Feminist Aid: A call for G7 leaders to beat inequality
by
Oxfam Canada
| May 9, 2019
In an increasingly unequal world, advancing gender equality is fundamental to tackling inequality and poverty. The G7 has made important gender equality commitments and all G7 countries have gender equality integrated in their aid strategies. But efforts continue to fall short as they too often neglect to address the underlying structural and systemic barriers that keep women poor and undermine their fundamental rights and freedoms. Feminist aid has the potential to be a game changer in that it challenges us to rethink how aid is delivered and truly transform systems of unequal power. The time is now for the G7 to make a historic commit to a feminist aid agenda.
The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began.
The virus has exposed, fed off and increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender and race. Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest individuals and corporations are thriving.
Humanitarian assistance is the delivery of emergency response services to people and communities affected by crisis, conflict and disaster. Some disasters are cyclical and regular (hurricanes, monsoons, floods, etc.), others, such as conflict, may or may not be predictable and can end up being more protracted in nature and yet others happen suddenly and present major unplanned catastrophes. Many disasters are on the increase because of environmental degradation and climate change.