The World Health Organization has approved six different vaccines for emergency use and the distribution of vaccines is moving forward slowly but certainly. The unequal distribution of vaccines, while mostly going to developed countries, is an important issue. Yet, vaccine hesitancy is halting the uptake of vaccines in all countries. Internationally comparable data shows that, amongst fifteen countries polled, the Russian Federation, the United States and Australia are among the most vaccine-hesitant. There is an increase over time in the willingness to be vaccinated in other countries, but the vaccination rates are still too low to truly fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The JEP panelists contemplated what they believe drives vaccine hesitancy. Most of the respondents focused on the fact that many people are generally uninformed or unable to estimate the risks associated with COVID-19. Dr. Nadine McCloud, Head of the Economics Department at UWI Mona and co-founder of the JEP, opines that “This pandemic has highlighted that health literacy faces major challenges throughout the world. Suppose individual people cannot correctly reckon their risks associated with COVID-19 and the vaccination. In that case, this can result in greater vaccine hesitancy than what one would expect. Addressing such health literacy challenges requires a structural approach from the basic education level. However, given that this solution is long-term and countries must race against time to reduce vaccine hesitancy and rein in this pandemic,  governments should also employ widespread use of orthodox and unorthodox communication tools to increase health literacy.” The JEP panelists also voiced their views on several policies applied in different countries to address vaccine hesitancy. The importance of information campaigns for low-information households is almost universally endorsed. Half of the respondents also recognize that distinguishing public-health restrictions between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated can play a key role. Another associated matter is that, whichever policy governments apply, people must be aware of the advantages of vaccination (beyond protection from disease), such as reduced quarantine upon entering the country. Finally, although very few respondents champion making vaccination compulsory in all circumstances, they were asked about which possible exceptions they could recognize. Two specific groups stand out: healthcare workers and teachers (as long as there are no approved vaccines for children). A large majority of respondents supports making vaccines mandatory for those groups, despite the ethical conundrum associated with doing so. Responding to the survey results, Dr. Garry Conille, United Nations Resident Coordinator, shared that “Vaccine hesitancy is a real challenge in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. It requires a careful balance of individual rights and the rights of the overall population to be protected. Making vaccination mandatory for everyone is a major rights infringement, but it makes sense to provide the right incentives to encourage individuals to get vaccinated. I believe that distinguishing the public-health requirements between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated would make sense, but only when a substantial portion of the population has had the opportunity to get vaccinated.” The Jamaican Economy Panel is part of a partnership between the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office (UNRCO) and the Department of Economics at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona. The JEP brings together a select group of economic and public sector experts to address monthly socio-economic questions. These questions help to highlight relevant economic issues and the collective expertise of the panelists. The full results of this month’s discussion are available HERE.

“Investments with a gender lens are important but they alone are not enough. Often times, financial institutions put credit lines in place, but they come and go. What is needed is business support advisory, and evidence.  Often times, we are asked to focus on measuring the gaps and we continue to show the business case in everything, but sometimes I do get a little tired because nobody had to prove the business case for the status quo.”  Henriette Kolb, Manager, Gender and Economic Inclusion at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a recent address to the Jamaica business community stressed that too often women have to work harder to make their business case for financing.  This was a recurring theme of the “Win-Win: Building Back Better!” Webinar Series held on June 15,16, 22 and 23, 2021 and organized under the “Win-Win: Gender Equality Means Good Business” programme, which concluded on June 30, 2021. The programme was created in a partnership with UN Women, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the European Union (EU) to promote gender equality through the private sector.   In the Caribbean, governments, the private sector and financiers have acknowledged that it cannot be business as usual if we are to build back better. The support to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) especially women-led businesses, inclusive value chains, and sustainable access to innovative financial resources are necessary for building a more sustainable, economically resilient and inclusive society. The webinar series brought together more than 70 government and business leaders daily, including the main moderator, Patricia Francis, Chair of the Trade Facilitation Task Force in the Government of Jamaica.   The over 45 local and international presenters (government ministers, heads of multilateral organizations, the private sector and financiers) called for more diversity in business and encouraged other key stakeholders to recognize and remove barriers to economic growth. Lessons learned and better practices were shared to address existing gender gaps in the workplace and to find new investment sources to reboot acceleration for MSMEs.  UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean Representative, Tonni Brodber called on Jamaican financiers to revisit the criteria for viability. Pointing to evidence of return of investment (ROI) in women-owned enterprises and youth-owned enterprises, she shared an initiative to promote equality using the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) to generate more innovative financial instruments.    Brodber said: “Within the framework of the Win-Win Programme, UN Women has developed the initiative, ‘Investors for Equality’ as a space for dialogue between the different actors in the financial, investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem to raise awareness, mobilize investments with gender impact and generate a commitment to the principles involved in promoting gender-lens investments and gender equality within organizations in the financial sector.”  The UN Women report, The State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing is a tool for incorporating a gender analysis into financial analysis to get to better outcomes.   Brodber added: “Women control about $20 billion in consumer spending and generate about $18 billion, which widens their circle of influence. Women entrepreneurs generate 20% more income, even though 50% less is invested in them. As the programme’s name suggests, gender equality really means solid and sound business sense.”  Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator the Honourable Aubyn Hill, reemphasized the potential financial benefits to the global and Jamaican GDP if participation and earned income gaps between men and women were decreased.    Senator Hill said: “Women locally earn 62% percent of every dollar earned by their male counterparts so more attention needs to be paid to equal pay for equal work. I hear you speaking to governments (for indeed we make policies); however, this issue of making pay equal between men and women must be addressed by CEOs and board members of large companies. They have to lead the way.”  Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Honourable Floyd Green said government was tackling the challenges of participation gaps in the agricultural sector. Agriculture contributes 6.6% percent to local GDP. He explained more women were being engaged through the ‘Agriculture in Bloom’ programme.   Minister Floyd Green said via video recording: “Women face traditional challenges such as access to extension services and land but also offer significant opportunities that when engaged, the data shows that they do much better in relation to productivity and retention of capital. That capital impacts the family and progress especially [in] rural communities, so we decided to dedicate the Ministry’s engagement to women in the agricultural sector.”  Financial Consultant, Development Bank of Jamaica, Audrey Richards implored financial institutions and investors to identify the “why” behind the low number of women being able to access capital from private equity investment and commercial banks.   During the panel discussion, The Road to Recovery – Inclusive Financing, Richards said: “When we move to more established business in Jamaica which are funded mainly by commercial banks, there is a lower percentage, 80% men compared to 20% women. For angel investing, just at the intake level, only 24% of applicants are women resulting in approximately 50% receiving investment. We must step back and identify how women come into the (entrepreneurial) system and identify whether or not there are barriers impeding women’s access to finance.”    Liz Bronder, Managing Director, Global Sustainable Finance, Bank of America compared the journey of the development of green bonds to the current stage of gender lens investing and highlighted how that model could inform the economic recovery for small island developing states (SIDS) with the support of Development Financial Institutions (DFIs), government policies and private sector players.    Bronder explained: “If you look at how the green bond market developed, it had a number of participants in that ecosystem: it had participants, standard setters, institutions that developed targets and indicators to measure success, institutions making commitments about how they would achieve targets and then the financial community stating that ‘we will lend you the money to ensure that you do achieve those targets’ and that is the same model that needs to be developed for gender bonds.”  Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Pearnel Charles Jr. explained that Jamaica was also introducing innovative financing mechanisms and the need to do so with a gender lens: “We are creating a platform and a framework (for green bonds) for the private sector to lead in terms of transforming institutions and industries into resilient institutions and industries so that we (Jamaica) can withstand the impacts of climate change. This is happening right now because Covid-19 has taught us we are fragile, but we are also agile, and we can move forward by pinpointing the gender issues that identify our vulnerabilities.”  Watch the Recording for Day 1 of the Webinar Series  Watch the Recording for Day 2 of the Webinar Series  Watch the Recording for Day 3 of the Webinar Series  Watch the Recording for Day 4 of the Webinar Series  General Manager, Caribbean Country Department, Inter-American Development Bank, Therese Turner – Jones urged attendees to focus on the demands for economic recovery and identify possible threats to the gains made for women in the labour force such as the percentage of women in supervisory positions in Jamaica’s public and private sectors.  She said: “The lack of participation of women in the workplace was made worse by COVID-19, more so in developed countries; however, we should monitor this impact, especially since the participatory rates for women in the region was already lower than for men. Recovery will come in a couple of ways but primarily in two categories; by investing in resilient infrastructure such as renewable energy and investing in people.”  A sustainable and inclusive economic recovery will largely depend on how much more we invest in women. One business leader, Doug Hewson, Chairman, Portland JSX Limited acknowledged this importance by committing to the WEPs and becoming a signatory during the webinar series.     UN Women is more committed than ever to attracting private sector investment, strengthening the ecosystem of gender-sensitive investments hand in hand with strategic partners who share this same vision and contributing to the generation of partnerships for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5, mainly through the promotion of capital mobilization and investments enhanced by a gender lens.   Make your first step by committing to the Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs)   

The Jamaican Economy Panel is part of a partnership between the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office (UNRCO) and the Department of Economics at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona. The JEP brings together a select group of economic and public sector experts to address monthly socio-economic questions. These questions help to highlight relevant economic issues and the collective expertise of the panelists. Sustainable Development Goals Primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, progress towards the SDGs has stalled. According to the Sustainable Development Report published on 14 June 2021*, a reversion in progress is evident for the first time since the report’s launch; this comes even though much of the relevant data does not yet entail 2020 results due to lags common to international data collection. In 2021, even the most advanced country (Finland) was only 86% of the way to achieve the SDGs. Despite this result, the members of the JEP fully endorse the continued relevance of the SDGs, with 88% of respondents believing that countries should pursue the SDGs. However, the panelists also acknowledged that due to the pandemic, the timelines might be more complicated. Dr. Nadine McCloud, head of the Economics Department at UWI Mona and co-founder of the JEP, adds that “While some of the Goals may not be achievable, the majority continues to be relevant to each country, particularly during this pandemic. Moreover, the interlinkages between them mean that a coordinated approach may be more useful than only pursuing individual objectives. Countries must act with dispatch to meet, at a minimum, a significant fraction of the SDGs. Yet, the absence of equitable global vaccine distribution isn’t innocuous; it impedes any coordinated effort towards  positive, sustainable development outcomes.” With 17 SDGs and 231 underlying indicators, the panelists considered whether they could rank the different Goals by immediate priority. From the results, it became clear that the panelists viewed People-centered Goals as the highest priority, with 63% of respondents putting those as their top priority. The People-centered SDGs are those focused on poverty (SDG 1), hunger (SDG 2), health (SDG 3), education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5) and access to sanitation (SDG 6), aspects that the pandemic has significantly impacted. Finally, the panelists entertained questions about the impediments to achieving the SDGs. On the one hand, there was much agreement that the primary impediments are a lack of fiscal space (88% of respondents) and COVID-related challenges (57%). On the other hand, the setbacks in socio-economic development due to the pandemic make pursuing the SDGs even more critical than before. Responding to the survey results, Dr. Garry Conille, United Nations Resident Coordinator, stated, “The Sustainable Development Goals are the key to achieving equitable and inclusive socio-economic development throughout the world. There are only nine years left in the current Decade of Action, which highlights the need for countries to come together and cooperate to make sure that nobody gets left behind and that all people in all countries are enabled to achieve their full potential.” The United Nations in the Caribbean is currently working on a Multi-Country Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for the Caribbean for 2022-2026 to put the SDGs at the center of socio-economic development in the region. The full results of this month’s discussion are available HERE.  * More on the Sustainable Development Report 2021.

In this context, the Knowledge Series on Inclusive COVID-19 Recovery in Caribbean SIDS released on 17 June 2021, highlights vulnerabilities and development potentials in the Caribbean and offers policy recommendations for a more inclusive, equitable, and people-centered COVID-19 recovery in the sub-region. In ten Think Pieces, experts from academia and civil society discuss how COVID-19 has impacted groups in vulnerable situations such as people with disabilities, youth, LGBTQIA+ persons, female-headed households, and indigenous people in Caribbean Small Island Developing States, SIDS. The launch event on June 17, which was held virtually under the theme "UNESCO Talk: Spotlight on inclusive COVID-Recovery," provided an opportunity to engage with the contributing authors who discussed concrete policy recommendations grounded on Caribbean realities. "We do not know how long this pandemic will last and do not understand all the effects it will have on our societies. What we certainly know is that global solidarity, international cooperation, and knowledge exchange are fundamental to transform this crisis into an opportunity," Saadia Sanchez-Vegas, Director, UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean, said. Addressing the foreword of the Knowledge Series, Saadia Sanchez-Vegas, Ph.D., Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean, urged for a “swift and coordinated response that mandates multi-stakeholder coalitions that have sufficient evidence available to make sense of the complex new reality for people and take appropriate actions.” She also emphasized the timeliness of this publication, which aims to contribute to the global discussion on inequalities with new perspectives, while shedding light on ethical concerns and underscoring specific potentials and challenges for people in Caribbean Small Island Developing States. Providing a regional snapshot, Prof. Dr. Clive Landis, Chairperson of the Regional COVID-19 Task Force, University of the West Indies, Barbados, examines the resilience of people in he Caribbean in dealing with crises. In his Think Piece "COVID-19 among Caribbean SIDS: an effective public health response rooted in resilience", he argues that lessons learned from the annual hurricane season has prepared many Caribbean SIDS in stockpiling strategic supplies and preparing front line services to deal with the emergency. "Caribbean people are remarkably resilient and generally willing to abide by public health and safety measures invoked for the common good. This level of public and private awareness of health and safety measures that need to be observed when tackling an emergency may explain in part how the Caribbean was able to mount an effective public health response to COVID-19," he adds. However, Prof. Dr. Landis warns that the worst economic consequences are yet to come, which can further impact the widening of social inequalities and the deepening of vulnerabilities in the Caribbean. Rural or low-income women, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ people, youth, and single-parent households are among those most affected by the pandemic. Often these groups face multiple forms of discrimination. To consider these groups in an inclusive COVID-19 response, Carla Moore, lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona Unit, Jamaica, argues in her Think Piece "Leaving no one behind: Assessing the needs of vulnerable groups in Jamaica", for the need of an intersectional analysis of inequalities as a necessary tool to develop concrete measures “to ensure that no one is left behind”. Building on the importance of an intersectional lens, Dr. Deborah McFee, Outreach and Research Officer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, analyzed through her Think Piece, the gendered impact of COVID-19. According to her research, women in the Caribbean have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In her Think Piece, Dr. McFee highlights that “gender analysis must be cognizant of the ways in which the compounding old and emerging social classifications and categorizations (including race, geography, age, ability, sexuality, and socioeconomic standing), must form part of analysis of public policy towards the framing of governance committed to an elimination of persistent inequalities.” Furthermore, Judith Wedderburn, Caribbean Gender Expert, underscored in her Think Piece that “any recovery strategy must assume that the end-game is not to go back to where we were, as this would just end up reproducing or perpetuating the same social and gender inequalities.” "Gender inequalities that were associated with the triple burden that women face in their care responsibilities, have significantly increased in this last year (2020)," Judith Wedderburn, Caribbean Gender Expert, said With around one million people in the Caribbean living with some form of disability, in his Think Piece, Senator Floyd Morris, Ph.D. CARICOM Special Rapporteur on Disabilities and Member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, highlights the perspective of people with disabilities during and after COVID-19. "In order to prevent the exclusion and isolation of persons with disabilities from any COVID-19 related activities, governments within the Caribbean must make a deliberate and strategic effort to include these individuals," Senator Floyd Morris, Ph.D., CARICOM Special Rapporteur on Disabilities, said  The Knowledge Series is part of UNESCO’s broader initiative on Amplifying the Voice of Caribbean Small Island Developing States: Towards an inclusive recovery from COVID-19, which aims to mobilize inclusive social policy research grounded in Caribbean realities. As the leading UN agency for Social Sciences, UNESCO works to equip Caribbean Small Island Developing States with the capacities, tools and resources to produce and make meaningful use of policy-relevant and human-rights-based social and human scientific research and knowledge, to promote inclusive and peaceful societies. The Knowledge Series represents a Caribbean contribution to UNESCO’s Global Inclusive Policy Lab, a platform that enables knowledge co-creation and translation into inclusive policies.