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This event took place on January 24, 2022

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00:00 [Mari Pangestu] Before turning to our distinguished panelists,
00:04 let me now start by providing some opening remarks to set the scene for our discussion.
00:09 I think what we have observed to date is that COVID-19 has increased inequality in nearly
00:16 every sphere, in the availability of vaccines, in economic growth rates, in access to education
00:23 and healthcare and in the scale of job and income losses, which have been higher for
00:29 women and informal workers.
00:31 By next year, the vast majority of advanced economies are expected to regain their pre-pandemic
00:38 income levels.
00:39 Yet because of divergent growth rates between developing and advanced countries, 40% of
00:47 emerging markets and developing economies will remain below their 2019 levels, including
00:54 more than half of the fragile and conflict affected areas and three quarters of small
00:59 states.
01:01 In our latest global economic prospects report, which we launched on 11 January, we dedicated
01:08 a whole chapter on the topic of inequality.
01:11 And the main findings are that inequality in incomes between countries is rising to
01:17 levels not seen in a decade.
01:19 And this is pre-pandemic we were seeing a convergence, actually, between developing
01:24 and developed countries.
01:25 And now we fear that this trend is going to be a divergence between developed and developing
01:32 countries.
01:34 And that with in country inequality is also higher because of severe job and income losses
01:42 that affect the poorer and more vulnerable groups more, including low income groups,
01:48 youth, women, and informal workers.
01:52 These trends should worry us all.
01:55 Countries with wider income back gaps obviously face greater risks to social and political
02:00 stability.
02:01 Making crisis more likely while also making it harder to achieve sustained economic growth
02:08 and development.
02:10 We know from history that much smaller setbacks in development have left scars that were felt
02:15 over generations.
02:17 In Burkina Faso, for example, poor nutrition in pregnant women resulting from a decline
02:23 in a rainfall has been associated with a decline in the cognitive ability of their children.
02:30 During the financial crisis in Mexico and Southeast Asia during the 1990s, families
02:35 were more likely to pull their children out of school if the household breadwinner becomes
02:40 unemployed.
02:43 Reversing inequality will not be easy.
02:45 Disruptions to education caused by the pandemic could have a longer-term impact on job and
02:51 income prospects for low-income households; that would set back intergenerational mobility.
02:57 Not to mention that learning from the Ebola crisis, more girls do not return to school
03:02 compared with boys, which would be a setback for gender equality.
03:06 Meanwhile, high inflation and surging debt could hinder the ability of countries to support
03:12 vulnerable groups and facilitate recovery.
03:15 The situation requires forceful policy responses from governments as well as global responses.
03:23 First, a rapid vaccine roll out and redoubling efforts to implement reforms aimed to boost
03:30 productivity growth can help reduce between country inequality.
03:35 Second, continuous support to groups hit hardest by the pandemic can ease within income inequality
03:43 when it is combined with broader efforts to reduce inequality of outcomes and opportunities.
03:51 Measures to broaden access to healthcare and education, infrastructure, technology and
03:55 finance can contribute to a more level playing field in terms of opportunity.
04:02 The global community must support the national effort by accelerating vaccine distribution,
04:10 debt relief where it's most needed and maintaining an open and rule based trade and investment
04:17 climate.
04:18 With those opening remarks to try to set the scene, let us now turn to our distinguished
04:24 panelists for their opening remarks on the topic.
04:28 Let me first turn to Alejandra for her remarks.
04:33 Over to you Alejandra.
04:35 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you very much Mari for such an interesting
04:39 introduction.
04:40 I would like to, first of all, say hello to my colleagues in the panel to Branko and to
04:48 Sofia.
04:49 This is going to be a very interesting discussion.
04:50 I look forward to the conclusions and the conversation that we will have.
04:55 I would also like thank Mark Roland and Peter Seigenthaler that are the World Bank managers
05:03 in Colombia and in the region for inviting me to this panel.
05:07 So to start with my opening remarks.
05:10 I would like to say that definitely it's extremely interesting and pertinent at this moment.
05:16 The conclusions from not only the global economic perspectives but specifically as, Mari you
05:22 were saying, the chapter about the impact of COVID-19 on global income inequality.
05:28 In that sense, we do specially understand and it was fascinating to see that considerable
05:35 amount of equality between countries and the modest increase inequality within the country.
05:42 In the case of Colombia, that has been the case as well.
05:48 We receded to 2011 levels in the Gini coefficient, which I will talk about a little bit later.
05:55 And that's the same with the poverty indexes.
05:59 We were on a really good track in the last five or six years of poverty reduction and
06:11 extreme poverty reduction.
06:13 And that was reversed drastically during the 2020 levels.
06:18 We are very worried about the long-term income inequality within the countries, which is
06:28 of the panel.
06:30 And that's why in the following discussions I will elaborate on some of the actions that
06:37 we're taking as a government.
06:42 Not only in the short term to protect the vulnerable population but in terms of the
06:50 disparity in the education levels and the access to public services such as internet
06:57 is, I think, some of the medium term goals that we are focusing on as a country.
07:05 Colombia is, in terms of Latin America, we're now considered a medium level income country
07:12 but we still have one of the highest Gini coefficients in the region.
07:17 In that sense, we, as a government, started this governance in 2019 and our national plan,
07:25 the goal, was actually to reduce inequality.
07:28 That was the highest objective.
07:30 It was a plan to reduce inequality, and our biggest impact indicator was going reduce
07:35 the Gini coefficient from 0.51 to 0.47.
07:40 In that sense, we had actions in terms of massifying education perpetuity, seeing how
07:49 we could formalize and have a very informal economy: 60% of our economy is informal.
07:52 We had ambitious calls in terms of gender disparity, in terms of inclusion of more vulnerable
07:53 groups in the social transfer programs.
07:54 When the pandemic hit, we were doing, as an economy, really well.
07:59 And these indicators were actually…
08:00 Everything was going on track but we had to very quickly anticipate the impact of the
08:01 pandemic on especially the more vulnerable population.
08:02 So what we did is that we very quickly strengthened the conditional transfer programs and we created
08:03 a non-conditional transfer program called “Ingreso Solidario”, which is a matter
08:07 of one month had identified a vulnerable population that was not covered by conditional transfer
08:11 programs or by other social programs.
08:12 So that would be like, the group of the populations that had enough impact that they didn't have
08:19 access to all the social programs but they were going to be the hardest hit once the
08:29 economy goes down.
08:30 And this program had to go in one month from an objective of 300,000 to up to three million
08:36 at the end of 2020.
08:37 And I think that's one of the biggest lessons that we learned is how can we do a program
08:43 that will protect the vulnerable population, not the poorest population.
08:49 Of course, we have to protect the poorest population, but also the population that is
08:54 most at risk at falling in these types of crisis.
08:56 So I will elaborate a little bit more on the other programs during the discussion, but
09:02 I do think I would like to follow the remarks that, for the coming years, for us it's very
09:07 important in the short term to be able to maintain the reactivation of the economy but
09:11 hand in hand on how do we continue to protect the more vulnerable population.
09:15 It's not a question of either or we put all the public resources in reactivation; we can
09:25 do as much as we can but we can't let all the social programs that we indulged during
09:31 the pandemic because we still have to accompany the most vulnerable population until we reach
09:39 at least pre-pandemic levels, which we hope to do during this year in 2022 in terms of
09:47 poverty.
09:48 And also thinking in the medium term, how to increase that access and that quality education,
09:53 so that we reduce the gap that happens during the pandemic with the lack of in person education
10:02 and the access to all the public services, such as internet, such as infrastructure,
10:09 such as other public services which will continue to reduce the intergenerational poverty gap
10:13 in the medium term.
10:16 Thank you very much.
10:18 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, thank you Alejandra.
10:19 Can I now invite Branko to provide his opening remarks?
10:26 [Branko Milanovic] Thank you very much, Mari.
10:29 It is really a pleasure to be invited and to be here.
10:32 As you said, it is a very important panel.
10:35 And of course it's a huge really important topic that as we are discussing today.
10:41 So let me start with saying something very simple but I think it's important because
10:45 we have heard over these two years so many different talks and, of course, everybody's
10:50 talking about the rising inequality.
10:52 And very often we didn't really have the data, we were actually sort of in a fog or guessing.
10:57 Let me just say very clearly, this is the first report that does actually data work
11:04 based on what has happened during the crisis.
11:06 So it's actually for the first time that we really can take an empirical stock of what
11:12 happened during the crisis.
11:13 And I think actually it puts the World Bank back in the position where it should be, which
11:17 means it's really the provider of the data global on the really important topics.
11:23 And I think this topic is certainly the most important topic in the world.
11:27 Moreover, it is still ongoing.
11:29 Now, having said that, as Mari said and actually, I'm sure other participants will say as well,
11:37 we are basically dealing here with the crisis that we have never had any experience.
11:43 First of all, there are two channels and that's quite important.
11:46 There is a channel of income, which led to, of course, the reduction of incomes practically
11:51 in all countries in the world.
11:52 I look at 2020, the World Bank data.
11:55 I think there are 14 countries that did not have a decline on GDP.
11:59 So that clearly means that we had, as the report says, a significant increase in poverty,
12:07 whatever measure you take and practically whatever country.
12:09 As I said, a couple of exceptions, China being a big one, but everybody else actually had
12:15 an inclusive point.
12:16 Then we come to inequality.
12:18 There the situation is much more complex because we had, sort of, reached a point at which
12:28 Chinese growth was no longer contributing to reduction of global poverty because China
12:32 became relatively rich or a middle-income country where actually the contribution was
12:37 no longer forthcoming.
12:39 That meant for the global inequality to go down, you had to have high growth rates in
12:44 Africa and India basically.
12:46 Well, that actually did not happen because of COVID, because as you know, Indian growth
12:51 actually became negative, Africa was very strongly affected.
12:55 On top of that, of course richer countries were affected.
12:59 So essentially, we have come to a situation where the convergence of incomes has ceased,
13:04 so that's the second bad news.
13:06 Now the third part is what happened within national inequality.
13:09 That's probably the most difficult part.
13:11 And it's a very diverse because in poorer countries that did not have money to support
13:17 people who lost jobs, you had a loss of income practically along the entire income distribution,
13:25 even the richer people.
13:27 Overall, of course the poor were affected much more, so inequality went up there.
13:32 In the rich countries, you had large programs in the US up to 20% of the GDP.
13:38 So that interestingly, for example, meant that inequality within the United States in
13:45 2020 went down.
13:47 So you had very diverse effects on inequality within countries when it comes to income inequality.
13:55 Then finally, we come then to the second channel, which I think is extremely important, and
14:00 it's a channel with which we are going to deal for the years to come.
14:04 And this is first what the crisis has revealed: a huge difference in access to vaccines, and
14:10 actually access to health, and actually access to life between the rich and the poor countries.
14:16 You have seen the numbers that the vaccination rates are like in the single digits in many
14:20 poor countries.
14:21 And they're like hitting almost the ceiling of 90 or 100% in rich countries.
14:26 I mean, this is an incredible difference.
14:29 Then we have had education, which was already mentioned by Alejandra and by Mari.
14:33 But the education effects are going to last, as Alejandra said, for years, and I don't
14:38 want to be like a Cassandra here, but if you look, for example, education effect of the
14:43 Chinese culture revolution, this is very similar.
14:46 You have had millions of children who actually did not go to school and did not go to school
14:51 on a regular basis.
14:53 So that's yet another channel, which would actually stay with us for a long time.
14:58 And then of course the channel of the change is another one is about work and labor.
15:03 That would change also because people, some jobs have been lost.
15:07 Other jobs will come; they will be also globalization of labor ability to work remotely.
15:13 So we really have had a tremendous change in our lives.
15:18 And of course, tremendous declines or a tremendous revealing of the underlying income inequalities
15:26 of which we may not have been aware before the crisis.
15:31 So I think I will again upload the report.
15:33 I think it's actually great that we now have data on what actually has happened.
15:39 So that would be for me for the opening.
15:41 And I'm sure we will have more discussion on all these topics.
15:44 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Branko.
15:46 Those were excellent remarks.
15:48 And thank you for appreciating the data and the work that we have been doing.
15:54 And, really, it highlights the issues and the problems and the bigger discussion is
16:00 what needs to be done.
16:01 And I heard earlier from Alejandra what Colombia has tried to do.
16:05 So before we go back, later on we'll come back to what should be done kind of question.
16:13 Let me now turn to Sofia for her opening remarks.
16:16 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Thank you.
16:19 Thank you for inviting CARE to this very important event.
16:23 It is a true honor to be part of this crucial discussion on how we will work together to
16:27 reverse the very worrying trend of increasing inequality described in the excellent World
16:32 Bank report and highlighted, of course, by Alejandra and Branko, and how we can work
16:37 together towards reducing inequalities in a lasting way.
16:41 I'm here as a practitioner.
16:44 At CARE, we put gender equality at the heart of everything we do: humanitarian action,
16:49 response to and recovery from COVID and the long-term development interventions for economic
16:54 justice.
16:55 And far too often women and girls fall through the cracks of policy interventions and responses
17:01 to crisis, and through the cracks of these dialogues.
17:05 They often remain invisible.
17:07 And as we speak about rising inequality, I will very much emphasize its gender dimension
17:13 and what it means and has meant for women and girls.
17:18 The past 20 months have really been like no other in our lifetimes.
17:24 It is to me even still hard to grasp because of seismic nature of the moment in which we
17:30 find ourselves, everything has been shaken.
17:33 And I do, very briefly, want to speak to the size of the problem we are confronted with.
17:39 You all know it but I want to bring the numbers, the scale of what we are confronted with to
17:43 this room, to this virtual room.
17:46 And I would like to then speak about what this moment demands from us.
17:51 In fact, at this very unprecedented time, what we probably need the most is collaboration
17:58 across the sector, government, academic, the World Bank, and NGO like CARE between and
18:04 within organizations, because that is probably what is mostly required.
18:10 And that's why I'm so thankful to be here today.
18:14 For the first time in 20 years, poverty has been increasing and the pandemic is estimated
18:20 to have increased extreme poverty, poverty even more, but extreme poverty by nearly a
18:25 hundred million people.
18:27 And in 2021 alone, 235 million people needed humanitarian assistance and protection.
18:35 This number has risen to one-in-33 people worldwide.
18:38 It's the biggest figure in decades.
18:42 The UN is warning of famine of biblical proportions and famine conditions actually already exist
18:48 for thousands of people in Burkina Faso, South Sudan, and Yemen.
18:53 These are really record-breaking levels of hunger, and I'll speak more to it.
18:59 The World Economic Forum has shown that we see a reversal in gender equality, actually
19:04 by a generation.
19:08 And I could go on; I'm citing just some numbers.
19:12 And of course, then climate change and its impact.
19:14 So as we are discussing how to reverse roaring inequalities, I must say that I'm actually
19:22 not surprised by the findings of the World Bank report.
19:25 We are witnessing this first hand and what these global statistics of rising income inequalities,
19:32 this proportionate impacts of the COVID pandemic, lack of vaccine availability and slowing economic
19:38 growth, and tightly squeezed public budgets actually mean for the lives of millions of
19:45 women and girls.
19:47 At the beginning of the pandemic, we conducted a rapid gender analysis in 40 countries and
19:53 spoke at CARE with more than 6,000 women.
19:57 And these women include women who have lost their income and livelihoods, frontline, healthcare
20:01 workers, subsistence farmers struggling amid very prolonged droughts, those living in conflict
20:08 and those also suffering the shadow pandemic of gender based violence while locked at home
20:15 with their abusers.
20:17 What women everywhere reveal is how COVID has devastated their lives, highlighting the
20:24 deep and complex trends of very increased inequalities and the global prosperity report
20:32 that it so aptly shows.
20:35 Of course structural inequalities have existed before the pandemic, but COVID has exacerbated
20:40 them, fueled them and reversed progress on gender equality by a generation.
20:46 Women who already face discrimination, those in poverty, those in the LGBTQI community,
20:53 and those who are disabled have felt the biggest impacts.
20:58 We have a historic opportunity to finally tackle structuring equality as the only route
21:06 to a more just world.
21:08 This moment must be a wakeup call, the starting point for a better gender just, green, resilient
21:14 and inclusive future.
21:16 And this is encapsulated in IDA20, and it can become a reality.
21:22 We will talk more about how in the next round of questions, but of course vaccine delivery,
21:30 building forward in agenda equitable and inclusive way and fostering the economic justice for
21:38 women is, of course, in the forefront for us on this front.
21:43 I'll talk more about it when we have a chance.
21:45 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Sofía for your very impassioned
21:52 plea for us to really look at the impact on gender.
21:59 And I think this has also been the main thread of many conversations, just because the pandemic
22:07 has impacted women more than men.
22:10 You listed some of the data.
22:11 I think the other two that I would add is that our household survey shows that because
22:18 with lower incomes, people are eating less and women eat less than men because they are
22:28 basically usually sacrificing for the family.
22:31 The health aspect, right?
22:34 As people focused on vaccines, there were less resources available for women health
22:41 services and that also had a really a major impact on women.
22:45 So I think we've had a good series of opening remarks.
22:52 We have now set ourselves to a good setting of the scene for really going deeper into
23:01 this very important topic.
23:03 Let me start our panel discussion with Alejandra, with the experience of Colombia.
23:10 I know that, in your opening remarks, you started to talk about the social assistance
23:15 program in Colombia, and how you had to go from 300,000 to three million.
23:25 And this is also what has been experienced by other countries.
23:30 Social assistance programs used to be only focusing on the very poor, but with the crisis,
23:35 as you said, we have to broaden it and we actually have to be adaptable.
23:40 So if you could just share how could you actually scale up very quickly from 300,000 to three
23:46 million?
23:48 Was it the fact that you had digital ID?
23:51 How are we better able to target a broader group?
23:55 Because nowadays we are talking about the need for more adaptable and flexible social
24:01 protection programs that can deal with different types of crisis and different impact in different
24:07 groups.
24:08 So that would be very interesting for us to hear: how you were able to implement this
24:14 and what were the learnings from it.
24:16 And also the informal sector, that's kind of the big question we hear everywhere in
24:21 the developing countries: how do we address the informal sector?
24:25 Because we don't have data on them, we don't know where they are.
24:30 Finally, maybe, if you could share on education.
24:34 How did you deal with learning issues, and so on, on the education front?
24:45 Just to share the Colombia experience.
24:47 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you very much, Mari, for the question.
24:54 Yes, definitely.
24:55 So as I said in my introduction, we were having a very sort of slow but encouraging reduction
25:04 in poverty.
25:05 For example, in 2012 our monetary poverty was 40.8%.
25:08 It has gone down in 2018 to 34.7%; 2019, 35.7%, and then in 2020 it went up to 42.5%.
25:14 So these are below 2012 levels.
25:17 A very, very important increase in poverty.
25:19 But during this increase we knew was going to happen.
25:22 What we did was try to see how we could very quickly create and strengthen programs that
25:28 would envelope a much broader portion of the population than just what's covered right
25:36 now by social programs and especially the traditional transfer programs, which are,
25:42 one, the biggest one, it's called Familias en Acción, and it's for families who have
25:50 a child and it had to do with [inaudible] repeating at school and keeping them on their
25:57 health checks, etcetera.
25:58 Familias en Acción is given to 2.4 million families, right?
25:59 2.4 million families.
26:00 But just to give you an example, Familias en Acción, which was created over 10 years
26:06 ago, took at least eight years to get to the size where it is right now.
26:15 And that's 2.4 million families.
26:17 And it acts the same with Jóvenes en Acción, which is the other big conditional transfer
26:25 program that we have here, which is for young adults to be able to sponsor their education
26:31 or vocational training.
26:32 And that, right now we have 500,000 students or young adults in this program.
26:39 So at the beginning of 2020, we had one program, which was the reverse of the value-added tax.
26:52 So Colombia has a 90% [inaudible] tax, and in January, before the pandemic hit, I mean,
26:59 it started globally but it hadn't come to Colombia yet, we passed a law where we're
27:06 going to implement a return of the value-added tax on 20% of the poorest population.
27:15 And that return of the value-added tax was very small.
27:18 It's just $10 a month, right?
27:20 But we were going to start originally with only 300,000.
27:24 And we hadn't even thought of the other big transfer program, which is Ingreso Solidario.
27:30 When the pandemic hits in March, in April we very, very quickly come together, the social
27:39 program, the Ministry of Finances and us as the Planning Department, because we're the
27:44 ones who are in charge of the design of these social programs, and we quickly think, "Okay,
27:51 how are we going to do to protect the most vulnerable population?"
27:58 We couldn't continue with the traditional way that things were done.
28:09 Familias en Acción was still been sent through a typical wire transfer or with big cash box
28:18 that would come to the cities we couldn’t work without.
28:22 But we had to, for example, think creativity on how do we access that vulnerable population?
28:28 But there's a secrecy component in that international data and statistics organization, the [inaudible].
28:36 So what we had to do was sit with [inaudible], which is a statistics organization, and given
28:45 the fact that it was an emergency, we would be able to cross the data to understand what
28:53 is that vulnerable population that is not currently covered in the social programs.
28:59 And then, we had to do a meeting with all the communications companies, and the companies
29:05 that have fintech and banking by WhatsApp or by mobile app.
29:11 And that way, with around 12 banks if I'm not mistaken, we developed the strategy across
29:21 the vulnerable population with the mobile banking to be able to access these populations
29:32 via text message.
29:37 And that way, being able to bring them into Ingreso Solidario, which is the program that
29:45 was created just for the pandemic.
29:47 Ingreso Solidario is a total of $40 per month.
29:54 So it's definitely not life-changing but we were thinking of it as a top-up for this vulnerable
30:05 population.
30:06 And I must say that we had two impact evaluations that had very positive results on these two
30:16 programs, because Ingreso Solidario went very quickly in a month to one million, and then
30:24 in six or seven months to three million people.
30:31 Colombia has a population of around 50 million.
30:35 And this year we are maintaining Ingreso Solidario and it's going up to four million Colombians.
30:42 And then, devolución del IVA, which is the counter regressive value-added tax, was going
30:44 to be just for 300,000 people and it's already up to a million Colombians, right?
30:50 So those will help complement the traditional programs.
30:54 And what we had with an impact evaluation that if we hadn't done those social programs,
31:01 the poverty would have gone up to 46.1%.
31:06 So in 2019, we were in 35.7%.
31:10 It went up to 42.5% of the population, so seven points more.
31:16 But if we hadn't done this, it would have gone up to 46%.
31:25 So they actually had a very important impact in the litigation of poverty, specifically
31:33 the impact evaluations, the study had some findings on the financial of the families
31:38 who received this impact.
31:40 They also spent more money on the education of the children.
31:45 What Branko was talking about and what Mari was talking about at the beginning, how these
31:53 families when faced with adversities, pull their children out of school.
31:59 They're investing more in the education, and in that sense what we estimate is it, like,
32:07 helping them even if they were doing education remotely so that they could do it better.
32:15 They were spending more on food for the family.
32:19 And yes, it had also some important benefits on the psychological aspects of the family.
32:27 So these were some of the key findings on the impact evaluation of these social programs,
32:36 which, as I said, were very [inaudible] in the face of the value-added return, and was
32:43 non-existent in the case of Ingreso Solidario.
32:46 So we scaled them up, given this very innovative work with statistics crossing and with the
32:53 help of the telecommunication companies and the fintech of the banks.
32:56 That was the way we could scale up to three million, imagine, in the question of six months.
32:58 And I think that's something that's very positive to share with countries that have faced similar,
33:01 or that have a similar demographic on this, I guess, that we can share this experience.
33:08 So that's in the case of the conditional transfer program.
33:12 In the case of the informal sector, Mari, as you were asking me, I would say that the
33:21 informal sector was impacted also by Ingreso Solidario, because given a country that has
33:22 a 60% informality; these are people that are not in the radar, not only of the social programs
33:26 but of the social protection program.
33:27 So the way to attend them was through Ingreso Solidario.
33:28 However, as a government we did have a very strong program on the protection of formal
33:29 employment for SME, and especially for the very, very small SMEs, in Colombia we call
33:30 them the pymes, which is actually 96% of all the companies that are created in Colombia.
33:33 What we did was a subsidy in terms of the salary of companies that had 50 or less employees.
33:36 They could ask the government for a subsidy, and that way they could maintain or help maintain
33:39 the formal employment.
33:40 That was called a program to protect the formal employment, and that's also something that
33:42 we maintained until December of 2021, so until last month.
33:43 And finally, in terms of the learning issues, I think this is very, very delicate in terms
33:45 of Colombia, because Colombia is a country that is very broad.
33:46 We have 114 million hectares.
33:47 So for example, in terms of internet coverage, in this moment we've 6% internet coverage
33:48 in the region, [inaudible] in the country.
33:49 So when the schools decided to close down, what the general statistics said was that
33:50 about one-third of the population of the students, we're talking about not university students
33:52 but primary, elementary and high school students, one-third of the students were still connected
33:56 to the class.
33:58 One-third were intermittently connected to the class, [inaudible].
34:01 And then one-third went off the grid completely, off the grid.
34:06 You couldn't see them through the WhatsApp programs because a lot of the schools implemented
34:09 WhatsApp learning and other ways to be able to reach the families, at least on a weekly
34:13 basis.
34:15 But at least a third of the [inaudible] population went off the grid.
34:21 So right now, we have a mandatory return to presentiality and the schools are already
34:26 continuing; and that goes hand-in-hand with the vaccination program for children and for
34:29 the teachers.
34:30 But what we did right now, for example, was we are currently negotiating a loan with a
34:37 program called Promise, which is going to focus on the medium-term improvements in the
34:45 education system to be able to close that educational gap.
34:50 And it's mostly focused on strengthening education as a sector, and specifically on the teacher
34:57 abilities to be able to increase the pace of the learning curve of the families who
35:04 have the children that have been affected by the pandemic.
35:07 So it's a loan that we are negotiating right now, that will be implemented this year, but
35:16 that certainly will have a more medium-term effect to be able to reverse that impact in
35:23 education on the children that were affected during the pandemic.
35:28 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
35:31 I think your explanation is emphasizing the importance of having data on the different
35:40 vulnerable groups, and linking it to the payment system.
35:45 And I think ability also to monitor their effectiveness.
35:49 And on the informal, usually it should be assistance to firms, but you cannot reach
35:58 the informal sector so providing them social assistance is just as good as the only support
36:04 that you could give, and that's actually borne out in many other countries as well.
36:10 Very low internet penetration rate in Colombia, that's kind of really also a surprising number.
36:18 But again, I think this is going to be a real challenge.
36:21 I think our numbers are coming in.
36:23 I think on average, kids have not been in school in developing countries on average
36:29 for 250 days for the last two years.
36:33 That's a very high number.
36:34 And so, you're talking about learning losses that can we recuperate these learning losses
36:41 or not?
36:42 And how do we really address that?
36:46 Let me now turn to Branko and Sofía.
36:50 So broadening the question beyond Colombia, we see evidence that pandemic has entrenched
36:56 or even worsen existing inequalities within countries, which could affect social mobility
37:02 and resilience to future shocks.
37:05 How do you think governments should act to reverse these trends?
37:09 Maybe let's start with Sofía first, and then over to Branko.
37:24 So, Sofía?
37:26 Sofía, you're muted.
37:30 You have been unmuted.
37:32 Yes.
37:33 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] [Inaudible] me.
37:36 [Mari Pangestu] Yes, now you're unmuted.
37:40 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Can you hear me now?
37:44 Oh, okay, thank you.
37:45 Sorry for that.
37:46 Well, let me start before I go maybe to governments, actually, to probably what is the first critical
37:51 measure throughout the world, and that is ensuring equity in COVID vaccine delivery.
37:58 And, of course, that requires ramping up financing and ambition.
38:03 And access to vaccines, and Branko flagged that as well, with Western and rich countries
38:10 hoarding vaccine has, as we all know, been a horrific inequality.
38:16 We will not overcome this pandemic with national solutions alone.
38:21 And increasing finance for vaccine delivery must be a priority.
38:25 In fact, [inaudible] just investment care for the coming year to vaccinate 70% of the
38:33 world's population, and for in-country delivery costs additional funding will be needed.
38:39 And that includes, of course, from domestic budgets but also in the form of direct bilateral
38:44 aid; not loans, direct bilateral aid, and the full global cost of equitable vaccine
38:52 delivery could actually be as high as 190 billion.
38:57 But let me come to what governments could do.
39:03 I think in the context of what I flagged earlier, in fact the pandemic has reversed progress
39:09 and gender equality by a generation.
39:12 That means that women now will be waiting 135 years before the gender gap closes.
39:21 Sorry, the video, I got a message that the video was off.
39:28 So 100 and…
39:34 [Mari Pangestu] I think your connection seems to be dropping.
39:50 So try turning off your video actually might help.
39:53 It might help the connection.
39:55 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] [Crosstalk] hear me okay?
39:56 [Mari Pangestu] Yeah.
39:57 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I will turn off the video for a moment, if
40:01 you can hear me.
40:02 Can you hear me?
40:03 [Mari Pangestu] Yes.
40:04 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] So what we must do, firstly on unpaid care.
40:08 Women are more affected by COVID, very devastating economic impact, than men.
40:13 They are, in fact, 1.8 times more likely to have lost their jobs and do three times as
40:18 much unpaid care work as men and boys, an amount which has increased by a further 30%
40:24 to 40% since the beginning of the pandemic.
40:28 So we need increased ambition on building the care economy, including by recognizing
40:33 care as a right.
40:35 That includes childcare but it goes beyond that.
40:39 We must provide 10% of national public budgets for care and social services, and the creation
40:47 of 80 million decent jobs for women in particular.
40:52 I think a second critical area for governments is social protection.
40:57 Women also have access to fewer safety measures and services, which reduces their resilience
41:03 to shocks, as the pandemic of course has shown.
41:06 So accessing savings, credits and public safety provisions is the number one coping mechanism
41:13 during a crisis.
41:15 Yet working women, who make up the majority of workers in the informal sector, or are
41:21 working in jobs without access to formal safety nets or social protections like often domestic
41:28 workers or street vendors, and small-scale farmers or entrepreneurs.
41:35 So we need a large-scale expansion of existing social protection schemes and safety nets
41:41 towards universal social protection, as well as a global fund to gradually work toward
41:48 universal social protection.
41:51 And decent work.
41:52 We must reverse the trends of rising inequality, and that requires an investment in decent
41:58 work opportunities for women.
42:00 And that includes investing in frontline healthcare workers in order to build resilient and inclusive
42:06 health systems that can actually withstand the future pandemics. 70% of frontline healthcare
42:13 workers are women.
42:15 When they're fairly paid, well trained and adequately protected, they can drive both
42:20 economic growth and pandemic preparedness.
42:25 Another opportunity is also tapping into the potential of the transition toward a green
42:31 economy and generating green work for women, which is actually an area that interests us
42:37 a lot at CARE, and that we are watching very, very closely.
42:41 Working women will not automatically benefit from these new jobs.
42:46 They're focusing the green jobs on a narrow segment, and this narrow segment could reinforce
42:53 gender inequalities in the job market.
42:56 So global action that broadens definition even of what a green job is, that could include
43:06 sectors that are traditionally dominated by women like care and the social work, and explicitly
43:11 removing barriers to women, taking up jobs in the low-carbon, net zero economy, like
43:17 stronger anti-discrimination laws and family-friendly workplace policies.
43:23 That will help ensure that the transition to a low-carbon economy is gender just and
43:29 inclusive.
43:31 Thank you, Mari, and sorry.
43:32 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you for your very impassioned comments.
43:40 Actually, you started to answer one of the questions that came up from the audience,
43:47 which was how could we help, how could we address the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic
43:57 made more women jobless because they had to stay at home and take care of children, and
44:03 what could governments do to push in the gender impact, because the care responsibilities
44:09 feel disproportionately on women.
44:12 You've answered some of what governments could do.
44:15 Maybe if I could ask Alejandra and Branko to come in on this gender question.
44:21 Apart from what Sofía already mentioned as to what governments could do, what more, what
44:30 are some of the other programs do you think governments should be able to address the
44:39 increasing gender… the fact that we have a bigger impact on women than men?
44:43 And this is going to, as Sofía has mentioned, reverse gender inequality.
44:49 What are some of the other government policies that we need to have in place?
44:59 Also, another question that's related to that: Is there a role for global policies to address
45:15 gender inequality?
45:16 So I thought I would put those two questions from the audience together, just because Sofía
45:22 started to talk about we can do to address gender inequality.
45:27 So let's…
45:28 [Alejandra Botero] Mari, I think you're on mute.
45:39 [Mari Pangestu] Sorry.
45:43 [Alejandra Botero] Okay.
45:47 [Mari Pangestu] Did you hear all that I said?
45:51 [Alejandra Botero] What could government, or what government
45:54 policies you could do to address the gender [inaudible], right?
45:57 [Mari Pangestu] [Crosstalk] As well as the, and global.
45:59 If you can also, there's…
46:02 What can government, what more…?
46:04 Sofía mentioned a list of policies.
46:06 What more could governments…?
46:07 What are some other policies that you probably, from your own experience, you thought could
46:14 work, to address the gender inequality?
46:16 And if you can think of global.
46:19 What is the global…?
46:20 We talked about vaccines, definitely that's a global policy.
46:24 What's the global policy that we could think of?
46:29 [Alejandra Botero] Well, I think, if I can start just briefly
46:33 with the context.
46:34 As Sofía was saying, this exact, this happened in Colombia.
46:39 By definition, the unemployment rate between men and women, women unemployment rate is
46:48 traditionally higher.
46:49 It's about five points higher than the male unemployment rate.
46:50 But this rate actually increased during the pandemic.
46:51 It went up to 7.7%.
46:52 So from 5.3 to 7.7% was the unemployment gap between men and women.
46:56 And obviously as we all know, many factors explain it.
47:01 The fact that children weren't going to school, the fact that they had to take care of the
47:12 elders.
47:13 So women were the first ones to give up their jobs, so to say, to be able to help the maintenance
47:27 of the family.
47:28 In that sense, now the reactivation and the numbers that are coming in, the economic
47:42 numbers are pretty good.
47:44 I think we're going to close 2020 [inaudible] and with a 9.7 increase in GDP, and we're
47:55 looking towards a 4 to 5% increase in 2022.
48:00 However, the employment rates are still lagging behind.
48:03 And that gap between woman and men is also still increasing.
48:07 An economic analysis that we do is that we think that as a company, as a country…
48:13 But right now with Omicron, everything is in a standstill, but as the vaccination continues
48:18 and the sectors that have more employment of women and the younger population, we also
48:25 have a very, very big increase in unemployment for youth or for the younger population.
48:32 As the sectors, such as tourism, restaurants and all the other social services opened up,
48:36 we hope that that gap between men and women will start to decrease.
48:39 However, while this happens, there's a short-term policy that we implemented in September, which
48:42 is a subsidy in the salary of companies that hire women and young people.
48:46 So if they hire someone who's under 28 years old, because the unemployment of people under
48:49 30 is very, very high in Colombia, then they get a 25% subsidy from the government in their
48:58 salary.
48:59 And if that person is a woman, even if they're over 28 year old, they get a 10% additional
49:00 coverage in the salary.
49:01 This is the equivalent of health and other social protection programs.
49:03 Basically, that's what the government is subsidizing, to be able to stimulate employment.
49:04 And from the very recent data that we've gotten, because this is a program that was only implemented
49:05 about three months ago, the numbers are starting to pick up.
49:08 So that's something that from Colombia's example, we are doing, in order to address the gender
49:13 gap.
49:14 But I think global policies that we can cross, share and understand and see how we can implement,
49:27 I think how we can strengthen the sectors where they have a strong female participation,
49:32 would be very useful.
49:33 How are we going to get back to the reactivation in tourism?
49:36 How are we going to get back to the reactivation in the education sector, sectors where women
49:43 are a big portion of the labor force?
49:45 I think that's something that would be very interesting to understand.
49:50 And also in terms of the regulatory environment, so that we have a more equal participation
49:57 in general, in the duties of the families, but also in the labor duties.
50:05 So for example, we just recently implemented in Colombia, a paid leave for men, for the
50:07 husbands, of five days.
50:09 And that was a huge controversy here.
50:11 Not a huge controversy, but it's debatable whether it's five days versus what women have
50:21 to take.
50:22 I think all those evaluations and understanding of policies that make the care economy and
50:25 an equal, the level playing field for women in the medium term, is what's going to help
50:34 us be more resilient once another crisis like this comes around and be better prepared as
50:39 a society, so that we don't have that gender gap, that as Sofía's number show, is drastic.
50:47 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
50:50 Branko, would you like to come in on this question?
50:53 [Branko Milanovic] Well, I might not come exactly like the question
50:57 that you asked me because I was going to say a little bit more about the global response
51:04 and what might be done.
51:07 I'm much weaker on this might be done, but let me say that I'm, I think like many people,
51:14 extremely disappointed by the global response.
51:17 We have to put the things really upfront and to say the truth.
51:22 Let me just compare first.
51:24 The expectations, as you know, there was this study done by Johns Hopkins and economist
51:31 intelligence unit that actually argued that just before the pandemic itself happened,
51:35 that the US, UK and the Netherlands were the best prepared countries to face the pandemic
51:41 and nobody could have expected the US would have one million dead.
51:44 We were basically there.
51:46 This is a disaster.
51:48 We are talking about up to 15 million excess deaths.
51:52 This is like a global war.
51:56 And then under conditions like that, we have had WHO, I'm not going to criticize them,
52:01 but they are generally considered not to have performed well.
52:05 Secondly, we have in an emergency of such proportions, which is very clear that unless
52:11 the pandemic is also solved in the poor countries, you cannot solve it in the rich countries
52:16 for obvious reasons because people travel and the epidemic will spread.
52:20 And very little yet has been done.
52:22 And if you compare the immediacy of the problem and the number of people who were affected
52:28 and the loss of a job and income and death, and on the other hand, you look at the climate
52:33 change discussions, which have been going on for 20 years, you actually realize that
52:38 the world really has shown itself absolutely not ready to do certain things when the danger
52:45 is so present and immediate.
52:47 And that of course leaves you very skeptical about the ability of changing things now.
52:53 And it makes you, I think, very skeptical about the ability to address longer-term problems
52:59 like a climate change.
53:00 And moreover, we are talking now lots about money.
53:03 Everybody's like throwing numbers left and right.
53:06 But somebody has to produce these numbers and one doesn't see other than this pledges.
53:10 I've been in this world for a long time.
53:13 I remember working on East European countries.
53:16 Every three months, the Western countries would pledge some billions.
53:19 Theses billions would never show up anywhere, because there will be a combination of forgiveness
53:24 of the loans, loans which should be rescheduled, money which should come, which never comes.
53:30 So we are again in this game of billions and billions.
53:33 And eventually, at the end of the road, I was recently talking to somebody about the
53:37 climate change, where actually the total disbursements were 1% of what was pledged.
53:43 So I'm afraid that what we are talking now is not going to actually come to any fruition.
53:49 And so I'm very pessimistic, as you can see.
53:52 And moreover, it is taking place in a climate where actually, rather than having cooperation
53:57 between the two largest economies of the world, we have basically a fight with them.
54:02 So, unless these things are really changed dramatically, and I think that needs to be
54:06 changed on some kind of a global summit or something, which would really do things in
54:10 the way that we have done it in 1945, I don't think any change.
54:15 Unfortunately, we would be fighting the battles of the last war and we would continue just
54:20 hoping that the new pandemic does not hit us.
54:24 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Branko.
54:26 That was a very sobering assessment of the lack of global cooperation.
54:31 I think many of us would agree and it's sort of what needs to be done.
54:39 On the vaccines, obviously there's a lot that's going on, but still short of delivery and
54:46 a lot has to do also with the issue of supply, as well as the readiness of the countries
54:52 themselves to be able to deliver a vaccine.
54:55 But I think you're right, that there does need to be…
55:00 People do talk about the notion of having a marshal type of a fund that could be addressing
55:10 these very global challenges, which are exacerbating inequality, obviously.
55:14 Whether it's climate, whether it's on the health and obviously on debt, that's the other
55:21 big one, on debt restructuring and debt relief.
55:25 Otherwise, countries will not be able to recover and actually put themselves in a much more
55:34 worse situation.
55:35 But just on…
55:36 Let's close before we move on to the next topic, let me just add on gender.
55:42 I think countries can also certainly put a gender lens…
55:48 We talk about this a lot, but putting a gender lens in all the policy responses, like if
55:54 you have Cash For Work program, a lot of them tend to be in infrastructure, for instance.
56:00 How can you make sure that women are also getting the Cash For Work program?
56:04 On health, I mentioned already the maternal healthcare, the importance of addressing that.
56:09 I think we are seeing lots of data coming in on increased gender-based violence and
56:16 early child marriage.
56:17 Again, that needs a strong government policy and commitment and the involvement of communities,
56:24 especially religious communities, to prevent that from escalating.
56:29 And I think digital, the issue of reskilling and upskilling.
56:34 We talk about digital and data also shows that women, as well as women-owned businesses,
56:42 have been less able to adapt to the digital technology.
56:48 So having a focus, I think, on women and digital will also help at the country level.
56:56 At the global level, I think on the trade front, there are many issues that are very
57:03 gender specific, in terms of how do we help women participate in trade SME's?
57:12 We have a number of studies linking trade and gender, and they show that at the border,
57:19 corruption and harassment tends to hurt women traders and informal sector more than others.
57:27 So, addressing that for instance, and making sure that complimentary policies are there,
57:35 so that the distribution of trade is more widely distributed and so on.
57:41 So there are some global policy responses there.
57:45 So let's move on from gender.
57:49 If anyone of you would like to come in and add to what Branko has raised as a very big
57:55 topic on the lack of global response, please do come in, but let me also make it a bigger
58:08 challenge.
58:09 If you could think about how does the world become more prepared for the next crisis,
58:14 for the next pandemic?
58:17 If you have any thoughts on specific ideas?
58:20 I think on a broader scale, yes, we do need a broader coalition of whether it's another
58:28 Marshall Plan that focuses on these issues of development on a bigger scale or specific
58:38 ideas on how we can move on the global cooperation.
58:41 Let me just open the floor to all three of you on that big question, perhaps starting
58:49 with Sofía?
58:51 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Mari, actually, let me come to the topic of
59:00 participation and leadership.
59:02 And if I may say, I may sound like a broken record, but actually of women's participation.
59:09 Because, we actually talk about the poor, we talk about women and girls, we talk about
59:15 those that are excluded and discriminated against, yet we often don't bring them into
59:22 these dialogues.
59:24 And their meaningful participation, their movement in decision making processes from
59:29 national to global levels, I think that is really what will make a big difference in
59:36 response, prevention and recovery to crisis, and also the next pandemic, the next crisis.
59:45 And that includes, I think, funding and involving feminist organizations and women's rights
59:51 organizations in all of their intersectional diversity, in the design, implementation and
59:58 evaluation of policies.
01:00:00 Actually at this point, I think of participation of those that are feeling mostly the impact
01:00:07 of this pandemic and any other crisis to come, is really crucial.
01:00:11 We often again, leave it out of these dialogues.
01:00:14 We will not get different solutions to inequality from the same actors that have not acted to
01:00:21 address it now.
01:00:23 So change is essential.
01:00:24 We will not get the different solutions if we are only involving always the same people.
01:00:31 And they have been actually really, really good examples of positive leadership, also
01:00:35 from women during the COVID crisis, from New Zealand to Germany and many other countries.
01:00:44 We also have evidence from that, from CARE's work, where we have promoted and encouraged
01:00:52 women's leadership in response to emergencies.
01:00:56 It has actually made all of the difference in achieving better results.
01:01:01 When women lead in emergency responses, we have seen increased cooperation within the
01:01:07 community, communities recovering fast [inaudible].
01:01:13 [Mari Pangestu] I think we may have lost…
01:01:21 We lost you for a bit.
01:01:28 I think she's really breaking up.
01:01:40 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I have stopped the video.
01:01:49 [Mari Pangestu] But we can't…
01:01:51 [Crosstalk] Okay, go ahead.
01:01:52 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] The host has…
01:01:53 Sorry, I think I was briefly muted by the host.
01:01:55 Let me stop the video.
01:01:56 What I was saying is that we must engage women in responding to disasters to rethink also
01:02:03 traditional gender norms, in their communities, at home.
01:02:07 Because all the evidence shows that it is not acceptable that women are underrepresented
01:02:13 in teams responding to COVID.
01:02:16 We have published a report at CARE, which shows that of the national teams, government
01:02:21 teams responding to COVID only, one fourth of those teams were women.
01:02:27 And by excluding women from decision-making teams and platforms, we are making slower
01:02:33 progress in overcoming this crisis or any other crisis.
01:02:38 We will not get different outcomes with decisions taken by those that have gotten us where we
01:02:43 are today.
01:02:45 Again, with women being involved in decision-making, we can increase cooperation and we will be
01:02:54 better equipped to respond to crisis.
01:02:58 And another critical point is, of course and we have that very much flagged at CARE
01:03:05 is again this notion of women leading in crisis.
01:03:11 We have actually a large campaign that is called She Leads in Crisis, and their participation
01:03:19 must influence national governance, target the UN agencies, all of us target us so that
01:03:29 we can have better co-ordination mechanisms to fund and elevate women-led organizations
01:03:35 in disaster preparedness.
01:03:38 But let me also say Mari, maybe, to make another important point, and that is, the global inequalities
01:03:47 are really posing multiple threats to all of us, rich and poor, for social stability.
01:03:56 So we can make strong inroads into these inequalities, if we deliver on existing commitments and
01:04:05 do it at scale.
01:04:06 We have frameworks: the Beijing Declaration, the sustainable development goals, with their
01:04:12 pledge to leave no one behind.
01:04:14 So I believe the banks, IDA20 package, also brings a strong starting point to increase
01:04:21 global action.
01:04:22 So let us be bold by increasing financing that can support more ambitious action in
01:04:30 ways that finally make good on [inaudible].
01:04:36 [Mari Pangestu] I think we may have lost her, but I think
01:04:47 she ended up with a good point about financing.
01:04:50 Whatever you're going to call it, whether it's…
01:04:55 There is a proposal for pandemic preparedness financing, climate financing.
01:05:02 And so…
01:05:04 If I can just move on because I think we've lost Sofía.
01:05:13 Hope she can come back in again.
01:05:16 Just that broad question again.
01:05:20 And there was a question directed to you Branko on this topic that I posed: "Thanks Branko
01:05:27 for this bit of reality check.
01:05:29 Could I still press you to express a few more thoughts on what may work instead, if anything,
01:05:35 and where would you put the first priorities of action?"
01:05:41 In the comment you made earlier about how there needs to be a rethink and a stronger
01:05:51 call for global action on many fronts?
01:05:53 [Branko Milanovic] Well, of course, it's a good question.
01:05:57 It's good; it's called $64,000 question or some such number.
01:06:02 Obviously, we are bettering noticing things which have not worked than proposing solutions,
01:06:09 because the solutions are not the easiest.
01:06:11 They require cooperation between different governments, institutions, and others.
01:06:16 Two things that I wanted to mention.
01:06:19 One is a very standard one, is really we need resumption of growth.
01:06:25 Without resumption of growth, the poverty numbers are not going to go down.
01:06:30 So we really need to…
01:06:32 We have lost two years, hopefully if COVID gets normalized or becomes an endemic, or
01:06:39 maybe just disappears, we need really to go back to growth.
01:06:43 And for growth, you need, particularly for the poor countries, an increase in financing.
01:06:48 So I think this is one thing that we need.
01:06:51 Second thing is, again, I'm coming back to the climate change because I'm afraid that
01:06:56 there could be claims on money, which come both from the climate change people and from
01:07:03 the pandemic.
01:07:05 And given that the resources are limited, we might have to actually adjudicate who gets
01:07:10 what.
01:07:11 There are simply not unlimited resources.
01:07:14 And finally, I want to say something that I forgot and actually I wanted to say before,
01:07:20 it's the question of food prices.
01:07:22 We have seen food prices actually rising, and they have risen before and whenever that
01:07:28 has happened, we have gone into the area of political turbulence.
01:07:32 And most recently you have seen that in Kazakhstan in Turkey, and it probably will happen in
01:07:37 many other countries, particularly in Africa.
01:07:40 And we have seen also financial instability like Lebanon.
01:07:44 So I think that there will be political effects of the crisis, which we are only going to
01:07:50 see in the future.
01:07:52 Now the bottom line then, to me, is willingness.
01:07:57 It really boils down to money, essentially.
01:07:59 It is willingness to fund programs, which would really help growth of the poor countries,
01:08:07 reduce poverty there much more effectively it was done before, and create funds, both
01:08:13 for the green recovery and for the green technology and for the potential pandemic.
01:08:21 And that of course means much greater co-operation and just willingness to share much more than
01:08:27 before or now, because we have seen that that willingness is very limited to say the least,
01:08:34 to share between both rich people and poor people and rich countries and poor countries.
01:08:40 So it does require entirely sort of new institutions.
01:08:44 Last point, maybe institutions that would have owned access to funds.
01:08:49 In other words, for example, a tax, which could be imposed on certain commodities and
01:08:56 which would go directly to the fund without intermediation of the countries.
01:09:00 That has been in the idea, as you know, with the topping tax, but it never went very far.
01:09:05 But I think it's important, theoretically, to have a global agency that would not depend
01:09:11 only on contribution by states, but would actually have its own sources of funding.
01:09:18 [Mari Pangestu] A very concrete proposal, and I think your
01:09:25 point about the importance of resuming growth.
01:09:28 I mean, in the immediate short term resumption of growth is key, and this is definitely something
01:09:38 that we hope the G20 countries, which this is where, if you think about whether they
01:09:45 were successful in the 2008-2009 global financial prices, this considered effort to have growth
01:09:53 resume.
01:09:54 I guess the big question that, at least on the macro side, whether countries can actually
01:10:01 coordinate this, an orderly exit it from this extraordinary stimulus, whether on the fiscal
01:10:12 and the monetary policy side, without causing further disruption to the world, to the global
01:10:19 economy.
01:10:20 I think that's one big question apart from what you mentioned on climate.
01:10:25 I agree that food prices, I think definitely something to keep in mind.
01:10:30 I think food prices have gone up, and here the question is: Is this a trade issue?
01:10:37 Is there a supply issue?
01:10:38 How do we overcome that?
01:10:40 We should not repeat what happened in 2008, when food prices went up by 100% and poverty
01:10:47 also went up by tens...
01:10:49 I think it was like 50 or 60 million, if I recall correctly.
01:10:55 So it would be an added, I think, another driver to increase inequality.
01:11:02 Let me turn to Alejandra, whether she wanted to come in on this big question, and then
01:11:05 we have another question from the audience that I would like to pose to all of you.
01:11:11 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you, Mari.
01:11:12 I would like to start with one thing that actually ties us with the last question, which
01:11:20 has to do with the financial inclusion of women.
01:11:25 I think that this is something that, especially for developing countries, is a big challenge
01:11:29 that we have now in general inclusion, and I think the fact that the pandemic…
01:11:35 At least in Colombia, our objectives for general financial inclusion were exceeded in the four
01:11:39 years because of that push that we had to do with the conditional, with the monetary
01:11:43 transfers, and in general, with the digital transformation of the economy to be able continue
01:11:47 on remotely.
01:11:48 But in that sense, I would give a specific focus on women, the financial inclusion of
01:11:56 women, which, again, is lagging, and which means once they are more, as we all know,
01:12:03 more empowered economically and have that financial included that levels the playing
01:12:08 field in the future.
01:12:09 I would hone in on financial inclusion for women, I think.
01:12:12 That's a very interesting topic to look forward to in the future.
01:12:16 The second one is, I think, and I'm not an expert on this topic, but I had to do it tangentially,
01:12:23 I think that whole solidarity with the vaccines, what Branko was talking about, the importance
01:12:32 of having a very strong vaccination program so that the economy and the schools can return
01:12:43 to a sort of in person, [inaudible] level as soon as possible.
01:12:49 I think it’s very important.
01:12:54 I think we are learning from how callback [inaudible] didn't work, but I think that
01:13:03 there has to be a more sophisticated system to be able to help developing countries or
01:13:16 countries who might not have that quick access to vaccines to be able to have that same access
01:13:28 as more developed and richer countries do.
01:13:36 I think it would have been so interesting if we had better examples.
01:13:39 I'm talking in the case of Colombia about how to minimize the gap in education with
01:13:42 remote learning.
01:13:43 If we knew about programs that would help you maintain the education that goes in remotely,
01:13:45 maybe that gap in education would not be so broad.
01:13:46 When schools closed down, and especially in the rural areas of Colombia, the classes were
01:13:47 being taught via WhatsApp, from the teachers to the mothers, to the mothers having to interpret
01:13:48 the results of WhatsApp, give the lessons to the kids, and then…
01:13:49 Or the mothers or the fathers or the grandparents, whoever was in the school.
01:13:54 Then return to classes on a weekly basis.
01:13:59 They would do the rounds in the homes to distribute the learning materials, to distribute food
01:14:03 if it was necessary, and I think that if we knew how to do that better, I think that would
01:14:12 help us in another case if we have to have a shutdown.
01:14:15 I think that something that's very interesting, or at least in Colombia right now it's very
01:14:19 innovative, in other countries you're developing as well, are these results based loans.
01:14:20 The loan that I was talking about that we're doing with the WorldPac for education, Promise
01:14:26 Program, is a results-based loan.
01:14:30 I think that having that implementation of these loans specifically to strengthen programs
01:14:36 such as education, programs such as access to public services, all those social infrastructure
01:14:41 networks that we need to be stronger as a nation if another pandemic hits, I think would
01:14:46 be something very beneficial to lower development countries.
01:14:47 Then finally, this is something that also Branko touched on, is fiscal health.
01:14:50 I mean, we had to release the fiscal rule right now.
01:14:57 A positive thing is that because we moved so quickly, 50% of the transfers that have
01:15:02 ever been done in transfer programs in Colombia, so 50% of the amount happened in these three
01:15:12 years.
01:15:13 But as Branko said, that money had to come from somewhere, it's not picked out of the
01:15:16 trees.
01:15:17 So actually, for example, our debt to GDP ratio skyrocketed to…
01:15:18 I think right now we are going to close…
01:15:22 Last year it was 65%.
01:15:24 We're going to close around 61-62% this year.
01:15:26 Which is actually a good dip, but we still have many years to come until we reduce it
01:15:35 to a more normal level, to put it that way.
01:15:39 In that sense, that solidarity from [inaudible] flexibility of international financing, especially
01:15:42 when it comes with the installments and the low rates, I think it's a discussion then.
01:15:47 If it's understandable beforehand, then once [inaudible] there's some clear rules beforehand,
01:15:53 or I guess a better…
01:15:55 I guess, understanding would be the word, then the countries could feel empowered to
01:16:03 be able to make these decisions about the programs that will help the poor very quickly,
01:16:10 which we did as a country, but because we were solid fiscally and now we're how seeing
01:16:16 how we're going to come back to normal levels.
01:16:20 But that's not necessarily the case with other countries.
01:16:25 I think in Colombia it was a big bet to spend that money very quickly to help the vulnerable
01:16:29 population.
01:16:30 But that's not something that you can always do.
01:16:33 So I think that whole reflection globally, how we're going to help the poorest, the countries
01:16:41 that have the highest percentage of the poor population, beforehand, so that you can have
01:16:46 these social programs implemented very quickly, would be a very interesting lesson learned
01:16:48 from the pandemic.
01:16:49 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:16:52 Thank you, Alejandra.
01:16:54 Let me pose…
01:16:56 This might be the last question that we have time for, but I thought this is an interesting
01:17:01 and good question.
01:17:04 It's asking all of you to comment on the issue of youth.
01:17:10 Because that we all know that the fact that jobs, availability of jobs, in this pandemic
01:17:17 and not going to school and all that, is affecting youth.
01:17:22 It's affecting women and children and youth much more than other groups.
01:17:30 And really the question is then, how should we be addressing the issue of the inequality
01:17:38 that's hitting the youth and what should be a good program or what should be the approach
01:17:45 for youth economic empowerment?
01:17:51 Shall we start with Branko this time?
01:17:57 I'll reverse the order a little bit.
01:18:01 [Branko Milanovic] Thank you, Mari.
01:18:04 Of course, I'm sure that Alejandra, because she's actually working on the topic, I mean,
01:18:12 as she really very persuasively explained what is happening and how women were affected
01:18:20 in Colombia, would have many more ideas.
01:18:22 I really don't have much.
01:18:24 I think that the issue is definitely a very big one.
01:18:30 The number of classes, weeks of classes or months of classes that have been lost around
01:18:37 the world is enormous.
01:18:39 I actually don't think, again, that that has happened to that extent anywhere, even during
01:18:45 the wars.
01:18:46 You, of course lose classes in countries that are affected by the wars, but in this case,
01:18:50 we had something that has really been global.
01:18:54 Regaining that, I think, it's very difficult.
01:18:57 And of course the time passes, so you cannot actually put children who are like 12 years
01:19:03 old, then go back to double the classes and to be with children who are like nine.
01:19:10 I suppose maybe the extension of the number of classes of the school year that would require,
01:19:16 of course, much more work with professors.
01:19:19 I mean, you even see that at the university level.
01:19:23 Definitely, our classes now are not the same as they used to be.
01:19:28 The interaction between students is less.
01:19:30 And let me tell you one gender element that I've noticed.
01:19:33 It’s that, for example, women ask many fewer questions, in my experience, in classes that
01:19:41 are held online compared to when I had classes live.
01:19:45 It is simply that actually with live classes, they may be a little bit shy in the beginning,
01:19:50 but gradually as the class progresses, actually I think there is practical an equality and
01:19:54 sometimes even women are more articulate or they speak more.
01:19:59 But in online is really the reverse.
01:20:03 So there you see really a gender element and you see a general, I think, decline in engagement
01:20:10 and learning.
01:20:11 And finally, let me put one more thing, general inability of professors or teachers to figure
01:20:16 out who is doing what.
01:20:18 Because everything is done online, everything is done far from you, you have no idea if
01:20:22 these students are really learning something or not.
01:20:25 You're not even sure if the exams that they are doing, they are doing them.
01:20:29 So I think there are really here many issues that I think we should really commission studies
01:20:35 on finding out how countries that they've been affected by wars, or I mentioned Cultural
01:20:40 Revolution.
01:20:41 It's not a joke; it's actually a thing that has affected millions of young people in China
01:20:45 over almost 10 years.
01:20:46 How that had been, not only what was the impact, but what were the solutions that have been
01:20:52 implemented and were found useful?
01:20:55 So that would be my suggestion because honestly, I don't have a solution myself, really.
01:21:03 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:21:07 Thank you, Branko.
01:21:08 Alejandra, and then Sofía, but if you could be brief because we only have seven minutes
01:21:14 left.
01:21:15 So briefly on that question.
01:21:16 [Alejandra Botero] [Inaudible].
01:21:18 I'll be very brief.
01:21:21 Thank you.
01:21:22 Two things.
01:21:24 I think one, I spoke about it in a previous question, which was, how do we stimulate employment
01:21:29 for the youth, the younger population, that as we had a subsidy to the salary that the
01:21:33 government was doing in the short term.
01:21:36 And then we also issued a law which has had some positive effects, which is called the
01:21:43 First Employment Law, which is that where for a first employment of someone who has
01:21:50 a first employment to get a small subsidy from the government, the company does, so
01:21:55 that they can start having a track record in employment, and then they go out on their
01:22:01 own.
01:22:02 That was the first [inaudible] to reduce that gap, which is very big, between youth employment
01:22:07 and regular employment.
01:22:08 And then the other thing that I think is very important, and right now more pertinent than
01:22:13 ever, as you were saying Mari, at the beginning, is a change in skills needed for the productive
01:22:19 systems, for the private sector.
01:22:21 In that sense, upscaling, rescaling, but also through competencies: How do we reduce that
01:22:28 gap between what is being taught in formal education and vocational training and what
01:22:34 is needed in the workforce?
01:22:36 So I think that's something has to have a very big focus in the medium terms, in terms
01:22:42 of education and vocational space.
01:22:48 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
01:22:49 Sofía.
01:22:50 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Yes, and hopefully this is working out.
01:22:52 Let me know if it isn't.
01:22:54 But yeah, I think this is such a critical question because actually recent research
01:23:02 by UNICEF, and others, indicates that young people are feeling very pessimistic more than
01:23:09 ever before.
01:23:10 And I think I want to come back to the issue of participation, bringing in their voices
01:23:15 in solutions, as I also mentioned early on women and girls, but for youth of all genders,
01:23:22 that they really can participate in solutions at this very, very critical moment.
01:23:30 I actually still think that that, like the headlights of a car, we still have the shorter
01:23:39 headlights on, where we are seeing the most immediate, and we actually have not fully
01:23:44 yet seen what the impact of not having been properly to school, as Branko just indicated,
01:23:51 the online education, we must really turn on the longer headlights, as the World Bank
01:23:57 report has done, on inequality, to really see what is happening.
01:24:01 Also, for example, for many girls that in some of the poorest country of the worlds
01:24:08 have now been married off early, as you mentioned earlier, Mari.
01:24:15 [Mari Pangestu] We've lost you, Sofía.
01:24:26 We lost you.
01:24:34 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I'm so sorry.
01:24:47 Hopefully, Mari, I'm back.
01:24:49 The other area I wanted to flag is the area of green jobs for young people, the area that
01:24:55 I earlier flagged, that's also critical area and arena to create hope for young people
01:25:01 all over the world.
01:25:04 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:25:05 Thank you very much, all the panelists.
01:25:08 I think that's, unfortunately, that's all the time we have.
01:25:11 I think we could go on talking about this.
01:25:14 So many unanswered questions and so many solutions that we need to look for.
01:25:19 But it has been a very rich discussion and I'd like to thank you for that.
01:25:23 And I'm glad the World Bank report was the catalyst for us to have this discussion, even
01:25:30 though I'm sure we will need much more discussion to be able to really find some answers as
01:25:36 to the way forward.
01:25:38 But I think we came to some agreement on the importance of reversing inequality and the
01:25:48 danger of these long-term scarring effects, and the divergence between developed and developing
01:25:54 countries that's just going to be widening.
01:25:58 And there is a short term and medium term and longer-term responses that will be needed,
01:26:04 but the immediate response, I think, does have to do with resumption of growth and addressing
01:26:12 the immediate needs of protecting the vulnerable groups.
01:26:17 I think there was a lot of discussion about the role of government and how they need to
01:26:22 have effective policies.
01:26:24 It does have to start with data, I think, knowing who are the vulnerable groups and
01:26:30 having adaptive programs, whether it's for women or whether it's for the other vulnerable
01:26:36 groups, and it's not just extreme poor anymore.
01:26:41 How can you have adaptive programs that can address these different groups and different
01:26:46 needs?
01:26:47 And we need to monitor their effectiveness, because we have limited resources.
01:26:52 I think the ones that the World Bank has been struggling with developing countries is that
01:26:59 we know you have to increase your spending on health and education if you are going to
01:27:05 address these scarring effects, yet you have limited resources.
01:27:08 So there is this whole discussion about how you must increase domestic resource mobilization,
01:27:15 but at the same time, you also have to spend more on health and education.
01:27:19 But I think in a world where you have limited resources, then it's not just about financing
01:27:25 because that's…
01:27:26 A lot of you mentioned financing, but it is about, obviously, combining financing with
01:27:32 better design policies and institutions that address the short term but at the same time
01:27:39 also address the medium term challenges and respond to building back preparedness as well
01:27:47 as stronger institutions; as you are helping countries with the pandemic, build out a stronger
01:27:54 health system.
01:27:56 As we are dealing with learning losses, let's think about how to build out a better education
01:28:01 system.
01:28:02 And so on and so forth.
01:28:04 The final thing I would say on financing is that Branko raised a very, very important
01:28:08 issue on this.
01:28:10 Financing, it cannot just come from government budgets or donors, for that matter.
01:28:14 There's a big discussion about the non-donor group, the non-donor sources of financing.
01:28:23 I think you wanted to have some kind of tax that goes into a fund, COVID tax, it goes
01:28:30 of fund, and that's what we need to fund.
01:28:34 I think the issue of the private sector, the role of the private sector, the philanthropists,
01:28:41 the foundations, and companies that are now having to also respond to SDGs and climate
01:28:49 change.
01:28:50 But the most important thing is what do we want to use the money for?
01:28:54 It has to be effective and well targeted and so on and so forth, and be able to be monitored.
01:29:02 These are some of the big discussions that are going on.
01:29:05 So we'll have to have another session with all of you to discuss more on this.
01:29:10 And I would like to thank all three of you.
01:29:12 You've been great.
01:29:13 I'd like to thank the audience.
01:29:14 And I'd like to thank the World Bank Group team, the World Bank team, the [inaudible]
01:29:19 team, who have produced this report.
01:29:22 So thank you very much.
01:29:23 All of you have a good rest of the day, wherever you are.
01:29:27 Bye-bye.

COVID-19 and Rising Inequality

Follow the event on Twitter #InclusiveGrowth

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised global income inequality, both within and between countries, setting back progress by a decade or more. Vulnerable groups, including low-income people, youth, women, and informal workers, have faced particularly severe job and income losses. Without a forceful policy response, there is a risk that higher inequality will become entrenched. Support from the global community is essential to expedite a return to an inclusive and sustainable recovery.

Join World Bank Managing Director Mari Pangestu and a distinguished panel of experts as they discuss the latest findings on inequality from the January 2022 Global Economic Prospects report, and implications for countries and the global community.

Use the following timestamps to navigate different sections of the video.

00:00 COVID-19 and rising inequality: Welcome and opening remarks
23:04 Colombia: Social assistance; informal sector; learning issues
36:50 How can governments reverse rising inequality trends?
44:30 National and global policies for reversing gender inequalities
58:10 How does the world become more prepared for the next crisis
1:05:20 Rethinking global cooperation: First priorities of action
1:17:07 Youth inclusion and economic empowerment
1:25:06 Closing remarks

“COVID-19 has increased inequality in nearly every sphere: in the availability of vaccines, in economic growth rates, in access to education and health care, and in the scale of job and income losses — which have been higher for women and informal workers."

— Mari Pangestu, Managing Director, Development Policy and Partnerships, World Bank

“We had to very quickly anticipate the impacts of the pandemic on the more vulnerable population."

— Alejandra Botero, Director General, Department of Planning, Colombia

“This crisis has revealed a huge difference in access to vaccines, and access to health, between the rich and the poor countries."

— Branko Milanovic, Presidential Professor, City University of New York

“For the first time in over 20 years, poverty has been increasing. In 2021 alone, 235 million people needed humanitarian assistance and protection.”

— Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro, Secretary General, CARE International

Speakers

Mari Pangestu

Former World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships
@Mari_Pangestu
Alejandra Botero Barco

Manager, Planning and Impact Development, CAF-Latin American Development Bank
@aleboterob
Branko Milanovic

Presidential Professor, City University of New York
@BrankoMilan
Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro

Secretary General, CARE International
@sofiasprechmann

Learn more

Read the transcript

00:00 [Mari Pangestu] Before turning to our distinguished panelists,
00:04 let me now start by providing some opening remarks to set the scene for our discussion.
00:09 I think what we have observed to date is that COVID-19 has increased inequality in nearly
00:16 every sphere, in the availability of vaccines, in economic growth rates, in access to education
00:23 and healthcare and in the scale of job and income losses, which have been higher for
00:29 women and informal workers.
00:31 By next year, the vast majority of advanced economies are expected to regain their pre-pandemic
00:38 income levels.
00:39 Yet because of divergent growth rates between developing and advanced countries, 40% of
00:47 emerging markets and developing economies will remain below their 2019 levels, including
00:54 more than half of the fragile and conflict affected areas and three quarters of small
00:59 states.
01:01 In our latest global economic prospects report, which we launched on 11 January, we dedicated
01:08 a whole chapter on the topic of inequality.
01:11 And the main findings are that inequality in incomes between countries is rising to
01:17 levels not seen in a decade.
01:19 And this is pre-pandemic we were seeing a convergence, actually, between developing
01:24 and developed countries.
01:25 And now we fear that this trend is going to be a divergence between developed and developing
01:32 countries.
01:34 And that with in country inequality is also higher because of severe job and income losses
01:42 that affect the poorer and more vulnerable groups more, including low income groups,
01:48 youth, women, and informal workers.
01:52 These trends should worry us all.
01:55 Countries with wider income back gaps obviously face greater risks to social and political
02:00 stability.
02:01 Making crisis more likely while also making it harder to achieve sustained economic growth
02:08 and development.
02:10 We know from history that much smaller setbacks in development have left scars that were felt
02:15 over generations.
02:17 In Burkina Faso, for example, poor nutrition in pregnant women resulting from a decline
02:23 in a rainfall has been associated with a decline in the cognitive ability of their children.
02:30 During the financial crisis in Mexico and Southeast Asia during the 1990s, families
02:35 were more likely to pull their children out of school if the household breadwinner becomes
02:40 unemployed.
02:43 Reversing inequality will not be easy.
02:45 Disruptions to education caused by the pandemic could have a longer-term impact on job and
02:51 income prospects for low-income households; that would set back intergenerational mobility.
02:57 Not to mention that learning from the Ebola crisis, more girls do not return to school
03:02 compared with boys, which would be a setback for gender equality.
03:06 Meanwhile, high inflation and surging debt could hinder the ability of countries to support
03:12 vulnerable groups and facilitate recovery.
03:15 The situation requires forceful policy responses from governments as well as global responses.
03:23 First, a rapid vaccine roll out and redoubling efforts to implement reforms aimed to boost
03:30 productivity growth can help reduce between country inequality.
03:35 Second, continuous support to groups hit hardest by the pandemic can ease within income inequality
03:43 when it is combined with broader efforts to reduce inequality of outcomes and opportunities.
03:51 Measures to broaden access to healthcare and education, infrastructure, technology and
03:55 finance can contribute to a more level playing field in terms of opportunity.
04:02 The global community must support the national effort by accelerating vaccine distribution,
04:10 debt relief where it's most needed and maintaining an open and rule based trade and investment
04:17 climate.
04:18 With those opening remarks to try to set the scene, let us now turn to our distinguished
04:24 panelists for their opening remarks on the topic.
04:28 Let me first turn to Alejandra for her remarks.
04:33 Over to you Alejandra.
04:35 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you very much Mari for such an interesting
04:39 introduction.
04:40 I would like to, first of all, say hello to my colleagues in the panel to Branko and to
04:48 Sofia.
04:49 This is going to be a very interesting discussion.
04:50 I look forward to the conclusions and the conversation that we will have.
04:55 I would also like thank Mark Roland and Peter Seigenthaler that are the World Bank managers
05:03 in Colombia and in the region for inviting me to this panel.
05:07 So to start with my opening remarks.
05:10 I would like to say that definitely it's extremely interesting and pertinent at this moment.
05:16 The conclusions from not only the global economic perspectives but specifically as, Mari you
05:22 were saying, the chapter about the impact of COVID-19 on global income inequality.
05:28 In that sense, we do specially understand and it was fascinating to see that considerable
05:35 amount of equality between countries and the modest increase inequality within the country.
05:42 In the case of Colombia, that has been the case as well.
05:48 We receded to 2011 levels in the Gini coefficient, which I will talk about a little bit later.
05:55 And that's the same with the poverty indexes.
05:59 We were on a really good track in the last five or six years of poverty reduction and
06:11 extreme poverty reduction.
06:13 And that was reversed drastically during the 2020 levels.
06:18 We are very worried about the long-term income inequality within the countries, which is
06:28 of the panel.
06:30 And that's why in the following discussions I will elaborate on some of the actions that
06:37 we're taking as a government.
06:42 Not only in the short term to protect the vulnerable population but in terms of the
06:50 disparity in the education levels and the access to public services such as internet
06:57 is, I think, some of the medium term goals that we are focusing on as a country.
07:05 Colombia is, in terms of Latin America, we're now considered a medium level income country
07:12 but we still have one of the highest Gini coefficients in the region.
07:17 In that sense, we, as a government, started this governance in 2019 and our national plan,
07:25 the goal, was actually to reduce inequality.
07:28 That was the highest objective.
07:30 It was a plan to reduce inequality, and our biggest impact indicator was going reduce
07:35 the Gini coefficient from 0.51 to 0.47.
07:40 In that sense, we had actions in terms of massifying education perpetuity, seeing how
07:49 we could formalize and have a very informal economy: 60% of our economy is informal.
07:52 We had ambitious calls in terms of gender disparity, in terms of inclusion of more vulnerable
07:53 groups in the social transfer programs.
07:54 When the pandemic hit, we were doing, as an economy, really well.
07:59 And these indicators were actually…
08:00 Everything was going on track but we had to very quickly anticipate the impact of the
08:01 pandemic on especially the more vulnerable population.
08:02 So what we did is that we very quickly strengthened the conditional transfer programs and we created
08:03 a non-conditional transfer program called “Ingreso Solidario”, which is a matter
08:07 of one month had identified a vulnerable population that was not covered by conditional transfer
08:11 programs or by other social programs.
08:12 So that would be like, the group of the populations that had enough impact that they didn't have
08:19 access to all the social programs but they were going to be the hardest hit once the
08:29 economy goes down.
08:30 And this program had to go in one month from an objective of 300,000 to up to three million
08:36 at the end of 2020.
08:37 And I think that's one of the biggest lessons that we learned is how can we do a program
08:43 that will protect the vulnerable population, not the poorest population.
08:49 Of course, we have to protect the poorest population, but also the population that is
08:54 most at risk at falling in these types of crisis.
08:56 So I will elaborate a little bit more on the other programs during the discussion, but
09:02 I do think I would like to follow the remarks that, for the coming years, for us it's very
09:07 important in the short term to be able to maintain the reactivation of the economy but
09:11 hand in hand on how do we continue to protect the more vulnerable population.
09:15 It's not a question of either or we put all the public resources in reactivation; we can
09:25 do as much as we can but we can't let all the social programs that we indulged during
09:31 the pandemic because we still have to accompany the most vulnerable population until we reach
09:39 at least pre-pandemic levels, which we hope to do during this year in 2022 in terms of
09:47 poverty.
09:48 And also thinking in the medium term, how to increase that access and that quality education,
09:53 so that we reduce the gap that happens during the pandemic with the lack of in person education
10:02 and the access to all the public services, such as internet, such as infrastructure,
10:09 such as other public services which will continue to reduce the intergenerational poverty gap
10:13 in the medium term.
10:16 Thank you very much.
10:18 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, thank you Alejandra.
10:19 Can I now invite Branko to provide his opening remarks?
10:26 [Branko Milanovic] Thank you very much, Mari.
10:29 It is really a pleasure to be invited and to be here.
10:32 As you said, it is a very important panel.
10:35 And of course it's a huge really important topic that as we are discussing today.
10:41 So let me start with saying something very simple but I think it's important because
10:45 we have heard over these two years so many different talks and, of course, everybody's
10:50 talking about the rising inequality.
10:52 And very often we didn't really have the data, we were actually sort of in a fog or guessing.
10:57 Let me just say very clearly, this is the first report that does actually data work
11:04 based on what has happened during the crisis.
11:06 So it's actually for the first time that we really can take an empirical stock of what
11:12 happened during the crisis.
11:13 And I think actually it puts the World Bank back in the position where it should be, which
11:17 means it's really the provider of the data global on the really important topics.
11:23 And I think this topic is certainly the most important topic in the world.
11:27 Moreover, it is still ongoing.
11:29 Now, having said that, as Mari said and actually, I'm sure other participants will say as well,
11:37 we are basically dealing here with the crisis that we have never had any experience.
11:43 First of all, there are two channels and that's quite important.
11:46 There is a channel of income, which led to, of course, the reduction of incomes practically
11:51 in all countries in the world.
11:52 I look at 2020, the World Bank data.
11:55 I think there are 14 countries that did not have a decline on GDP.
11:59 So that clearly means that we had, as the report says, a significant increase in poverty,
12:07 whatever measure you take and practically whatever country.
12:09 As I said, a couple of exceptions, China being a big one, but everybody else actually had
12:15 an inclusive point.
12:16 Then we come to inequality.
12:18 There the situation is much more complex because we had, sort of, reached a point at which
12:28 Chinese growth was no longer contributing to reduction of global poverty because China
12:32 became relatively rich or a middle-income country where actually the contribution was
12:37 no longer forthcoming.
12:39 That meant for the global inequality to go down, you had to have high growth rates in
12:44 Africa and India basically.
12:46 Well, that actually did not happen because of COVID, because as you know, Indian growth
12:51 actually became negative, Africa was very strongly affected.
12:55 On top of that, of course richer countries were affected.
12:59 So essentially, we have come to a situation where the convergence of incomes has ceased,
13:04 so that's the second bad news.
13:06 Now the third part is what happened within national inequality.
13:09 That's probably the most difficult part.
13:11 And it's a very diverse because in poorer countries that did not have money to support
13:17 people who lost jobs, you had a loss of income practically along the entire income distribution,
13:25 even the richer people.
13:27 Overall, of course the poor were affected much more, so inequality went up there.
13:32 In the rich countries, you had large programs in the US up to 20% of the GDP.
13:38 So that interestingly, for example, meant that inequality within the United States in
13:45 2020 went down.
13:47 So you had very diverse effects on inequality within countries when it comes to income inequality.
13:55 Then finally, we come then to the second channel, which I think is extremely important, and
14:00 it's a channel with which we are going to deal for the years to come.
14:04 And this is first what the crisis has revealed: a huge difference in access to vaccines, and
14:10 actually access to health, and actually access to life between the rich and the poor countries.
14:16 You have seen the numbers that the vaccination rates are like in the single digits in many
14:20 poor countries.
14:21 And they're like hitting almost the ceiling of 90 or 100% in rich countries.
14:26 I mean, this is an incredible difference.
14:29 Then we have had education, which was already mentioned by Alejandra and by Mari.
14:33 But the education effects are going to last, as Alejandra said, for years, and I don't
14:38 want to be like a Cassandra here, but if you look, for example, education effect of the
14:43 Chinese culture revolution, this is very similar.
14:46 You have had millions of children who actually did not go to school and did not go to school
14:51 on a regular basis.
14:53 So that's yet another channel, which would actually stay with us for a long time.
14:58 And then of course the channel of the change is another one is about work and labor.
15:03 That would change also because people, some jobs have been lost.
15:07 Other jobs will come; they will be also globalization of labor ability to work remotely.
15:13 So we really have had a tremendous change in our lives.
15:18 And of course, tremendous declines or a tremendous revealing of the underlying income inequalities
15:26 of which we may not have been aware before the crisis.
15:31 So I think I will again upload the report.
15:33 I think it's actually great that we now have data on what actually has happened.
15:39 So that would be for me for the opening.
15:41 And I'm sure we will have more discussion on all these topics.
15:44 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Branko.
15:46 Those were excellent remarks.
15:48 And thank you for appreciating the data and the work that we have been doing.
15:54 And, really, it highlights the issues and the problems and the bigger discussion is
16:00 what needs to be done.
16:01 And I heard earlier from Alejandra what Colombia has tried to do.
16:05 So before we go back, later on we'll come back to what should be done kind of question.
16:13 Let me now turn to Sofia for her opening remarks.
16:16 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Thank you.
16:19 Thank you for inviting CARE to this very important event.
16:23 It is a true honor to be part of this crucial discussion on how we will work together to
16:27 reverse the very worrying trend of increasing inequality described in the excellent World
16:32 Bank report and highlighted, of course, by Alejandra and Branko, and how we can work
16:37 together towards reducing inequalities in a lasting way.
16:41 I'm here as a practitioner.
16:44 At CARE, we put gender equality at the heart of everything we do: humanitarian action,
16:49 response to and recovery from COVID and the long-term development interventions for economic
16:54 justice.
16:55 And far too often women and girls fall through the cracks of policy interventions and responses
17:01 to crisis, and through the cracks of these dialogues.
17:05 They often remain invisible.
17:07 And as we speak about rising inequality, I will very much emphasize its gender dimension
17:13 and what it means and has meant for women and girls.
17:18 The past 20 months have really been like no other in our lifetimes.
17:24 It is to me even still hard to grasp because of seismic nature of the moment in which we
17:30 find ourselves, everything has been shaken.
17:33 And I do, very briefly, want to speak to the size of the problem we are confronted with.
17:39 You all know it but I want to bring the numbers, the scale of what we are confronted with to
17:43 this room, to this virtual room.
17:46 And I would like to then speak about what this moment demands from us.
17:51 In fact, at this very unprecedented time, what we probably need the most is collaboration
17:58 across the sector, government, academic, the World Bank, and NGO like CARE between and
18:04 within organizations, because that is probably what is mostly required.
18:10 And that's why I'm so thankful to be here today.
18:14 For the first time in 20 years, poverty has been increasing and the pandemic is estimated
18:20 to have increased extreme poverty, poverty even more, but extreme poverty by nearly a
18:25 hundred million people.
18:27 And in 2021 alone, 235 million people needed humanitarian assistance and protection.
18:35 This number has risen to one-in-33 people worldwide.
18:38 It's the biggest figure in decades.
18:42 The UN is warning of famine of biblical proportions and famine conditions actually already exist
18:48 for thousands of people in Burkina Faso, South Sudan, and Yemen.
18:53 These are really record-breaking levels of hunger, and I'll speak more to it.
18:59 The World Economic Forum has shown that we see a reversal in gender equality, actually
19:04 by a generation.
19:08 And I could go on; I'm citing just some numbers.
19:12 And of course, then climate change and its impact.
19:14 So as we are discussing how to reverse roaring inequalities, I must say that I'm actually
19:22 not surprised by the findings of the World Bank report.
19:25 We are witnessing this first hand and what these global statistics of rising income inequalities,
19:32 this proportionate impacts of the COVID pandemic, lack of vaccine availability and slowing economic
19:38 growth, and tightly squeezed public budgets actually mean for the lives of millions of
19:45 women and girls.
19:47 At the beginning of the pandemic, we conducted a rapid gender analysis in 40 countries and
19:53 spoke at CARE with more than 6,000 women.
19:57 And these women include women who have lost their income and livelihoods, frontline, healthcare
20:01 workers, subsistence farmers struggling amid very prolonged droughts, those living in conflict
20:08 and those also suffering the shadow pandemic of gender based violence while locked at home
20:15 with their abusers.
20:17 What women everywhere reveal is how COVID has devastated their lives, highlighting the
20:24 deep and complex trends of very increased inequalities and the global prosperity report
20:32 that it so aptly shows.
20:35 Of course structural inequalities have existed before the pandemic, but COVID has exacerbated
20:40 them, fueled them and reversed progress on gender equality by a generation.
20:46 Women who already face discrimination, those in poverty, those in the LGBTQI community,
20:53 and those who are disabled have felt the biggest impacts.
20:58 We have a historic opportunity to finally tackle structuring equality as the only route
21:06 to a more just world.
21:08 This moment must be a wakeup call, the starting point for a better gender just, green, resilient
21:14 and inclusive future.
21:16 And this is encapsulated in IDA20, and it can become a reality.
21:22 We will talk more about how in the next round of questions, but of course vaccine delivery,
21:30 building forward in agenda equitable and inclusive way and fostering the economic justice for
21:38 women is, of course, in the forefront for us on this front.
21:43 I'll talk more about it when we have a chance.
21:45 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Sofía for your very impassioned
21:52 plea for us to really look at the impact on gender.
21:59 And I think this has also been the main thread of many conversations, just because the pandemic
22:07 has impacted women more than men.
22:10 You listed some of the data.
22:11 I think the other two that I would add is that our household survey shows that because
22:18 with lower incomes, people are eating less and women eat less than men because they are
22:28 basically usually sacrificing for the family.
22:31 The health aspect, right?
22:34 As people focused on vaccines, there were less resources available for women health
22:41 services and that also had a really a major impact on women.
22:45 So I think we've had a good series of opening remarks.
22:52 We have now set ourselves to a good setting of the scene for really going deeper into
23:01 this very important topic.
23:03 Let me start our panel discussion with Alejandra, with the experience of Colombia.
23:10 I know that, in your opening remarks, you started to talk about the social assistance
23:15 program in Colombia, and how you had to go from 300,000 to three million.
23:25 And this is also what has been experienced by other countries.
23:30 Social assistance programs used to be only focusing on the very poor, but with the crisis,
23:35 as you said, we have to broaden it and we actually have to be adaptable.
23:40 So if you could just share how could you actually scale up very quickly from 300,000 to three
23:46 million?
23:48 Was it the fact that you had digital ID?
23:51 How are we better able to target a broader group?
23:55 Because nowadays we are talking about the need for more adaptable and flexible social
24:01 protection programs that can deal with different types of crisis and different impact in different
24:07 groups.
24:08 So that would be very interesting for us to hear: how you were able to implement this
24:14 and what were the learnings from it.
24:16 And also the informal sector, that's kind of the big question we hear everywhere in
24:21 the developing countries: how do we address the informal sector?
24:25 Because we don't have data on them, we don't know where they are.
24:30 Finally, maybe, if you could share on education.
24:34 How did you deal with learning issues, and so on, on the education front?
24:45 Just to share the Colombia experience.
24:47 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you very much, Mari, for the question.
24:54 Yes, definitely.
24:55 So as I said in my introduction, we were having a very sort of slow but encouraging reduction
25:04 in poverty.
25:05 For example, in 2012 our monetary poverty was 40.8%.
25:08 It has gone down in 2018 to 34.7%; 2019, 35.7%, and then in 2020 it went up to 42.5%.
25:14 So these are below 2012 levels.
25:17 A very, very important increase in poverty.
25:19 But during this increase we knew was going to happen.
25:22 What we did was try to see how we could very quickly create and strengthen programs that
25:28 would envelope a much broader portion of the population than just what's covered right
25:36 now by social programs and especially the traditional transfer programs, which are,
25:42 one, the biggest one, it's called Familias en Acción, and it's for families who have
25:50 a child and it had to do with [inaudible] repeating at school and keeping them on their
25:57 health checks, etcetera.
25:58 Familias en Acción is given to 2.4 million families, right?
25:59 2.4 million families.
26:00 But just to give you an example, Familias en Acción, which was created over 10 years
26:06 ago, took at least eight years to get to the size where it is right now.
26:15 And that's 2.4 million families.
26:17 And it acts the same with Jóvenes en Acción, which is the other big conditional transfer
26:25 program that we have here, which is for young adults to be able to sponsor their education
26:31 or vocational training.
26:32 And that, right now we have 500,000 students or young adults in this program.
26:39 So at the beginning of 2020, we had one program, which was the reverse of the value-added tax.
26:52 So Colombia has a 90% [inaudible] tax, and in January, before the pandemic hit, I mean,
26:59 it started globally but it hadn't come to Colombia yet, we passed a law where we're
27:06 going to implement a return of the value-added tax on 20% of the poorest population.
27:15 And that return of the value-added tax was very small.
27:18 It's just $10 a month, right?
27:20 But we were going to start originally with only 300,000.
27:24 And we hadn't even thought of the other big transfer program, which is Ingreso Solidario.
27:30 When the pandemic hits in March, in April we very, very quickly come together, the social
27:39 program, the Ministry of Finances and us as the Planning Department, because we're the
27:44 ones who are in charge of the design of these social programs, and we quickly think, "Okay,
27:51 how are we going to do to protect the most vulnerable population?"
27:58 We couldn't continue with the traditional way that things were done.
28:09 Familias en Acción was still been sent through a typical wire transfer or with big cash box
28:18 that would come to the cities we couldn’t work without.
28:22 But we had to, for example, think creativity on how do we access that vulnerable population?
28:28 But there's a secrecy component in that international data and statistics organization, the [inaudible].
28:36 So what we had to do was sit with [inaudible], which is a statistics organization, and given
28:45 the fact that it was an emergency, we would be able to cross the data to understand what
28:53 is that vulnerable population that is not currently covered in the social programs.
28:59 And then, we had to do a meeting with all the communications companies, and the companies
29:05 that have fintech and banking by WhatsApp or by mobile app.
29:11 And that way, with around 12 banks if I'm not mistaken, we developed the strategy across
29:21 the vulnerable population with the mobile banking to be able to access these populations
29:32 via text message.
29:37 And that way, being able to bring them into Ingreso Solidario, which is the program that
29:45 was created just for the pandemic.
29:47 Ingreso Solidario is a total of $40 per month.
29:54 So it's definitely not life-changing but we were thinking of it as a top-up for this vulnerable
30:05 population.
30:06 And I must say that we had two impact evaluations that had very positive results on these two
30:16 programs, because Ingreso Solidario went very quickly in a month to one million, and then
30:24 in six or seven months to three million people.
30:31 Colombia has a population of around 50 million.
30:35 And this year we are maintaining Ingreso Solidario and it's going up to four million Colombians.
30:42 And then, devolución del IVA, which is the counter regressive value-added tax, was going
30:44 to be just for 300,000 people and it's already up to a million Colombians, right?
30:50 So those will help complement the traditional programs.
30:54 And what we had with an impact evaluation that if we hadn't done those social programs,
31:01 the poverty would have gone up to 46.1%.
31:06 So in 2019, we were in 35.7%.
31:10 It went up to 42.5% of the population, so seven points more.
31:16 But if we hadn't done this, it would have gone up to 46%.
31:25 So they actually had a very important impact in the litigation of poverty, specifically
31:33 the impact evaluations, the study had some findings on the financial of the families
31:38 who received this impact.
31:40 They also spent more money on the education of the children.
31:45 What Branko was talking about and what Mari was talking about at the beginning, how these
31:53 families when faced with adversities, pull their children out of school.
31:59 They're investing more in the education, and in that sense what we estimate is it, like,
32:07 helping them even if they were doing education remotely so that they could do it better.
32:15 They were spending more on food for the family.
32:19 And yes, it had also some important benefits on the psychological aspects of the family.
32:27 So these were some of the key findings on the impact evaluation of these social programs,
32:36 which, as I said, were very [inaudible] in the face of the value-added return, and was
32:43 non-existent in the case of Ingreso Solidario.
32:46 So we scaled them up, given this very innovative work with statistics crossing and with the
32:53 help of the telecommunication companies and the fintech of the banks.
32:56 That was the way we could scale up to three million, imagine, in the question of six months.
32:58 And I think that's something that's very positive to share with countries that have faced similar,
33:01 or that have a similar demographic on this, I guess, that we can share this experience.
33:08 So that's in the case of the conditional transfer program.
33:12 In the case of the informal sector, Mari, as you were asking me, I would say that the
33:21 informal sector was impacted also by Ingreso Solidario, because given a country that has
33:22 a 60% informality; these are people that are not in the radar, not only of the social programs
33:26 but of the social protection program.
33:27 So the way to attend them was through Ingreso Solidario.
33:28 However, as a government we did have a very strong program on the protection of formal
33:29 employment for SME, and especially for the very, very small SMEs, in Colombia we call
33:30 them the pymes, which is actually 96% of all the companies that are created in Colombia.
33:33 What we did was a subsidy in terms of the salary of companies that had 50 or less employees.
33:36 They could ask the government for a subsidy, and that way they could maintain or help maintain
33:39 the formal employment.
33:40 That was called a program to protect the formal employment, and that's also something that
33:42 we maintained until December of 2021, so until last month.
33:43 And finally, in terms of the learning issues, I think this is very, very delicate in terms
33:45 of Colombia, because Colombia is a country that is very broad.
33:46 We have 114 million hectares.
33:47 So for example, in terms of internet coverage, in this moment we've 6% internet coverage
33:48 in the region, [inaudible] in the country.
33:49 So when the schools decided to close down, what the general statistics said was that
33:50 about one-third of the population of the students, we're talking about not university students
33:52 but primary, elementary and high school students, one-third of the students were still connected
33:56 to the class.
33:58 One-third were intermittently connected to the class, [inaudible].
34:01 And then one-third went off the grid completely, off the grid.
34:06 You couldn't see them through the WhatsApp programs because a lot of the schools implemented
34:09 WhatsApp learning and other ways to be able to reach the families, at least on a weekly
34:13 basis.
34:15 But at least a third of the [inaudible] population went off the grid.
34:21 So right now, we have a mandatory return to presentiality and the schools are already
34:26 continuing; and that goes hand-in-hand with the vaccination program for children and for
34:29 the teachers.
34:30 But what we did right now, for example, was we are currently negotiating a loan with a
34:37 program called Promise, which is going to focus on the medium-term improvements in the
34:45 education system to be able to close that educational gap.
34:50 And it's mostly focused on strengthening education as a sector, and specifically on the teacher
34:57 abilities to be able to increase the pace of the learning curve of the families who
35:04 have the children that have been affected by the pandemic.
35:07 So it's a loan that we are negotiating right now, that will be implemented this year, but
35:16 that certainly will have a more medium-term effect to be able to reverse that impact in
35:23 education on the children that were affected during the pandemic.
35:28 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
35:31 I think your explanation is emphasizing the importance of having data on the different
35:40 vulnerable groups, and linking it to the payment system.
35:45 And I think ability also to monitor their effectiveness.
35:49 And on the informal, usually it should be assistance to firms, but you cannot reach
35:58 the informal sector so providing them social assistance is just as good as the only support
36:04 that you could give, and that's actually borne out in many other countries as well.
36:10 Very low internet penetration rate in Colombia, that's kind of really also a surprising number.
36:18 But again, I think this is going to be a real challenge.
36:21 I think our numbers are coming in.
36:23 I think on average, kids have not been in school in developing countries on average
36:29 for 250 days for the last two years.
36:33 That's a very high number.
36:34 And so, you're talking about learning losses that can we recuperate these learning losses
36:41 or not?
36:42 And how do we really address that?
36:46 Let me now turn to Branko and Sofía.
36:50 So broadening the question beyond Colombia, we see evidence that pandemic has entrenched
36:56 or even worsen existing inequalities within countries, which could affect social mobility
37:02 and resilience to future shocks.
37:05 How do you think governments should act to reverse these trends?
37:09 Maybe let's start with Sofía first, and then over to Branko.
37:24 So, Sofía?
37:26 Sofía, you're muted.
37:30 You have been unmuted.
37:32 Yes.
37:33 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] [Inaudible] me.
37:36 [Mari Pangestu] Yes, now you're unmuted.
37:40 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Can you hear me now?
37:44 Oh, okay, thank you.
37:45 Sorry for that.
37:46 Well, let me start before I go maybe to governments, actually, to probably what is the first critical
37:51 measure throughout the world, and that is ensuring equity in COVID vaccine delivery.
37:58 And, of course, that requires ramping up financing and ambition.
38:03 And access to vaccines, and Branko flagged that as well, with Western and rich countries
38:10 hoarding vaccine has, as we all know, been a horrific inequality.
38:16 We will not overcome this pandemic with national solutions alone.
38:21 And increasing finance for vaccine delivery must be a priority.
38:25 In fact, [inaudible] just investment care for the coming year to vaccinate 70% of the
38:33 world's population, and for in-country delivery costs additional funding will be needed.
38:39 And that includes, of course, from domestic budgets but also in the form of direct bilateral
38:44 aid; not loans, direct bilateral aid, and the full global cost of equitable vaccine
38:52 delivery could actually be as high as 190 billion.
38:57 But let me come to what governments could do.
39:03 I think in the context of what I flagged earlier, in fact the pandemic has reversed progress
39:09 and gender equality by a generation.
39:12 That means that women now will be waiting 135 years before the gender gap closes.
39:21 Sorry, the video, I got a message that the video was off.
39:28 So 100 and…
39:34 [Mari Pangestu] I think your connection seems to be dropping.
39:50 So try turning off your video actually might help.
39:53 It might help the connection.
39:55 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] [Crosstalk] hear me okay?
39:56 [Mari Pangestu] Yeah.
39:57 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I will turn off the video for a moment, if
40:01 you can hear me.
40:02 Can you hear me?
40:03 [Mari Pangestu] Yes.
40:04 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] So what we must do, firstly on unpaid care.
40:08 Women are more affected by COVID, very devastating economic impact, than men.
40:13 They are, in fact, 1.8 times more likely to have lost their jobs and do three times as
40:18 much unpaid care work as men and boys, an amount which has increased by a further 30%
40:24 to 40% since the beginning of the pandemic.
40:28 So we need increased ambition on building the care economy, including by recognizing
40:33 care as a right.
40:35 That includes childcare but it goes beyond that.
40:39 We must provide 10% of national public budgets for care and social services, and the creation
40:47 of 80 million decent jobs for women in particular.
40:52 I think a second critical area for governments is social protection.
40:57 Women also have access to fewer safety measures and services, which reduces their resilience
41:03 to shocks, as the pandemic of course has shown.
41:06 So accessing savings, credits and public safety provisions is the number one coping mechanism
41:13 during a crisis.
41:15 Yet working women, who make up the majority of workers in the informal sector, or are
41:21 working in jobs without access to formal safety nets or social protections like often domestic
41:28 workers or street vendors, and small-scale farmers or entrepreneurs.
41:35 So we need a large-scale expansion of existing social protection schemes and safety nets
41:41 towards universal social protection, as well as a global fund to gradually work toward
41:48 universal social protection.
41:51 And decent work.
41:52 We must reverse the trends of rising inequality, and that requires an investment in decent
41:58 work opportunities for women.
42:00 And that includes investing in frontline healthcare workers in order to build resilient and inclusive
42:06 health systems that can actually withstand the future pandemics. 70% of frontline healthcare
42:13 workers are women.
42:15 When they're fairly paid, well trained and adequately protected, they can drive both
42:20 economic growth and pandemic preparedness.
42:25 Another opportunity is also tapping into the potential of the transition toward a green
42:31 economy and generating green work for women, which is actually an area that interests us
42:37 a lot at CARE, and that we are watching very, very closely.
42:41 Working women will not automatically benefit from these new jobs.
42:46 They're focusing the green jobs on a narrow segment, and this narrow segment could reinforce
42:53 gender inequalities in the job market.
42:56 So global action that broadens definition even of what a green job is, that could include
43:06 sectors that are traditionally dominated by women like care and the social work, and explicitly
43:11 removing barriers to women, taking up jobs in the low-carbon, net zero economy, like
43:17 stronger anti-discrimination laws and family-friendly workplace policies.
43:23 That will help ensure that the transition to a low-carbon economy is gender just and
43:29 inclusive.
43:31 Thank you, Mari, and sorry.
43:32 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you for your very impassioned comments.
43:40 Actually, you started to answer one of the questions that came up from the audience,
43:47 which was how could we help, how could we address the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic
43:57 made more women jobless because they had to stay at home and take care of children, and
44:03 what could governments do to push in the gender impact, because the care responsibilities
44:09 feel disproportionately on women.
44:12 You've answered some of what governments could do.
44:15 Maybe if I could ask Alejandra and Branko to come in on this gender question.
44:21 Apart from what Sofía already mentioned as to what governments could do, what more, what
44:30 are some of the other programs do you think governments should be able to address the
44:39 increasing gender… the fact that we have a bigger impact on women than men?
44:43 And this is going to, as Sofía has mentioned, reverse gender inequality.
44:49 What are some of the other government policies that we need to have in place?
44:59 Also, another question that's related to that: Is there a role for global policies to address
45:15 gender inequality?
45:16 So I thought I would put those two questions from the audience together, just because Sofía
45:22 started to talk about we can do to address gender inequality.
45:27 So let's…
45:28 [Alejandra Botero] Mari, I think you're on mute.
45:39 [Mari Pangestu] Sorry.
45:43 [Alejandra Botero] Okay.
45:47 [Mari Pangestu] Did you hear all that I said?
45:51 [Alejandra Botero] What could government, or what government
45:54 policies you could do to address the gender [inaudible], right?
45:57 [Mari Pangestu] [Crosstalk] As well as the, and global.
45:59 If you can also, there's…
46:02 What can government, what more…?
46:04 Sofía mentioned a list of policies.
46:06 What more could governments…?
46:07 What are some other policies that you probably, from your own experience, you thought could
46:14 work, to address the gender inequality?
46:16 And if you can think of global.
46:19 What is the global…?
46:20 We talked about vaccines, definitely that's a global policy.
46:24 What's the global policy that we could think of?
46:29 [Alejandra Botero] Well, I think, if I can start just briefly
46:33 with the context.
46:34 As Sofía was saying, this exact, this happened in Colombia.
46:39 By definition, the unemployment rate between men and women, women unemployment rate is
46:48 traditionally higher.
46:49 It's about five points higher than the male unemployment rate.
46:50 But this rate actually increased during the pandemic.
46:51 It went up to 7.7%.
46:52 So from 5.3 to 7.7% was the unemployment gap between men and women.
46:56 And obviously as we all know, many factors explain it.
47:01 The fact that children weren't going to school, the fact that they had to take care of the
47:12 elders.
47:13 So women were the first ones to give up their jobs, so to say, to be able to help the maintenance
47:27 of the family.
47:28 In that sense, now the reactivation and the numbers that are coming in, the economic
47:42 numbers are pretty good.
47:44 I think we're going to close 2020 [inaudible] and with a 9.7 increase in GDP, and we're
47:55 looking towards a 4 to 5% increase in 2022.
48:00 However, the employment rates are still lagging behind.
48:03 And that gap between woman and men is also still increasing.
48:07 An economic analysis that we do is that we think that as a company, as a country…
48:13 But right now with Omicron, everything is in a standstill, but as the vaccination continues
48:18 and the sectors that have more employment of women and the younger population, we also
48:25 have a very, very big increase in unemployment for youth or for the younger population.
48:32 As the sectors, such as tourism, restaurants and all the other social services opened up,
48:36 we hope that that gap between men and women will start to decrease.
48:39 However, while this happens, there's a short-term policy that we implemented in September, which
48:42 is a subsidy in the salary of companies that hire women and young people.
48:46 So if they hire someone who's under 28 years old, because the unemployment of people under
48:49 30 is very, very high in Colombia, then they get a 25% subsidy from the government in their
48:58 salary.
48:59 And if that person is a woman, even if they're over 28 year old, they get a 10% additional
49:00 coverage in the salary.
49:01 This is the equivalent of health and other social protection programs.
49:03 Basically, that's what the government is subsidizing, to be able to stimulate employment.
49:04 And from the very recent data that we've gotten, because this is a program that was only implemented
49:05 about three months ago, the numbers are starting to pick up.
49:08 So that's something that from Colombia's example, we are doing, in order to address the gender
49:13 gap.
49:14 But I think global policies that we can cross, share and understand and see how we can implement,
49:27 I think how we can strengthen the sectors where they have a strong female participation,
49:32 would be very useful.
49:33 How are we going to get back to the reactivation in tourism?
49:36 How are we going to get back to the reactivation in the education sector, sectors where women
49:43 are a big portion of the labor force?
49:45 I think that's something that would be very interesting to understand.
49:50 And also in terms of the regulatory environment, so that we have a more equal participation
49:57 in general, in the duties of the families, but also in the labor duties.
50:05 So for example, we just recently implemented in Colombia, a paid leave for men, for the
50:07 husbands, of five days.
50:09 And that was a huge controversy here.
50:11 Not a huge controversy, but it's debatable whether it's five days versus what women have
50:21 to take.
50:22 I think all those evaluations and understanding of policies that make the care economy and
50:25 an equal, the level playing field for women in the medium term, is what's going to help
50:34 us be more resilient once another crisis like this comes around and be better prepared as
50:39 a society, so that we don't have that gender gap, that as Sofía's number show, is drastic.
50:47 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
50:50 Branko, would you like to come in on this question?
50:53 [Branko Milanovic] Well, I might not come exactly like the question
50:57 that you asked me because I was going to say a little bit more about the global response
51:04 and what might be done.
51:07 I'm much weaker on this might be done, but let me say that I'm, I think like many people,
51:14 extremely disappointed by the global response.
51:17 We have to put the things really upfront and to say the truth.
51:22 Let me just compare first.
51:24 The expectations, as you know, there was this study done by Johns Hopkins and economist
51:31 intelligence unit that actually argued that just before the pandemic itself happened,
51:35 that the US, UK and the Netherlands were the best prepared countries to face the pandemic
51:41 and nobody could have expected the US would have one million dead.
51:44 We were basically there.
51:46 This is a disaster.
51:48 We are talking about up to 15 million excess deaths.
51:52 This is like a global war.
51:56 And then under conditions like that, we have had WHO, I'm not going to criticize them,
52:01 but they are generally considered not to have performed well.
52:05 Secondly, we have in an emergency of such proportions, which is very clear that unless
52:11 the pandemic is also solved in the poor countries, you cannot solve it in the rich countries
52:16 for obvious reasons because people travel and the epidemic will spread.
52:20 And very little yet has been done.
52:22 And if you compare the immediacy of the problem and the number of people who were affected
52:28 and the loss of a job and income and death, and on the other hand, you look at the climate
52:33 change discussions, which have been going on for 20 years, you actually realize that
52:38 the world really has shown itself absolutely not ready to do certain things when the danger
52:45 is so present and immediate.
52:47 And that of course leaves you very skeptical about the ability of changing things now.
52:53 And it makes you, I think, very skeptical about the ability to address longer-term problems
52:59 like a climate change.
53:00 And moreover, we are talking now lots about money.
53:03 Everybody's like throwing numbers left and right.
53:06 But somebody has to produce these numbers and one doesn't see other than this pledges.
53:10 I've been in this world for a long time.
53:13 I remember working on East European countries.
53:16 Every three months, the Western countries would pledge some billions.
53:19 Theses billions would never show up anywhere, because there will be a combination of forgiveness
53:24 of the loans, loans which should be rescheduled, money which should come, which never comes.
53:30 So we are again in this game of billions and billions.
53:33 And eventually, at the end of the road, I was recently talking to somebody about the
53:37 climate change, where actually the total disbursements were 1% of what was pledged.
53:43 So I'm afraid that what we are talking now is not going to actually come to any fruition.
53:49 And so I'm very pessimistic, as you can see.
53:52 And moreover, it is taking place in a climate where actually, rather than having cooperation
53:57 between the two largest economies of the world, we have basically a fight with them.
54:02 So, unless these things are really changed dramatically, and I think that needs to be
54:06 changed on some kind of a global summit or something, which would really do things in
54:10 the way that we have done it in 1945, I don't think any change.
54:15 Unfortunately, we would be fighting the battles of the last war and we would continue just
54:20 hoping that the new pandemic does not hit us.
54:24 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Branko.
54:26 That was a very sobering assessment of the lack of global cooperation.
54:31 I think many of us would agree and it's sort of what needs to be done.
54:39 On the vaccines, obviously there's a lot that's going on, but still short of delivery and
54:46 a lot has to do also with the issue of supply, as well as the readiness of the countries
54:52 themselves to be able to deliver a vaccine.
54:55 But I think you're right, that there does need to be…
55:00 People do talk about the notion of having a marshal type of a fund that could be addressing
55:10 these very global challenges, which are exacerbating inequality, obviously.
55:14 Whether it's climate, whether it's on the health and obviously on debt, that's the other
55:21 big one, on debt restructuring and debt relief.
55:25 Otherwise, countries will not be able to recover and actually put themselves in a much more
55:34 worse situation.
55:35 But just on…
55:36 Let's close before we move on to the next topic, let me just add on gender.
55:42 I think countries can also certainly put a gender lens…
55:48 We talk about this a lot, but putting a gender lens in all the policy responses, like if
55:54 you have Cash For Work program, a lot of them tend to be in infrastructure, for instance.
56:00 How can you make sure that women are also getting the Cash For Work program?
56:04 On health, I mentioned already the maternal healthcare, the importance of addressing that.
56:09 I think we are seeing lots of data coming in on increased gender-based violence and
56:16 early child marriage.
56:17 Again, that needs a strong government policy and commitment and the involvement of communities,
56:24 especially religious communities, to prevent that from escalating.
56:29 And I think digital, the issue of reskilling and upskilling.
56:34 We talk about digital and data also shows that women, as well as women-owned businesses,
56:42 have been less able to adapt to the digital technology.
56:48 So having a focus, I think, on women and digital will also help at the country level.
56:56 At the global level, I think on the trade front, there are many issues that are very
57:03 gender specific, in terms of how do we help women participate in trade SME's?
57:12 We have a number of studies linking trade and gender, and they show that at the border,
57:19 corruption and harassment tends to hurt women traders and informal sector more than others.
57:27 So, addressing that for instance, and making sure that complimentary policies are there,
57:35 so that the distribution of trade is more widely distributed and so on.
57:41 So there are some global policy responses there.
57:45 So let's move on from gender.
57:49 If anyone of you would like to come in and add to what Branko has raised as a very big
57:55 topic on the lack of global response, please do come in, but let me also make it a bigger
58:08 challenge.
58:09 If you could think about how does the world become more prepared for the next crisis,
58:14 for the next pandemic?
58:17 If you have any thoughts on specific ideas?
58:20 I think on a broader scale, yes, we do need a broader coalition of whether it's another
58:28 Marshall Plan that focuses on these issues of development on a bigger scale or specific
58:38 ideas on how we can move on the global cooperation.
58:41 Let me just open the floor to all three of you on that big question, perhaps starting
58:49 with Sofía?
58:51 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Mari, actually, let me come to the topic of
59:00 participation and leadership.
59:02 And if I may say, I may sound like a broken record, but actually of women's participation.
59:09 Because, we actually talk about the poor, we talk about women and girls, we talk about
59:15 those that are excluded and discriminated against, yet we often don't bring them into
59:22 these dialogues.
59:24 And their meaningful participation, their movement in decision making processes from
59:29 national to global levels, I think that is really what will make a big difference in
59:36 response, prevention and recovery to crisis, and also the next pandemic, the next crisis.
59:45 And that includes, I think, funding and involving feminist organizations and women's rights
59:51 organizations in all of their intersectional diversity, in the design, implementation and
59:58 evaluation of policies.
01:00:00 Actually at this point, I think of participation of those that are feeling mostly the impact
01:00:07 of this pandemic and any other crisis to come, is really crucial.
01:00:11 We often again, leave it out of these dialogues.
01:00:14 We will not get different solutions to inequality from the same actors that have not acted to
01:00:21 address it now.
01:00:23 So change is essential.
01:00:24 We will not get the different solutions if we are only involving always the same people.
01:00:31 And they have been actually really, really good examples of positive leadership, also
01:00:35 from women during the COVID crisis, from New Zealand to Germany and many other countries.
01:00:44 We also have evidence from that, from CARE's work, where we have promoted and encouraged
01:00:52 women's leadership in response to emergencies.
01:00:56 It has actually made all of the difference in achieving better results.
01:01:01 When women lead in emergency responses, we have seen increased cooperation within the
01:01:07 community, communities recovering fast [inaudible].
01:01:13 [Mari Pangestu] I think we may have lost…
01:01:21 We lost you for a bit.
01:01:28 I think she's really breaking up.
01:01:40 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I have stopped the video.
01:01:49 [Mari Pangestu] But we can't…
01:01:51 [Crosstalk] Okay, go ahead.
01:01:52 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] The host has…
01:01:53 Sorry, I think I was briefly muted by the host.
01:01:55 Let me stop the video.
01:01:56 What I was saying is that we must engage women in responding to disasters to rethink also
01:02:03 traditional gender norms, in their communities, at home.
01:02:07 Because all the evidence shows that it is not acceptable that women are underrepresented
01:02:13 in teams responding to COVID.
01:02:16 We have published a report at CARE, which shows that of the national teams, government
01:02:21 teams responding to COVID only, one fourth of those teams were women.
01:02:27 And by excluding women from decision-making teams and platforms, we are making slower
01:02:33 progress in overcoming this crisis or any other crisis.
01:02:38 We will not get different outcomes with decisions taken by those that have gotten us where we
01:02:43 are today.
01:02:45 Again, with women being involved in decision-making, we can increase cooperation and we will be
01:02:54 better equipped to respond to crisis.
01:02:58 And another critical point is, of course and we have that very much flagged at CARE
01:03:05 is again this notion of women leading in crisis.
01:03:11 We have actually a large campaign that is called She Leads in Crisis, and their participation
01:03:19 must influence national governance, target the UN agencies, all of us target us so that
01:03:29 we can have better co-ordination mechanisms to fund and elevate women-led organizations
01:03:35 in disaster preparedness.
01:03:38 But let me also say Mari, maybe, to make another important point, and that is, the global inequalities
01:03:47 are really posing multiple threats to all of us, rich and poor, for social stability.
01:03:56 So we can make strong inroads into these inequalities, if we deliver on existing commitments and
01:04:05 do it at scale.
01:04:06 We have frameworks: the Beijing Declaration, the sustainable development goals, with their
01:04:12 pledge to leave no one behind.
01:04:14 So I believe the banks, IDA20 package, also brings a strong starting point to increase
01:04:21 global action.
01:04:22 So let us be bold by increasing financing that can support more ambitious action in
01:04:30 ways that finally make good on [inaudible].
01:04:36 [Mari Pangestu] I think we may have lost her, but I think
01:04:47 she ended up with a good point about financing.
01:04:50 Whatever you're going to call it, whether it's…
01:04:55 There is a proposal for pandemic preparedness financing, climate financing.
01:05:02 And so…
01:05:04 If I can just move on because I think we've lost Sofía.
01:05:13 Hope she can come back in again.
01:05:16 Just that broad question again.
01:05:20 And there was a question directed to you Branko on this topic that I posed: "Thanks Branko
01:05:27 for this bit of reality check.
01:05:29 Could I still press you to express a few more thoughts on what may work instead, if anything,
01:05:35 and where would you put the first priorities of action?"
01:05:41 In the comment you made earlier about how there needs to be a rethink and a stronger
01:05:51 call for global action on many fronts?
01:05:53 [Branko Milanovic] Well, of course, it's a good question.
01:05:57 It's good; it's called $64,000 question or some such number.
01:06:02 Obviously, we are bettering noticing things which have not worked than proposing solutions,
01:06:09 because the solutions are not the easiest.
01:06:11 They require cooperation between different governments, institutions, and others.
01:06:16 Two things that I wanted to mention.
01:06:19 One is a very standard one, is really we need resumption of growth.
01:06:25 Without resumption of growth, the poverty numbers are not going to go down.
01:06:30 So we really need to…
01:06:32 We have lost two years, hopefully if COVID gets normalized or becomes an endemic, or
01:06:39 maybe just disappears, we need really to go back to growth.
01:06:43 And for growth, you need, particularly for the poor countries, an increase in financing.
01:06:48 So I think this is one thing that we need.
01:06:51 Second thing is, again, I'm coming back to the climate change because I'm afraid that
01:06:56 there could be claims on money, which come both from the climate change people and from
01:07:03 the pandemic.
01:07:05 And given that the resources are limited, we might have to actually adjudicate who gets
01:07:10 what.
01:07:11 There are simply not unlimited resources.
01:07:14 And finally, I want to say something that I forgot and actually I wanted to say before,
01:07:20 it's the question of food prices.
01:07:22 We have seen food prices actually rising, and they have risen before and whenever that
01:07:28 has happened, we have gone into the area of political turbulence.
01:07:32 And most recently you have seen that in Kazakhstan in Turkey, and it probably will happen in
01:07:37 many other countries, particularly in Africa.
01:07:40 And we have seen also financial instability like Lebanon.
01:07:44 So I think that there will be political effects of the crisis, which we are only going to
01:07:50 see in the future.
01:07:52 Now the bottom line then, to me, is willingness.
01:07:57 It really boils down to money, essentially.
01:07:59 It is willingness to fund programs, which would really help growth of the poor countries,
01:08:07 reduce poverty there much more effectively it was done before, and create funds, both
01:08:13 for the green recovery and for the green technology and for the potential pandemic.
01:08:21 And that of course means much greater co-operation and just willingness to share much more than
01:08:27 before or now, because we have seen that that willingness is very limited to say the least,
01:08:34 to share between both rich people and poor people and rich countries and poor countries.
01:08:40 So it does require entirely sort of new institutions.
01:08:44 Last point, maybe institutions that would have owned access to funds.
01:08:49 In other words, for example, a tax, which could be imposed on certain commodities and
01:08:56 which would go directly to the fund without intermediation of the countries.
01:09:00 That has been in the idea, as you know, with the topping tax, but it never went very far.
01:09:05 But I think it's important, theoretically, to have a global agency that would not depend
01:09:11 only on contribution by states, but would actually have its own sources of funding.
01:09:18 [Mari Pangestu] A very concrete proposal, and I think your
01:09:25 point about the importance of resuming growth.
01:09:28 I mean, in the immediate short term resumption of growth is key, and this is definitely something
01:09:38 that we hope the G20 countries, which this is where, if you think about whether they
01:09:45 were successful in the 2008-2009 global financial prices, this considered effort to have growth
01:09:53 resume.
01:09:54 I guess the big question that, at least on the macro side, whether countries can actually
01:10:01 coordinate this, an orderly exit it from this extraordinary stimulus, whether on the fiscal
01:10:12 and the monetary policy side, without causing further disruption to the world, to the global
01:10:19 economy.
01:10:20 I think that's one big question apart from what you mentioned on climate.
01:10:25 I agree that food prices, I think definitely something to keep in mind.
01:10:30 I think food prices have gone up, and here the question is: Is this a trade issue?
01:10:37 Is there a supply issue?
01:10:38 How do we overcome that?
01:10:40 We should not repeat what happened in 2008, when food prices went up by 100% and poverty
01:10:47 also went up by tens...
01:10:49 I think it was like 50 or 60 million, if I recall correctly.
01:10:55 So it would be an added, I think, another driver to increase inequality.
01:11:02 Let me turn to Alejandra, whether she wanted to come in on this big question, and then
01:11:05 we have another question from the audience that I would like to pose to all of you.
01:11:11 [Alejandra Botero] Thank you, Mari.
01:11:12 I would like to start with one thing that actually ties us with the last question, which
01:11:20 has to do with the financial inclusion of women.
01:11:25 I think that this is something that, especially for developing countries, is a big challenge
01:11:29 that we have now in general inclusion, and I think the fact that the pandemic…
01:11:35 At least in Colombia, our objectives for general financial inclusion were exceeded in the four
01:11:39 years because of that push that we had to do with the conditional, with the monetary
01:11:43 transfers, and in general, with the digital transformation of the economy to be able continue
01:11:47 on remotely.
01:11:48 But in that sense, I would give a specific focus on women, the financial inclusion of
01:11:56 women, which, again, is lagging, and which means once they are more, as we all know,
01:12:03 more empowered economically and have that financial included that levels the playing
01:12:08 field in the future.
01:12:09 I would hone in on financial inclusion for women, I think.
01:12:12 That's a very interesting topic to look forward to in the future.
01:12:16 The second one is, I think, and I'm not an expert on this topic, but I had to do it tangentially,
01:12:23 I think that whole solidarity with the vaccines, what Branko was talking about, the importance
01:12:32 of having a very strong vaccination program so that the economy and the schools can return
01:12:43 to a sort of in person, [inaudible] level as soon as possible.
01:12:49 I think it’s very important.
01:12:54 I think we are learning from how callback [inaudible] didn't work, but I think that
01:13:03 there has to be a more sophisticated system to be able to help developing countries or
01:13:16 countries who might not have that quick access to vaccines to be able to have that same access
01:13:28 as more developed and richer countries do.
01:13:36 I think it would have been so interesting if we had better examples.
01:13:39 I'm talking in the case of Colombia about how to minimize the gap in education with
01:13:42 remote learning.
01:13:43 If we knew about programs that would help you maintain the education that goes in remotely,
01:13:45 maybe that gap in education would not be so broad.
01:13:46 When schools closed down, and especially in the rural areas of Colombia, the classes were
01:13:47 being taught via WhatsApp, from the teachers to the mothers, to the mothers having to interpret
01:13:48 the results of WhatsApp, give the lessons to the kids, and then…
01:13:49 Or the mothers or the fathers or the grandparents, whoever was in the school.
01:13:54 Then return to classes on a weekly basis.
01:13:59 They would do the rounds in the homes to distribute the learning materials, to distribute food
01:14:03 if it was necessary, and I think that if we knew how to do that better, I think that would
01:14:12 help us in another case if we have to have a shutdown.
01:14:15 I think that something that's very interesting, or at least in Colombia right now it's very
01:14:19 innovative, in other countries you're developing as well, are these results based loans.
01:14:20 The loan that I was talking about that we're doing with the WorldPac for education, Promise
01:14:26 Program, is a results-based loan.
01:14:30 I think that having that implementation of these loans specifically to strengthen programs
01:14:36 such as education, programs such as access to public services, all those social infrastructure
01:14:41 networks that we need to be stronger as a nation if another pandemic hits, I think would
01:14:46 be something very beneficial to lower development countries.
01:14:47 Then finally, this is something that also Branko touched on, is fiscal health.
01:14:50 I mean, we had to release the fiscal rule right now.
01:14:57 A positive thing is that because we moved so quickly, 50% of the transfers that have
01:15:02 ever been done in transfer programs in Colombia, so 50% of the amount happened in these three
01:15:12 years.
01:15:13 But as Branko said, that money had to come from somewhere, it's not picked out of the
01:15:16 trees.
01:15:17 So actually, for example, our debt to GDP ratio skyrocketed to…
01:15:18 I think right now we are going to close…
01:15:22 Last year it was 65%.
01:15:24 We're going to close around 61-62% this year.
01:15:26 Which is actually a good dip, but we still have many years to come until we reduce it
01:15:35 to a more normal level, to put it that way.
01:15:39 In that sense, that solidarity from [inaudible] flexibility of international financing, especially
01:15:42 when it comes with the installments and the low rates, I think it's a discussion then.
01:15:47 If it's understandable beforehand, then once [inaudible] there's some clear rules beforehand,
01:15:53 or I guess a better…
01:15:55 I guess, understanding would be the word, then the countries could feel empowered to
01:16:03 be able to make these decisions about the programs that will help the poor very quickly,
01:16:10 which we did as a country, but because we were solid fiscally and now we're how seeing
01:16:16 how we're going to come back to normal levels.
01:16:20 But that's not necessarily the case with other countries.
01:16:25 I think in Colombia it was a big bet to spend that money very quickly to help the vulnerable
01:16:29 population.
01:16:30 But that's not something that you can always do.
01:16:33 So I think that whole reflection globally, how we're going to help the poorest, the countries
01:16:41 that have the highest percentage of the poor population, beforehand, so that you can have
01:16:46 these social programs implemented very quickly, would be a very interesting lesson learned
01:16:48 from the pandemic.
01:16:49 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:16:52 Thank you, Alejandra.
01:16:54 Let me pose…
01:16:56 This might be the last question that we have time for, but I thought this is an interesting
01:17:01 and good question.
01:17:04 It's asking all of you to comment on the issue of youth.
01:17:10 Because that we all know that the fact that jobs, availability of jobs, in this pandemic
01:17:17 and not going to school and all that, is affecting youth.
01:17:22 It's affecting women and children and youth much more than other groups.
01:17:30 And really the question is then, how should we be addressing the issue of the inequality
01:17:38 that's hitting the youth and what should be a good program or what should be the approach
01:17:45 for youth economic empowerment?
01:17:51 Shall we start with Branko this time?
01:17:57 I'll reverse the order a little bit.
01:18:01 [Branko Milanovic] Thank you, Mari.
01:18:04 Of course, I'm sure that Alejandra, because she's actually working on the topic, I mean,
01:18:12 as she really very persuasively explained what is happening and how women were affected
01:18:20 in Colombia, would have many more ideas.
01:18:22 I really don't have much.
01:18:24 I think that the issue is definitely a very big one.
01:18:30 The number of classes, weeks of classes or months of classes that have been lost around
01:18:37 the world is enormous.
01:18:39 I actually don't think, again, that that has happened to that extent anywhere, even during
01:18:45 the wars.
01:18:46 You, of course lose classes in countries that are affected by the wars, but in this case,
01:18:50 we had something that has really been global.
01:18:54 Regaining that, I think, it's very difficult.
01:18:57 And of course the time passes, so you cannot actually put children who are like 12 years
01:19:03 old, then go back to double the classes and to be with children who are like nine.
01:19:10 I suppose maybe the extension of the number of classes of the school year that would require,
01:19:16 of course, much more work with professors.
01:19:19 I mean, you even see that at the university level.
01:19:23 Definitely, our classes now are not the same as they used to be.
01:19:28 The interaction between students is less.
01:19:30 And let me tell you one gender element that I've noticed.
01:19:33 It’s that, for example, women ask many fewer questions, in my experience, in classes that
01:19:41 are held online compared to when I had classes live.
01:19:45 It is simply that actually with live classes, they may be a little bit shy in the beginning,
01:19:50 but gradually as the class progresses, actually I think there is practical an equality and
01:19:54 sometimes even women are more articulate or they speak more.
01:19:59 But in online is really the reverse.
01:20:03 So there you see really a gender element and you see a general, I think, decline in engagement
01:20:10 and learning.
01:20:11 And finally, let me put one more thing, general inability of professors or teachers to figure
01:20:16 out who is doing what.
01:20:18 Because everything is done online, everything is done far from you, you have no idea if
01:20:22 these students are really learning something or not.
01:20:25 You're not even sure if the exams that they are doing, they are doing them.
01:20:29 So I think there are really here many issues that I think we should really commission studies
01:20:35 on finding out how countries that they've been affected by wars, or I mentioned Cultural
01:20:40 Revolution.
01:20:41 It's not a joke; it's actually a thing that has affected millions of young people in China
01:20:45 over almost 10 years.
01:20:46 How that had been, not only what was the impact, but what were the solutions that have been
01:20:52 implemented and were found useful?
01:20:55 So that would be my suggestion because honestly, I don't have a solution myself, really.
01:21:03 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:21:07 Thank you, Branko.
01:21:08 Alejandra, and then Sofía, but if you could be brief because we only have seven minutes
01:21:14 left.
01:21:15 So briefly on that question.
01:21:16 [Alejandra Botero] [Inaudible].
01:21:18 I'll be very brief.
01:21:21 Thank you.
01:21:22 Two things.
01:21:24 I think one, I spoke about it in a previous question, which was, how do we stimulate employment
01:21:29 for the youth, the younger population, that as we had a subsidy to the salary that the
01:21:33 government was doing in the short term.
01:21:36 And then we also issued a law which has had some positive effects, which is called the
01:21:43 First Employment Law, which is that where for a first employment of someone who has
01:21:50 a first employment to get a small subsidy from the government, the company does, so
01:21:55 that they can start having a track record in employment, and then they go out on their
01:22:01 own.
01:22:02 That was the first [inaudible] to reduce that gap, which is very big, between youth employment
01:22:07 and regular employment.
01:22:08 And then the other thing that I think is very important, and right now more pertinent than
01:22:13 ever, as you were saying Mari, at the beginning, is a change in skills needed for the productive
01:22:19 systems, for the private sector.
01:22:21 In that sense, upscaling, rescaling, but also through competencies: How do we reduce that
01:22:28 gap between what is being taught in formal education and vocational training and what
01:22:34 is needed in the workforce?
01:22:36 So I think that's something has to have a very big focus in the medium terms, in terms
01:22:42 of education and vocational space.
01:22:48 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you, Alejandra.
01:22:49 Sofía.
01:22:50 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] Yes, and hopefully this is working out.
01:22:52 Let me know if it isn't.
01:22:54 But yeah, I think this is such a critical question because actually recent research
01:23:02 by UNICEF, and others, indicates that young people are feeling very pessimistic more than
01:23:09 ever before.
01:23:10 And I think I want to come back to the issue of participation, bringing in their voices
01:23:15 in solutions, as I also mentioned early on women and girls, but for youth of all genders,
01:23:22 that they really can participate in solutions at this very, very critical moment.
01:23:30 I actually still think that that, like the headlights of a car, we still have the shorter
01:23:39 headlights on, where we are seeing the most immediate, and we actually have not fully
01:23:44 yet seen what the impact of not having been properly to school, as Branko just indicated,
01:23:51 the online education, we must really turn on the longer headlights, as the World Bank
01:23:57 report has done, on inequality, to really see what is happening.
01:24:01 Also, for example, for many girls that in some of the poorest country of the worlds
01:24:08 have now been married off early, as you mentioned earlier, Mari.
01:24:15 [Mari Pangestu] We've lost you, Sofía.
01:24:26 We lost you.
01:24:34 [Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro] I'm so sorry.
01:24:47 Hopefully, Mari, I'm back.
01:24:49 The other area I wanted to flag is the area of green jobs for young people, the area that
01:24:55 I earlier flagged, that's also critical area and arena to create hope for young people
01:25:01 all over the world.
01:25:04 [Mari Pangestu] Thank you.
01:25:05 Thank you very much, all the panelists.
01:25:08 I think that's, unfortunately, that's all the time we have.
01:25:11 I think we could go on talking about this.
01:25:14 So many unanswered questions and so many solutions that we need to look for.
01:25:19 But it has been a very rich discussion and I'd like to thank you for that.
01:25:23 And I'm glad the World Bank report was the catalyst for us to have this discussion, even
01:25:30 though I'm sure we will need much more discussion to be able to really find some answers as
01:25:36 to the way forward.
01:25:38 But I think we came to some agreement on the importance of reversing inequality and the
01:25:48 danger of these long-term scarring effects, and the divergence between developed and developing
01:25:54 countries that's just going to be widening.
01:25:58 And there is a short term and medium term and longer-term responses that will be needed,
01:26:04 but the immediate response, I think, does have to do with resumption of growth and addressing
01:26:12 the immediate needs of protecting the vulnerable groups.
01:26:17 I think there was a lot of discussion about the role of government and how they need to
01:26:22 have effective policies.
01:26:24 It does have to start with data, I think, knowing who are the vulnerable groups and
01:26:30 having adaptive programs, whether it's for women or whether it's for the other vulnerable
01:26:36 groups, and it's not just extreme poor anymore.
01:26:41 How can you have adaptive programs that can address these different groups and different
01:26:46 needs?
01:26:47 And we need to monitor their effectiveness, because we have limited resources.
01:26:52 I think the ones that the World Bank has been struggling with developing countries is that
01:26:59 we know you have to increase your spending on health and education if you are going to
01:27:05 address these scarring effects, yet you have limited resources.
01:27:08 So there is this whole discussion about how you must increase domestic resource mobilization,
01:27:15 but at the same time, you also have to spend more on health and education.
01:27:19 But I think in a world where you have limited resources, then it's not just about financing
01:27:25 because that's…
01:27:26 A lot of you mentioned financing, but it is about, obviously, combining financing with
01:27:32 better design policies and institutions that address the short term but at the same time
01:27:39 also address the medium term challenges and respond to building back preparedness as well
01:27:47 as stronger institutions; as you are helping countries with the pandemic, build out a stronger
01:27:54 health system.
01:27:56 As we are dealing with learning losses, let's think about how to build out a better education
01:28:01 system.
01:28:02 And so on and so forth.
01:28:04 The final thing I would say on financing is that Branko raised a very, very important
01:28:08 issue on this.
01:28:10 Financing, it cannot just come from government budgets or donors, for that matter.
01:28:14 There's a big discussion about the non-donor group, the non-donor sources of financing.
01:28:23 I think you wanted to have some kind of tax that goes into a fund, COVID tax, it goes
01:28:30 of fund, and that's what we need to fund.
01:28:34 I think the issue of the private sector, the role of the private sector, the philanthropists,
01:28:41 the foundations, and companies that are now having to also respond to SDGs and climate
01:28:49 change.
01:28:50 But the most important thing is what do we want to use the money for?
01:28:54 It has to be effective and well targeted and so on and so forth, and be able to be monitored.
01:29:02 These are some of the big discussions that are going on.
01:29:05 So we'll have to have another session with all of you to discuss more on this.
01:29:10 And I would like to thank all three of you.
01:29:12 You've been great.
01:29:13 I'd like to thank the audience.
01:29:14 And I'd like to thank the World Bank Group team, the World Bank team, the [inaudible]
01:29:19 team, who have produced this report.
01:29:22 So thank you very much.
01:29:23 All of you have a good rest of the day, wherever you are.
01:29:27 Bye-bye.

About the report

Global Economic Prospects: Slowing Growth, Rising Risks

Download the chapter: Impact of Covid-19 on Global Income Inequality (pdf)

Download chapter highlights (pdf)

Download chapter charts (zip)

COVID-19 and Economic Inequality: Short-Term Impacts with Long-Term Consequences

Global Economic Prospects Report

A conversation with David Malpass and Adam Posen

Replay

January 19, 2022

A conversation with David Malpass and Adam Posen

Global Economy: Reversing the Scars of COVID-19

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February 01, 2021

Global Economy: Reversing the Scars of COVID-19

Lasting Scars: Recovering From The Global Impact of the Pandemic

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June 10, 2020

Lasting Scars: Recovering From The Global Impact of the Pandemic

A Shock Like No Other: The Way Forward For Developing Economies

Replay

June 03, 2020

A Shock Like No Other: The Way Forward For Developing Economies

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