief that it does not exist.

Challapalli Swaroopa Rani, on the other hand, believes that the concept of a democratic patriarchy in dalit culture is untrue.

She writes,If we come now to the subject of patriarchy, as the saying goes, ‘the size of the tree dictates the fury of the wind’, indicating that a man would mistreat those who rely upon him to the degree that his authority permits.

Because a dalit man lacks the same resources as an upper-caste landowner, he practices tyranny within his own boundaries.

However, under that patriarchal structure, democracy does not exist.

Dalit women are 'cruelly humiliated in public areas,' according to Swaroopa Rani, and they also experience domestic abuse and physical ailments.

She labels the subjugation of dalit women as "brahmanical" and "patriarchal." She refutes this 'democratic' portrayal of the dalit society by stating that a dalit man "carries out tyranny within his own bounds."

Furthermore, dalit patriarchy not only exists in a forceful form, but it often acts from inside, cloaked by the wider image of the dalit as a sinuous, fixed category in which caste becomes the only deciding element of analysis.

Dalit Feminism focuses on the junction of caste and gender and the necessity to confront them concurrently by conceiving patriarchies in all of its forms and establishing Brahmanism as the main cause.

The notion of feminism is also altered as a result of this research of patriarchy in its many forms.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

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