More
    Home Blog Page 17

    Zoom burnout: be more productive, ditch those video calls – expert

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Paul Levy, Senior Researcher in Innovation Management, University of Brighton

     

    Just as other brand names make their way into the dictionary, Zoom has now become a daily verb and a noun. We Zoom each other, we say “Let’s have a Zoom,” and we get Zoom fatigue. Now there’s Zoom burnout as well – a phrase that encompasses a lot more than the eye strain of too much screen time.

    Emerging research shows we get less done and we may end up unnecessarily replicating communication in our personal and working lives. A new study highlights the causes of this fatigue and how to deal with it.

    Too much Zooming can become mentally demanding. There’s a lot of evidence that when people are mentally tired, they tend to act less efficiently. Sustained performance on a mentally demanding task decreases over time.

    Also, when we’re fatigued, our working memory performs less well. We become forgetful, our listening quality degrades and recording Zoom meetings for later viewing simply creates more energy sapping screen time.

    The online meetings designed to get things done could be the very things harming our productivity, just at a time when margins are particularly tight and businesses are financially on the edge. And there’s some evidence that using audio only might be more productive than an overload of screen meetings.

    Zoom fatigue

    The new study highlights the psychological impact of spending hours each day on a range of video calling platforms. The study found people often reach “non-verbal overload” with too much eye contact. This means we need to work harder to send and receive all those non-verbal signals that are lost when many of us are just a head filling the screen.

    In face-to-face meetings, another study points out, non verbal communication flows naturally and “we are rarely consciously attending to our own gestures and other nonverbal cues”. This is one of the reasons many people can’t wait to get back to face-to-face. For others, Zooming is fine until the fatigue kicks in, then an unease arises.

    This is where the good old phone meeting could come in. The same study describes “a wonderful illusion that occurs during phone calls”. We’re no longer weighed down with non verbal overload or eye contact meltdown. We may even stretch, move around the room, even make a cup of tea as we speak.

    We tend to imagine we are getting 100% of the others’ attention on a phone call. The researchers conclude that “only a minority of calls require staring at another person’s face to successfully communicate”.

    Give up Zoom?

    Many experts are now calling for fewer Zoom meetings.

    Yet, evidence for seriously considering meeting over the phone comes from other academic work that goes back a lot further. Early studies comparing TV radio, newspapers and computer screens identified newspapers as enabling significantly highest recall of facts. Computer screens surprisingly performed closer to newspapers and better than TV and radio. So, one up for the screens? The problem is we tend to remember less when we have screen fatigue.

    Try switching to phone calls. Photo by Good Face on Unsplash.

    In contrast, a lot of research confirms how radio stimulates the imagination. “I prefer radio to TV because the pictures are clearer,” goes the old saying. Whether with the phone, radio or podcasts, our active imagination is more engaged actively listening than when we passively view. And we can become very passive when we’re screen exhausted.

    Some neuroscience research has confirmed that when our imaginations are active they can become more emotionally stimulated. Scientists have interpreted this as an indicator that the audio content requires active imagination on the part of the listener.

    One further piece of research becomes critical here, suggesting that imagination runs hand in hand with motivation. According to this view, imagination can make us more goal directed, more likely to get things done. Zoom fatigue can have the opposite effect. The imaginative process inherent in the audio call increases the likelihood that we’ll make good on our intentions.

    If this is true – and there needs to be more research in the problem – it will certainly be time to become more conscious of when and how often we meet on Zoom, for how long and for what purpose.

    Try holding some of your work meetings by phone. It might seem strange at first and take a bit of getting used to, but you might just find your meetings are more productive and satisfying. Your imagination might kick into gear and re-fire your motivation. I’m not saying banish all the Zooming, just re-balance your use of audio and screen.The Conversation

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

     

    Main Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

    Charles Telfair Centre is an independent nonpartisan not for profit organisation and does not take specific positions. All views, positions, and conclusions expressed in our publications are solely those of the author(s).

    Mind the Gap: Five avenues to challenge gender bias and boost Mauritius’ recovery

    By
    Myriam Blin
    -
    0

     

    Myriam Blin, Head of the Charles Telfair Centre, Charles Telfair Campus [1]

    In this article, Myriam Blin, Head of the Charles Telfair Centre reviews the gendered structures still permeating women’s lived experiences at home and at work. Despite tremendous progress on the gender front over the last 30 years, entrenched inequalities rooted in gender and cultural norms rouse fears that, unless gender responsive policies are implemented, the gender inequalities will be exacerbated in the current crisis, notably through four main channels: work burden, domestic violence, access to work and decision making. As we celebrate the 110th International Women’s Day on the theme Women in Leadership, she proposes five key sources of biases we can choose to challenge to support a gender inclusive economic recovery.     

     

    Covid-19 continues to be unquestionably devastating as we see the global death toll rising with multitudes of strains creeping their way out of the woodwork and making the economic outlook decisively uncertain. The unfolding crisis is having a deleterious impact on businesses and families across the world, but while the crisis affects almost everyone in one way or another, evidence is mounting that women are disproportionately impacted with regards to their work and wellbeing.

    Mauritius has seen tremendous progress in advancing women’s economic opportunities and reducing the gender gap over the last 30 years, yet, entrenched inequalities rooted in gender and cultural norms rouse fears that, unless gender responsive policies are implemented, the gender inequalities will be exacerbated in the current crisis.

    As we celebrate the 110th International Women’s Day on the themes Women in Leadership and  #ChooseToChallenge, I propose five key sources of biases we can choose to challenge to support a gender inclusive economic recovery.     

    Mind the Gap

    While Mauritius fares relatively well in gender responsive legislation, it only ranked 115 out of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). There is increasing evidence that the gender gap in Mauritius is widening once more as the crisis cascades through four main channels: work burden, domestic violence, access to work and decision making.

     

    Four avenues constraining women’s access to work and leadership positions – Designed by Shaheen Beeharry

    Women’s work burdens

    Women’s traditional gender role confines her to the private sphere reflecting entrenched patriarchal values that assign home care responsibilities predominantly to women. In Mauritius, women’s perceived gender role within the home persists: 68% of Mauritians believe it is better if women (as opposed to men) take care of the household and 44% believe men have more rights to a job than women when jobs are scarce. In 2019, Mauritian women spent close to 20% of their time on household chores and unpaid care activities compared to just under 5% for men. Recent evidence also suggests that the crisis is worsening parental mental load, which disproportionately affects women compared to men.

    In times of crisis, households substitute what would have been purchased outside by producing these goods and services at home, a burden that disproportionately falls on women. The compounding of women’s work burden negatively impacts their well-being and their ability to stay in paid employment. Early data from the Continuous Mauritius Multipurpose Household Survey (CMPHS) shows that while women and men have both been affected by job losses, most men have remained on the labour market whereas women have largely exited with the activity rate among women declining by 2.7 percent between Q1 2020 and July 2020. The human cost is largely a female one as we see the severe economic downturn slowly eroding progress made in female labour force participation in the last decade.

     

    Extract from cartoonist Emmaclit’s comic on the mental load “You should have asked“.

    Home is not safe for everyone

    Twenty four percent of women in Mauritius have experienced some form of domestic violence (data from 2012) and in 2019 7.3% of Mauritians believed it is justified for a man to beat his wife. As men and women lose their jobs, as economic insecurity increases and mental health deteriorates, domestic violence escalates. Domestic violence is a product of a deeply unequal world that pre-dates the COVID-19, but the lockdowns intended to protect the public saw positive correlations with domestic violence, and for some women these safety measures turned into a death sentence. Mauritius has been no exception: between March and May 2020 there has been a 4% increase in the number of reported cases of domestic violence compared to the same period in 2019. Just for the month of May 2020 (post-lockdown) there has been a 47% increase in reported cases compared to May of the previous year – close to 93% of the reported victims were women.

     

    Women in the Workforce

    A 2018 world bank working paper estimated that 57 % of Mauritian women participated in the labour force compared to 89% of men. While female labour force participation has increased by 7 percentage points in the last 10 years, the data reveals a strongly gendered labour market:

    Key to the concept of empowerment is, arguably, the relation to human dignity, the dignity that comes from being productive and the freedom to express one’s potential.  Yet, gender norms and patriarchal values that assign women to traditional gender roles together with implicit and explicit bias pull women away from the labour market and leadership roles and pushes them into sectors and job functions that are more “compatible” with their homecare responsibilities. The current crisis is exacerbating the trend: a significant proportion of women are not returning to work after losing their employment or choose a less demanding and lower paid career path with greater flexibility to manage their increased work burden.

    Women and decision making

    With only 18% of parliamentary seats held by women, 5% of private sector leadership positions held by women and only 8.7% of board members being women, the Mauritius gender glass ceiling is very much alive and several inches thick. Thirty six percent of companies reported that “gender equality” was included in their internal policies for recruitment and promotion, yet the number of men in senior positions (C-suite) is almost five times higher than that of women.

    Firms that are diverse and inclusive outperform those that are not. Being diverse and inclusive does not simply mean ensuring that a certain number of women sit on leadership tables (evidence actually suggests that having a small minority of women on a leadership table has limited impact). It requires a systemic review of sources of bias and a collective plan that engage employees into the process of identifying how to address explicit and implicit biases at all levels of the organisation.

    With 10% or less of women in senior level teams at entities such as the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development Board or Business Mauritius, women continue to be excluded from economic recovery high-level decision-making.  Such exclusion only serves to undermine recovery efforts for society as a whole.

     

    Putting on Gender Glasses: Five avenues to challenge gendered structures in Mauritius

     

    1. Challenge gender norms at home and at work

    Women’s work burden, domestic violence, labour market barriers including the glass ceiling are all rooted in social constructions of what constitute the feminine and masculine. We have tools at our disposal to challenge these gender norms:

    2.      Challenge the idea of gender-neutral policies:

    Nothing is neutral and most certainly not the gendered implications of covid-19 in Mauritius. What is often conceived as neutral (i.e. having the same impact on men and women) is in fact masculine if decision making fails to take into account women’s specific socially constructed contexts. Eschewing neutrality in favour of improving understanding of the intersectionality of Mauritian women’s identities and experiences will allow government and corporate organisations to craft effective policy responses that achieve gender mainstreaming. A good start is implementing policies that ease women’s roles as primary caregivers:

    • Implementing extended paternal and paid maternity leave and make the government share the cost of maternity leave
    • Extending subsidised child-care facilities for children under the age 5.
    • Implementing flexible work practices that can ease pressure on women’s work burden. The COVID-imposed remote work has shown the potential of flexible arrangements which, with the right conditions, can boost performance up to 13%.

    3.      Challenge the current gendered leadership culture:

    Work is where men and women interact for a great proportion of their daily lives – it is both a perpetuator of gendered structures as well as a potential disruptor of social ones. Gender inclusion is not just good intrinsically, it is also good for the economy and the performance of an organisation.  Private organisations and government entities need to go further and fundamentally challenge their structures, work practices, systemic biases to profoundly transform organisational cultures and values for greater equitability. They have a responsibility to provide women specific support mechanisms, including mentoring and the implementation of quotas, to allow them a fair playing field in their career path. Programmes such as LeanIn, Champions of Change Coalition, the UNDP-AUC African Young Women Leaders Fellowship Programme are examples of starting points for creating networks of solidarity for female (and male) allyship.

    4.      Challenge the gap in gender related data:

    We can only truly assess and evaluate the extent and complexity of the gender gap if systematic and frequent gender disaggregated data is collected and shared: in the absence of data researchers cannot assess the complexities behind gender inequality, and NGOs and policy makers cannot make informed decisions. Mauritius does not collect data on 50% of GGGI indicators. Statistics Mauritius needs to up their game and implement a systematic policy of gender data disaggregation wherever relevant to allow for the theorisation of precarity in the context of Mauritius.  Similarly, the government, as undertaken in the UK and Denmark, could require public and private organisations to disclose their gender disaggregated pay statistics to help fight the gender pay gap.

    5.      Challenge the weak enforcement of gender related legislation

    Mauritius has fared relatively well on the Social and Institution Gender Index, but evidence suggests that there are structural weaknesses preventing the proper enforcement of the legislation, notably those pertaining to domestic violence, workplace harassment and employment discrimination (e.g. difference in promotions and earnings). HR departments, the police force and courts need to challenge their current practices and implement adequate processes and mechanisms to allow safe and effective reporting of incidences of violence, harassment, or discrimination across the relevant institutions.

     

    Allyship

    The empowerment of women is not solely a women’s issue but a societal one and it is important to note that the socialisation of gender stereotypes hurts men and women. Both sexes are bearers of social identities situated at a nexus of gender, class, age, race, ethnic-identity and religion, all of which add further complexity to the sources and processes of bias against women in Mauritius. Challenging norms, stereotypes and patriarchy are at the heart of any effort to fight gender inequality and it is through our combined efforts and the building of allyship between men and women that gender discrimination can become history. So, let us support our women and girls as the carriers of our collective futures as we seek to unlearn gender bias in order to build resilient economies that are kinder and fairer for everyone.

     

    [1] I would like to thank the two reviewers and the editor for their constructive and encouraging feedback. 

    Main photo by WIPO on Flickr, CC licence

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Hundreds of fish species, including many that humans eat, are consuming plastic

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Alexandra McInturf, University of California, Davis

    Matthew Savoca, Stanford University

    Trillions of barely visible pieces of plastic are floating in the world’s oceans, from surface waters to the deep seas. These particles, known as microplastics, typically form when larger plastic objects such as shopping bags and food containers break down.

    Researchers are concerned about microplastics because they are minuscule, widely distributed and easy for wildlife to consume, accidentally or intentionally. We study marine science and animal behavior, and wanted to understand the scale of this problem. In a newly published study that we conducted with ecologist Elliott Hazen, we examined how marine fish – including species consumed by humans – are ingesting synthetic particles of all sizes.

    In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.

    Researchers at California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium have found microplastic particles from the surface to the seafloor, where they can be ingested by a wide range of sea creatures.

    Solving the plastics puzzle

    It’s not news that wild creatures ingest plastic. The first scientific observation of this problem came from the stomach of a seabird in 1969. Three years later, scientists reported that fish off the coast of southern New England were consuming tiny plastic particles.

    Since then, well over 100 scientific papers have described plastic ingestion in numerous species of fish. But each study has only contributed a small piece of a very important puzzle. To see the problem more clearly, we had to put those pieces together.

    We did this by creating the largest existing database on plastic ingestion by marine fish, drawing on every scientific study of the problem published from 1972 to 2019. We collected a range of information from each study, including what fish species it examined, the number of fish that had eaten plastic and when those fish were caught. Because some regions of the ocean have more plastic pollution than others, we also examined where the fish were found.

    For each species in our database, we identified its diet, habitat and feeding behaviors – for example, whether it preyed on other fish or grazed on algae. By analyzing this data as a whole, we wanted to understand not only how many fish were eating plastic, but also what factors might cause them to do so. The trends that we found were surprising and concerning.

     

    Plastic bag drifting in shallow water.
    Leopard sharks swim past plastic debris in shallow water off southern California. Ralph Pace, CC BY-ND

    A global problem

    Our research revealed that marine fish are ingesting plastic around the globe. According to the 129 scientific papers in our database, researchers have studied this problem in 555 fish species worldwide. We were alarmed to find that more than two-thirds of those species had ingested plastic.

    One important caveat is that not all of these studies looked for microplastics. This is likely because finding microplastics requires specialized equipment, like microscopes, or use of more complex techniques. But when researchers did look for microplastics, they found five times more plastic per individual fish than when they only looked for larger pieces. Studies that were able to detect this previously invisible threat revealed that plastic ingestion was higher than we had originally anticipated.

    Our review of four decades of research indicates that fish consumption of plastic is increasing. Just since an international assessment conducted for the United Nations in 2016, the number of marine fish species found with plastic has quadrupled.

    Similarly, in the last decade alone, the proportion of fish consuming plastic has doubled across all species. Studies published from 2010-2013 found that an average of 15% of the fish sampled contained plastic; in studies published from 2017-2019, that share rose to 33%.

    We think there are two reasons for this trend. First, scientific techniques for detecting microplastics have improved substantially in the past five years. Many of the earlier studies we examined may not have found microplastics because researchers couldn’t see them.

    Second, it is also likely that fish are actually consuming more plastic over time as ocean plastic pollution increases globally. If this is true, we expect the situation to worsen. Multiple studies that have sought to quantify plastic waste project that the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean will continue to increase over the next several decades.

    Risk factors

    While our findings may make it seem as though fish in the ocean are stuffed to the gills with plastic, the situation is more complex. In our review, almost one-third of the species studied were not found to have consumed plastic. And even in studies that did report plastic ingestion, researchers did not find plastic in every individual fish. Across studies and species, about one in four fish contained plastics – a fraction that seems to be growing with time. Fish that did consume plastic typically had only one or two pieces in their stomachs.

    In our view, this indicates that plastic ingestion by fish may be widespread, but it does not seem to be universal. Nor does it appear random. On the contrary, we were able to predict which species were more likely to eat plastic based on their environment, habitat and feeding behavior.

    For example, fishes such as sharks, grouper and tuna that hunt other fishes or marine organisms as food were more likely to ingest plastic. Consequently, species higher on the food chain were at greater risk.

    We were not surprised that the amount of plastic that fish consumed also seemed to depend on how much plastic was in their environment. Species that live in ocean regions known to have a lot of plastic pollution, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the coasts of East Asia, were found with more plastic in their stomachs.

    Effects of a plastic diet

    This is not just a wildlife conservation issue. Researchers don’t know very much about the effects of ingesting plastic on fish or humans. However, there is evidence that that microplastics and even smaller particles called nanoplastics can move from a fish’s stomach to its muscle tissue, which is the part that humans typically eat. Our findings highlight the need for studies analyzing how frequently plastics transfer from fish to humans, and their potential effects on the human body.

    Our review is a step toward understanding the global problem of ocean plastic pollution. Of more than 20,000 marine fish species, only roughly 2% have been tested for plastic consumption. And many reaches of the ocean remain to be examined. Nonetheless, what’s now clear to us is that “out of sight, out of mind” is not an effective response to ocean pollution – especially when it may end up on our plates.The Conversation

    Main Photo University of Colorado on Flickr

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Resilience through equality: A gender responsive social protection system in Mauritius

    By
    Rachel Moussié
    -
    0

     

    Rachel Moussié – Deputy Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO

    In this article, Rachel Moussié explores how gender-responsive social protection policies can prevent deepening inequalities now and contribute to a more resilient system prepared for future shocks in Mauritius. The article proposes to expand the benefit package and harmonise existing social protection schemes so they can better protect and reach women with low incomes, working in either the formal or informal economy.  Drawing on examples from other upper and middle-income countries, the intention is to propose policy options for discussion among social partners, civil society, researchers, and development partners.

    In the current COVID context significant risks of job losses for women and men have led to numerous emergency social protection measures aimed at supporting Mauritian workers both in the formal and informal economy. Recent post-Covid statistics show growing gender inequalities in the Mauritian labour market. This is undoing the timid progress made so far on women’s economic empowerment in the country and is exposing more women and children to poverty and violence.  For a small island reliant on its skilled labour force, growing gender and class inequalities pose a great risk to social cohesion, economic recovery and further development. The pandemic underscores how economic recovery, employment and social protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, making social protection an important development tool.  Drawing on examples from other upper and middle-income countries, the article proposes a non-exhaustive set of gender-responsive social protection policies that expand the benefit package and harmonise existing social protection schemes to better protect women and men with low incomes working in the formal and informal economy.

    The Gender Gap

    Mauritius is behind other high and upper-middle income countries when it comes to gender equality (see Table 1). The gender wage gap in Mauritius is triple that of Singapore.  Because of women’s low economic empowerment and opportunity and low political empowerment, Mauritius only scored 115 out of 153 countries on the 2020 Gender Gap Index.

    Table 1: Comparative employment data across selected high and middle-income countries – Source: Data taken from OECD database * Gender wage gap data taken from ILO. 2018. Global Wage Report – 2018/19. 2018; **Singapore Government Data – Ministry of Social and Family Development 2017; ***Statistics Mauritius, Gender wage gap estimate in the private sector as compared to a 7% wage premium in the public sector (World Bank, 2019)

    These inequalities are made worse by the economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic through three channels:

    More women than men become inactive: While, by July 2020, more men than women have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, by September 2020, men had returned more rapidly to the labour market post-lockdown, while women were more likely to become inactive.  Between the first quarter of 2020 and July 2020 there has been a 6.2% increase in the inactive population among women compared to only 2.5 per cent increase among men.

    Women bear an increased unpaid care work burden: Evidence suggest that women take on even more unpaid care work during an economic crisis – rather than purchasing care services, cooked food or clothes, women will provide these goods and services in their own homes by spending more time caring for children or the elderly, cooking, or mending and recycling clothes.  This reduces women’s time for paid work, negatively impacts their wellbeing and leads to poorer quality care for children and other dependents as household incomes fall permanently.

    Women informal workers face constraints in accessing social protection programmes: Informal wage and non-wage employment were at lower levels in September 2020 than formal wage and non-wage employment, suggesting that a large proportion of the jobs lost during the crisis were in informal employment.  Recent research on vulnerable informal women entrepreneurs found that 88 per cent of their sample had no social protection coverage, the remaining 12 per cent benefited from the Basic Retirement Pension and/or the National Pension Fund as they were at least 60 years old.  Low education, lack of information and the complexity of administrative processes were key barriers faced by women for business registration and inclusion in social protection programmes. The research findings confirm that poverty-targeted cash transfers  available to those on the Social Register exclude the working poor many of whom are informal workers – leaving them with no social protection coverage during their working lives.

    Hence, as women face increasing constraints to access paid employment, there is an urgent need for a more gender-responsive social protection system.

     

    Mauritian women selling vegetables on the street. Source: nachosmooth on flickr.

    What policy options exist?

    Maintaining the universal Basic Retirement Pension

    The Mauritius Basic Retirement Pension is gender responsive and redistributive as it significantly contributes to income security among older women who have a higher life expectancy and are likely to have i) contributed less to social insurance schemes due to lower earnings and wages, ii) taken time off from paid work due to their unpaid care work responsibilities at home, iii) found work in the informal economy, iv) or never participated in the labour market.  A universal social pension protects the elderly and entire households from poverty and food insecurity during crises – acting as an economic and social stabiliser.  It guarantees women and men will receive the same social pension regardless of their contribution rate and whether they work in the formal or informal economy.  This is a redistributive measure that allows for the risks brought on by an aging population and climate change to be borne more collectively.

    In June 2020, without prior consultation with the social partners, the government announced a shift away from a funded pension system, the National Pension Fund, to a pay as you go pension system through the Contribution Sociale Generalisée (CSG).  Contributions to the CSG are currently intended to cover pensions and will be supplemented by tax revenue to finance the Basic Retirement Pension.

    Expanding the benefit package

    While the debate is still open on the viability of the chosen financial model for the CSG, expanding the benefit package of the CSG beyond a pension to include an unemployment benefit and maternity and paternity leave benefits could incentivise more informal workers to register and contribute to the CSG.  The advantages are multifold, i) it increases overall financing for the CSG, ii) it enables the formalisation of informal workers and enterprises and iii) it enhances social solidarity as contributions from the formal economy subsidise those from the informal economy.

    Unemployment benefit: In 2019, the Mauritius Workfare Program covered 23 per cent of workers in the formal economy and only three per cent in the informal economy. Men are almost twice as likely to participate in the program than women, and older workers are four times more likely to participate than younger workers. The program eligibility criteria requires full-time employment for at least 18 months. Women workers are more likely than men to work part-time due to their care responsibilities at home and younger workers may not have 18 months of experience in the same job.

    Eligibility for the Workfare Program should be relaxed so more women, youth and informal workers can benefit.   The CSG could partially cover the costs of expanding the Workfare Program in addition to tax revenue.  Those workers who contribute to the CSG could receive a slightly higher benefit amount through the Workfare Program than those who do not – incentivising informal workers to contribute to the CSG though not excluding those who cannot contribute.  This transforms the Workfare Program from a non-contributory benefit to one partially based on contributions.  It would require a financial assessment of the CSG.

    Maternity and paternity leave and benefit:  Mauritius is behind other high income and upper-middle countries in its parental leave policies. A first step to improve maternity and paternity protections is to finance this through social insurance or public funds rather than employer liability.  The latter discourages employers to hire and retain women during their prime reproductive years and is one more barrier for women to stay in employment once they have children.   Most high and middle-income countries rely on social insurance or a mix of employer liability and social insurance/public funds to cover maternity leave and benefits (see Table 2).

    Table 2: Comparative data on national statutory provisions on maternity leave – Source: ILO. 2014. Maternity and paternity at work; ILO World Social Protection Dashboard, 2020; *Updated based on Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017; **applicable for the first two children.

    Moving towards contributory maternity protections redistributes the costs of hiring and retaining women for an individual employer to all workers and employers and across small and large firms. Given Mauritius’ low and stable fertility rate of 1.4, the associated costs should remain manageable.

    In Singapore, the parental leave benefits are available to employees and self-employed workers in continuous employment for at least three months before the birth.  The two-week paternity leave benefit is paid entirely by the state with no employer liability.  To encourage shared-parental responsibility, the government allows for working fathers to share up to four weeks of their wives 16 weeks of maternity leave.[1]

    Simplification and harmonisation of contributions

    The CSG could integrate the Workfare Program, maternity and paternity leave benefits and the Basic Retirement Pension into a unified social protection benefit package.  All workers’ and employers’ contributions would go towards financing this bundle of social protection measures.  The CSG currently proposes to include self-employed workers through a Rs 150 ($4) contribution, this could constitute the first tier of a ‘monotax’ payment and registration system for micro-enterprises  as used in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. A monotax combines tax revenue and social security contributions into one simplified payment for low-income earners in the informal economy that gives them access to pensions, maternity and unemployment benefits.

    It is noteworthy that the implementation of the Self-Employed Assistance Scheme allowed informal workers to register with the Mauritian Revenue Authority for the first time and set up mobile and online banking services. This demonstrates the potential for the formal registration of informal activities through a harmonised CSG.

    Harmonisation, equity and recovery

    Expanding and harmonising benefits through the CSG must go hand in hand with greater representation of women workers in the formal and informal economy in a CSG governed by a tripartite structure.  Financing the CSG is a concern given the declining active labour force, an aging population, the low fertility rate and the economic transformation needed towards low-carbon sectors.  It has been argued that higher employer contribution rates threaten Mauritius’ status as a low-tax jurisdiction.  However, other low-tax jurisdictions such as Singapore and Ireland have far higher employer contribution rates and more comprehensive social protection systems. A more equitable and gender responsive redistribution of wealth is central to a stronger social protection system that will allow Mauritius to recover and prepare for future shocks.

     

    [1] The policy is discriminatory as the full benefit levels are only available if the child is a Singaporean citizen and the parents are married.  This discriminates against migrant workers whose children are not Singaporean citizens and single mothers who only receive 12 weeks paid maternity leave.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Environmentally friendly behavior is easy — tourists just need a ‘nudge’

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Simple cues reduce cognitive strain and provide a nudge — helping tourists to demonstrate environmentally conscious behavior, such as refusing a plastic bag

    By Tayyibah Aziz, science writer at Frontiers

    A new study by Katherine M. Nelson1, Mirja Kristina Bauer2 and Stefan Partelow1has demonstrated that providing a simple ‘nudge’ — or cue — is an effective way to influence the decision making process of tourists and encourage them to act in more environmentally friendly ways. The results offer many practical insights on how a simple, low cost intervention, such as placing a sign in a store, has huge potential on reducing the local impacts of businesses and tourist operators by making pro-environmental choices easy.

    A new study in Frontiers in Communication has demonstrated the powerful impact that subtle messaging and cues, or ‘nudges’, can provide on encouraging people to show socially desirable behaviors. Travelers who were observed on the Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan, a popular tourist destination, were more likely to demonstrate environmentally conscious actions, such as refusing a plastic bag or avoiding contact with a coral reef, when they were ‘nudged’ towards the desirable action with either a written or face to face interaction. The researchers found that any intervention, whether framed positively or negatively, was enough to lead people to make environmentally conscious decisions, compared to being given no behavioral cues or messaging. The study provides many practical takeaways that can be easily implemented by tourist operators or businesses, at a low cost, to increase environmental stewardship and promote positive behaviors in their customers.

    Although many of us feel a responsibility to demonstrate environmentally-conscious behaviors and possess the knowledge we need to take these actions, we are often burdened by numerous obstacles, a phenomenon the researchers describe as the ‘knowledge-action gap’. Dr Katherine Nelson, who led the study in partnership with the Gili Eco Trust, explains:

    “The gap between knowledge and action exists because it is much easier to think a certain way than it is to actually consistently behave in that manner – but providing a subtle cue can help us relieve some of the cognitive burden on our brains when we are in a complex environment.”

    To try and close this gap, the researchers set up scenarios for tourists in two real life situations — when being offered a plastic bag at a convenience store, and when given a briefing before a snorkeling trip. The researchers observed the differences in people’s behavior based on whether a person was confronted with a written or face to face interaction of either a positive message highlighting good outcomes, or a negative message focusing on the bad outcomes of a specific action.

    Example of a poster that could be used to ‘nudge’ tourists. Campaign for sea turtles by MEDASSET.

    The study showed that the presence of a ‘nudge’ or cue towards certain behaviors was enough to encourage people to behave in more environmentally conscious ways, whether that was refusing a plastic bag whilst at the convenience store or ensuring they maintained a safe distance from turtles when on a snorkeling trip — whether this message was framed positively or negatively did not matter.

    “Our study highlights that an intervention can lead people to making better decisions by just drawing their attention to an issue – by providing a small cue, we can reduce the obstacles that get in the way and make environmental behaviors easy.”

    Rubbish washed up the coast, Indonesia – Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

    The results offer important insights on the effectiveness of simple messaging as a practical way to nudge people towards environmentally conscious behaviors. The tourist sector in particular has huge potential to utilize these types of approaches and make pro-environmental behaviors a simple choice to reduce local impacts.

     

    The article was first published in Frontiers 

    Original article : Informational nudges to encourage pro-environmental behavior: examining differences in message framing and human interaction by Katherine M. Nelson1*, Mirja Kristina Bauer2 and Stefan Partelow; 1Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen, Germany; 2Department of Biology/Chemistry, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Fostering Innovation through Clustering of Universities in Mauritius

    By
    Dhanjay Jhurry
    -
    0

     

    Dhanjay Jhurry, Vice-Chancellor, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius

    In this article, Professor Dhanjay Jhurry, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mauritius (UoM), reviews Mauritius’ innovation shortfalls and some of the UoM’s initiatives to foster research and innovation beyond the traditional research silos. With its poles for research excellence, its poles for Innovation and its Knowledge Transfer Office, the UoM is increasingly producing impactful research and innovation with effective links to industry. To effectively support Mauritius into becoming an innovation driven economy, Dhanjay Jhurry  calls for a more integrated national innovation system with, as one key component, the establishment of a cluster of private and public universities partnering and leveraging their respective strengths for the creation of research and knowledge towards identified common goals.   

     

    Status of Innovation in Mauritius

    The Global Innovation Index(GII)  2020 report points out to a number of weaknesses as regards the innovation performance of Mauritius. Two major weaknesses are (i) business sophistication and (ii) knowledge and technology outputs. Both are intimately linked through their respective key indicators as depicted in Figure 1. The ‘Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) financed and performed by business’, ‘University/industry research collaboration’ and ‘Research talent’ together with ‘scientific output’ and ‘high-tech manufacturing’ are key elements that need our urgent attention if we are to develop the k-economy (knowledge economy).

    One could also refer to the Innovation Sophistication Index which identifies four stages in the assessment of how innovative a business is, namely – launch, progress, acceleration and achievement. Given Mauritius’ scores in the GII Business Sophistication sub-indices it is reasonable to suspect that the majority of businesses in Mauritius is still in the Launch phase where the need for innovation is recognised but not much has been achieved so far.

    Figure 1: Key indicators for Business sophistication and Knowledge and Transfer outputs

     

    Innovation at the University of Mauritius

    The University of Mauritius (UoM) has put innovation at the heart of its vision in 2017 through the promotion of a research-engaged and entrepreneurial university, as illustrated in Figure 2.  The UoM is a partner of development in close interaction with the public sector, the private sector and the community through a quadruple helix model of innovation. As opposed to a traditional university, the modern UoM caters not only for the human and intellectual capital needs of the country but aspires to develop the business and social capital for progress. As a research-engaged University, our priority research areas align with national priority needs: agriculture, life and marine sciences, health, energy, digital technologies, and socio-economic-tourism. We have institutionalised research and built research teams through Poles of Research Excellence and Poles of Innovation. We are addressing impactful research through a top-down approach that can help solve local problems. Through our Knowledge Transfer Office, we are getting closer to industry and engaging more in innovation. We have set up in October 2018 a UoM-Industry cluster in IT and Digital technologies to precisely address the needs of industry in this growing sector of the Mauritian economy.

    Figure 2: University of Mauritius vision of a research-engaged and entrepreneurial University to foster innovation

     

    National Innovation System

    Innovation and technical progress are the result of a complex set of relationships among actors producing, distributing and applying various kinds of knowledge. These actors are primarily private enterprises, universities and public research institutes and the people within them. The innovative performance of a country depends to a large extent on how these actors relate to each other as elements of a collective system of knowledge creation. The absence of a National Innovation System (NIS) is therefore a barrier to the development of the k-economy. In that respect,  there is a need, in Mauritius, to develop ways and means to connect the dots and foster institutional linkages, map human resource flows between different sectors and institutions, identify clusters of activities and encourage the emergence of innovative firms. It should be pointed out that Mauritius initiated a National Innovation Framework (NIF) (2018-2030), a programme for creating innovation ecosystems and aimed at invigorating the economy from four perspectives – National, Industry, Company and People. The success of the Innovation Framework was dependent on the synergy and collaborative spirit of the different stakeholders, which would drive multidisciplinary initiatives across organisations. The extent of its implementation and success remains to be assessed but it is undeniable that connecting the dots, i.e. the sectors, remains an issue yet to be tackled holistically.

    The proposal for the establishment of a NIS was a major recommendation of the Innovation Week organised by the University of Mauritius in December 2020, heavily supported by both private and public sectors [1]. The proposed NIS is structured into 3 levels: macro, meso and micro, as depicted in Figure 3, which addresses policy issues, the conducive environment and the actions towards enhancing innovation.

    Figure 3: Proposed structure of the National Innovation System (NIS)

     

    Clustering of Universities in Mauritius as key to foster innovation.

    Clusters are defined as “a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities” [2]. They can include concentrations of interconnected companies, service providers, suppliers of specialised inputs to the production process, customers, manufacturers of related products and governmental and other institutions, such as national laboratories, universities and research institutes.

    Cluster is a term more commonly associated to industry than to academia. However, Universities play key roles in the growth of clusters by providing solutions to business problems through consultancy activity and through the licensing of discoveries to new and existing companies. Universities are important contributors to the development and success of these companies through the skills, knowledge and infrastructure they provide [3]. CLUSTER is an example of such university cluster initiative. It is in this respect that the UoM has set up in 2018 a first cluster around the digital technologies grouping local companies in the sector. However, there is a need to take it to the next level.

    In shaping the NIS as discussed earlier, the setting-up of a cluster of local –public and private – Universities is proposed as a means to foster innovation at national level. Such a cluster would focus inter alia on:

    • Capturing and nurturing talent
    • Leveraging on strengths of different universities and enhancing collaboration
    • Optimising and sharing resources, thus promoting efficiency and avoiding duplication
    • Establishing research clusters and address multi-disciplinary problems.

    The cluster here referred to goes beyond the ‘Leverage/ Exchange’ type of partnership [4] where one organisation recognises that another can provide resources (knowledge, services, skills) that it needs to employ towards its own strategic goals. It is more about the ‘Combine/ Integrate’ type of partnership – a collaboration between organisations where complementary resources are brought together to tackle a common challenge or achieve a shared strategic goal.

     Conclusion

    In the new normal post-covid19 pandemic, it is important we envision a new culture of university partnership based on complementarity, sharing and a set of principles and values as spelled out in SDG17 ‘Partnerships for the Goals’ [5]. The proposed cluster could be initiated by the universities themselves and should help us in our endeavour to create more impacts and contribute more effectively to the development of Mauritius. It should help also address the weaknesses identified in the GII 2020 report hampering innovation.

     

    References

    [1] Innovation Week 2020 Report, University of Mauritius. http://www.uom.ac.mu

    [2] Porter, M.E., 1998: On Competition, Harvard Business School Press

    [3] Srinatha Karur, M.V.Ramana Murthy. Survey and Analysis of University Clustering,  International Journal of Artificial Intelligence & Applications (IJAIA), Vol. 4, No. 4 (2013)

    [4] Stibbe, D.T., Reid, S., Gilbert, J.; The Partnering Initiative and UN DESA (2019)

    [5] Orazbayeva, B., A. Meerman, V. Galan Muros, T. Davey, C. Plewa. The Future of Universities Thoughtbook Universities during times of crisis; UIIN (2020). p.102.

    Main photo by Alina Grubnyak/Unsplash

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Artificial intelligence must not be allowed to replace the imperfection of human empathy

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

    Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of London

    At the heart of the development of AI appears to be a search for perfection. And it could be just as dangerous to humanity as the one that came from philosophical and pseudoscientific ideas of the 19th and early 20th centuries and led to the horrors of colonialism, world war and the Holocaust. Instead of a human ruling “master race”, we could end up with a machine one.

    If this seems extreme, consider the anti-human perfectionism that is already central to the labour market. Here, AI technology is the next step in the premise of maximum productivity that replaced individual craftmanship with the factory production line. These massive changes in productivity and the way we work created opportunities and threats that are now set to be compounded by a “fourth industrial revolution” in which AI further replaces human workers.

    Several recent research papers predict that, within a decade, automation will replace half of the current jobs. So, at least in this transition to a new digitised economy, many people will lose their livelihoods. Even if we assume that this new industrial revolution will engender a new workforce that is able to navigate and command this data-dominated world, we will still have to face major socioeconomic problems. The disruptions will be immense and need to be scrutinised.

    The ultimate aim of AI, even narrow AI which handles very specific tasks, is to outdo and perfect every human cognitive function. Eventually, machine-learning systems may well be programmed to be better than humans at everything.

    What they may never develop, however, is the human touch – empathy, love, hate or any of the other self-conscious emotions that make us human. That’s unless we ascribe these sentiments to them, which is what some of us are already doing with our “Alexas” and “Siris”.

    Productivity vs. human touch

    The obsession with perfection and “hyper-efficiency” has had a profound impact on human relations, even human reproduction, as people live their lives in cloistered, virtual realities of their own making. For instance, several US and China-based companies have produced robotic dolls that are selling out fast as substitute partners.

    One man in China even married his cyber-doll, while a woman in France “married” a “robo-man”, advertising her love story as a form of “robo-sexuality” and campaigning to legalise her marriage. “I’m really and totally happy,” she said. “Our relationship will get better and better as technology evolves.” There seems to be high demand for robot wives and husbands all over the world.

    In the perfectly productive world, humans would be accounted as worthless, certainly in terms of productivity but also in terms of our feeble humanity. Unless we jettison this perfectionist attitude towards life that positions productivity and “material growth” above sustainability and individual happiness, AI research could be another chain in the history of self-defeating human inventions.

    Already we are witnessing discrimination in algorithmic calculations. Recently, a popular South Korean chatbot named Lee Luda was taken offline. “She” was modelled after the persona of a 20-year-old female university student and was removed from Facebook messenger after using hate speech towards LGBT people.

    Meanwhile, automated weapons programmed to kill are carrying maxims such as “productivity” and “efficiency” into battle. As a result, war has become more sustainable. The proliferation of drone warfare is a very vivid example of these new forms of conflict. They create a virtual reality that is almost absent from our grasp.

    But it would be comical to depict AI as an inevitable Orwellian nightmare of an army of super-intelligent “Terminators” whose mission is to erase the human race. Such dystopian predictions are too crude to capture the nitty gritty of artificial intelligence, and its impact on our everyday existence.

    Societies can benefit from AI if it is developed with sustainable economic development and human security in mind. The confluence of power and AI which is pursuing, for example, systems of control and surveillance, should not substitute for the promise of a humanised AI that puts machine learning technology in the service of humans and not the other way around.

    To that end, the AI-human interfaces that are quickly opening up in prisons, healthcare, government, social security and border control, for example, must be regulated to favour ethics and human security over institutional efficiency. The social sciences and humanities have a lot to say about such issues.

    One thing to be cheerful about is the likelihood that AI will never be a substitute for human philosophy and intellectuality. To be a philosopher, after all, requires empathy, an understanding of humanity, and our innate emotions and motives. If we can programme our machines to understand such ethical standards, then AI research has the capacity to improve our lives which should be the ultimate aim of any technological advance.

    But if AI research yields a new ideology centred around the notion of perfectionism and maximum productivity, then it will be a destructive force that will lead to more wars, more famines and more social and economic distress, especially for the poor. At this juncture of global history, this choice is still ours.The Conversation

     

    Main Photo by Yuyeung Lau on Unsplash

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    L’ouverture des sciences marines, au service d’un océan bien commun de l’humanité

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

    Nadège Legroux, Doctorante AFD-SENS, Agence française de développement (AFD) et Stéphanie Leyronas, Chargée de recherche sur les communs, Agence française de développement (AFD)

     

    450 ans – c’est la durée de vie dans l’eau de mer des masques à usage unique utilisés dans la prévention contre le Covid-19. Des déchets qui viennent s’ajouter aux 8 millions de tonnes de plastique qui finissent dans nos océans. La navigatrice Catherine Chabaud, désormais eurodéputée, raconte :

    “Dans les cinquantièmes hurlants, je me souviens avoir vu des dizaines de sacs échoués… Mes premières colères sont nées là. » (Catherine Chabaud, La Croix, 2017)

    Dans une initiative lancée l’année suivante, elle se joint à plusieurs personnalités du monde de la mer pour faire reconnaître l’océan comme un « bien commun de l’humanité ». L’appel veut éveiller un lien sensible de chacun de nous à l’océan, animé par notre responsabilité collective et individuelle vis-à-vis du plus grand écosystème de la planète.

    Prendre la mesure de cette responsabilité nécessite une connaissance de l’espace marin partagée par tous. L’UNESCO vient de lancer la Décennie des Nations unies pour les sciences océaniques au service du développement durable (2021-2030). Comment ces sciences se construisent-elles, se partagent-elles ? Entre diversité, coopération et ouverture, comment sont-elles au service d’un océan bien commun ?

    Les sciences de l’océan : la diversité fait la force

    L’océanographie moderne s’institutionnalise au cours du XXe siècle. Elle recouvre l’ensemble des travaux portant sur les phénomènes océaniques et touche un tel foisonnement de disciplines que l’historienne des sciences Naomi Oreskes écrit que « l’océanographie en tant que discipline n’existe pas ».

    Illustration du HMS Challenger par William Frederick Mitchell (1881). Wikimedia

    Et effectivement, l’océanographie est par nature pluridisciplinaire, comme le montre très tôt la composition de l’équipe scientifique de la première campagne océanographique du H.M.S Challenger (1872-1876). Avec le terme générique de « sciences de l’océan », les études physiques, biologiques, chimiques et géologiques de l’océan viennent s’enrichir de champs plus opérationnels, comme l’ingénierie marine ou la gestion des pêches.

    Coopérer pour appréhender la complexité

    En plus d’être pluridisciplinaires, les sciences de l’océan ont très tôt été motrices dans diverses formes de coopération. En plein contexte de guerre froide, le programme océanographique de l’Année géophysique internationale (1957-1958) a réuni des scientifiques des pays de l’ouest et du bloc soviétique. De nombreux projets internationaux ont depuis mobilisé des scientifiques du monde entier pour faire remonter des jeux de données, comme l’expérience mondiale sur la circulation océanique (1990-2002). À travers des travaux de modélisation et des collectes de données océanographiques, celle-ci visait à mieux comprendre le rôle de l’océan dans le système climatique mondial. En biologie marine, le recensement de la vie marine (2000-2010) est un autre exemple d’effort d’envergure internationale qui a donné naissance au portail de données ouvertes OBIS recensant les taxons de la biodiversité marine.

    Pour faire face au coût élevé des collectes de données (le budget d’un navire océanographique est de plusieurs dizaines de milliers d’euros par jour), les chercheur·e·s se sont très tôt appuyé·e·s sur l’expérience des marins et sur des navires dits « occasionnels ». Des outils spécifiques comme le bathymothermographe ont rendu possibles ces collaborations en permettant à ces usagers de l’espace marin de saisir et d’envoyer des mesures océanographiques aux scientifiques lors de leurs déplacements.

    Aujourd’hui, certains programmes de recherche associent même des bénévoles amateurs qui recensent des données en suivant des protocoles précis. Cette approche de science citoyenne est promue par le European Marine Board et mobilisée dans des projets nombreux et variés. C’est par exemple le cas du programme français BioLit, qui s’appuie sur les citoyens pour collecter des données sur la faune et flore marine du littoral méditerranéen, ou encore l’initiative Planète Plankton qui vise à regrouper une communauté de « planctonautes » (plaisanciers, professionnels de course au large, pêcheurs…) équipés pour récolter des échantillons de planctons lors de leurs activités en mer.

    Ouvrir l’accès grâce aux technologies

    Les données sur l’océan se sont démultipliées avec les évolutions technologiques et notamment la télédétection et le déploiement de capteurs automatisés (ancrés, dérivants, flottants, etc.). La prolifération des données satellitaires est telle que de nouvelles voies de partage se sont ouvertes. La NASA par exemple, et son programme Seasat à l’origine du lancement du premier satellite de télédétection de la surface des océans en 1978, a pris dès les années 1980 la décision de rendre les données du programme accessibles. Cette politique d’accès ouvert aux données s’est ensuite renforcée en 1994 avec la migration des données sur un dépôt du Web. Ce choix était à l’époque peu commun pour les politiques de la NASA qui tendaient à maintenir des droits propriétaires pendant plusieurs années.

    La mission Sentinelle-3 a pour but d’élargir la couverture de données du programme européen Copernicus. Lancée en 2016, Sentinelle-3 fournit des mesures sur nos océans, régions terrestres, zones de banquise et atmosphère pour suivre et mieux comprendre leurs interactions à grande échelle. Source : ESA, Wikimedia

    Des services comme le Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service donnent aujourd’hui accès à leurs données sur l’état de l’océan, qu’elles soient physiques, chimiques, géophysiques et géologiques ou encore biologiques, et qu’elles proviennent de données satellites, d’échantillons recueillis ou d’images in situ. Cette politique d’ouverture par de tels organismes qui se sont spécialisés dans la collecte et le traitement des données permet d’ouvrir l’accès à l’océanographie à une plus grande diversité de parties prenantes. La géographe Jessica Lehman va jusqu’à proposer que cela ait « facilité la contribution des scientifiques issu·e·s d’institutions moins bien financées ».

    Coopération et ouverture : les premiers ingrédients d’un océan bien commun ?

    Entre pluridisciplinarité, efforts de collaboration internationaux et avec des acteurs hors du champ scientifique, ouverture grandissante des données et opportunités qui en découlent, les sciences de l’océan contribuent sans aucun doute au mouvement de la science ouverte. Mais du chemin reste à faire pour qu’elles participent pleinement à la reconnaissance de l’océan comme bien commun de l’humanité.

    La mise à disposition des résultats de recherche et des données ne sera pas suffisante. La construction collective d’une connaissance scientifique et sensible est un ingrédient majeur. L’expérience du défi climatique nous a montré que les données du GIEC ne suffisaient pas à faire bouger les lignes. Dans la communauté scientifique, nombreux sont ceux qui appellent à l’« ocean literacy », une approche développant un lien entre chacun de nous et l’océan à travers la sensibilisation aux interactions entre l’océan et les sociétés, qui restent en grande partie invisibles.

    Dans un contexte où les données sur les activités humaines restent encore peu accessibles, en particulier dans le secteur de la pêche, les politiques d’ouverture et de transparence devront aussi s’appliquer au-delà des sciences de l’océan. Un océan bien commun, c’est réfléchir ensemble à la réduction des impacts de nos usages et à la protection de la biodiversité marine. Comme le souligne l’appel de Catherine Chabaud, il s’agit d’adopter une « nouvelle approche qui place la responsabilité collective au-dessus des principes de liberté et d’appropriation ».The Conversation

    Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original.

    Photo by Hung Tran from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    World economy in 2021: here’s who will win and who will lose

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0
    The Conversation

     

    Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City, University of London

     

    The coronavirus has crippled the world economy. Global GDP suffered its sharpest drop since the end of the second world war in 2020, millions were unemployed or furloughed, and governments pumped trillions of dollars into their economies to prevent greater damage.

    Nevertheless, a 2021 recovery is very uncertain. China’s economy is growing strongly again, but many of the world’s richest nations may not fully rebound until 2022 at the earliest.

    Inequality is also rampant. While America’s 651 billionaires have increased their net worth by 30% to US$4 trillion, a quarter of a billion people in developing countries could face absolute poverty, and up to half the global workforce may have lost their livelihoods.

    Advantage Asia

    The speed at which the pandemic can be contained will have a huge bearing on how the world economy performs. In the race between new virulent strains of the virus and the vaccine roll-out, early victory is by no means assured. Even rich countries that have secured most of the available vaccines may fail to inoculate enough people to provide herd immunity until the end of 2021. In developing countries, where vaccines will generally be scarce, the virus is expected to spread further.

    The big winners are likely to be countries like China and South Korea that succeeded in suppressing COVID-19 early. China’s economy is projected to grow in 2021 by 8%, over twice that of the most successful western countries even before the pandemic.

    China’s export-led economy has actually benefited from lockdowns in western countries. Western demand for services like entertainment and travel may have declined, but demand for household consumer goods and medical supplies has increased. Chinese exports to the US have reached record levels despite the high tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

    China is also expanding its economic influence throughout Asia, with a new free trade area in the Pacific and huge infrastructure projects along its trade routes to Europe and Africa. It is investing in advanced technologies to reduce its dependence on western supply chains for components such as semiconductors. China could now overtake the US as the world’s largest economy within five years, twice as fast as previously predicted.

    Harder times elsewhere

    For rich countries such as the US, UK and those in mainland Europe, the picture is less rosy. After brief recoveries in summer 2020, their economies stagnated. This was driven as much by the second wave of the pandemic as lockdowns. In the US, for instance, employment and growth closely tracked the pandemic rather than the unevenly applied lockdowns as business and consumer confidence slumped. Even with some recovery next year, these economies are expected to be 5% smaller in 2022 than if the crisis had not occurred.

    OECD GDP projections (Q4 2021 vs Q4 2019)

    Graph showing G20 growth projections
    The bars represent percentage changes. OECD

     

    The biggest losers of 2021, however, are likely to be developing countries. They lack both the economic resources to acquire enough vaccines, and the public health systems to treat large numbers of COVID patients. They also can’t afford the huge government subsidies that have prevented mass unemployment in Europe and the US. With demand for their raw materials crippled by the recession in the west, and little aid available from rich countries to alleviate their large debts, they can ill afford further lockdowns.

    Even formerly fast-growing countries like Brazil and India are facing hard times. Many millions of poor workers in the informal sector are being forced back to their villages and urban slums to face mass poverty and even starvation.

    Meanwhile South Africa, the wealthiest country in Africa, may have left it too late to obtain enough vaccines to stem the rapid rise in infections. It has taken a collective approach by becoming a member of the COVAX programme. The programme aims to ensure that poorer countries do not lose out, but it has yet to achieve results.

    The new divide

    The economic effects of the pandemic have been hugely varied across society. Those in full-time work, often in highly paid jobs working from home, have accumulated substantial savings since there is less to spend wages on.

    The very rich, especially in the US, have benefited from huge stock market increases driven by pandemic successes like Amazon, Netflix and Zoom – and this looks likely to continue. The big question for the economy is whether in the coming year those with secure jobs and high incomes will return to their previous spending patterns, or hold on to their savings in the face of continuing uncertainty.

    In contrast, many who have lost jobs or businesses or been furloughed will struggle to find new work or return to their previous income levels – especially since low-wage sectors such as retail and hospitality are unlikely to recover fully after the pandemic. This group includes many younger people, women and ethnic minorities.

    The inequality could be increased as rich governments scale back the huge subsidies being used to keep many workers employed or furloughed. Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor, gave clear indications of this intention in his November spending review.

    In the US, the political deadlock over further relief spending was only resolved at the last minute, and Republicans will probably now aim to minimise Biden-administration spending despite the profligacy of the Trump years. Europe has just reached an unprecedented agreement to provide EU-funded aid to member states most affected by the pandemic, but tensions over the extent of the package and the recipients will probably continue.

    Cooperation could ease the adjustment to a post-pandemic world. But international cooperation during the pandemic has been weak, and economic tensions have further undermined the world’s commitment to free trade – not a good start for Brexit Britain. Domestically, redistribution of wealth and income through higher taxes could give western governments more resources to deal with the victims of the pandemic, but will be politically difficult in a continuing recession.

    Social unrest has been one consequence of previous pandemics. Let’s hope that this time, we find the wisdom to tackle the gross inequalities revealed by COVID-19, and build a fairer world.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    Dummy’s guide to how trade rules affect access to COVID-19 vaccine

    By
    Charles Telfair Centre
    -
    0

     

    Ronald Labonte, Professor and Distinguished Research Chair, Globalization and Health Equity, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa and Brook K. Baker, Professor of Law, Northeastern University

    The race is on to secure vaccines that will protect people from COVID-19. But it’s already become apparent that there is gross inequality playing out in the procurement and distribution of the new drugs. One reason is intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is considering whether to temporarily waive certain rules about Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), so as to allow more countries access to vaccines, drugs, and medical technologies needed to prevent, contain, or treat COVID-19. Initially proposed by South Africa and India, the waiver has the support of almost 100 developing countries, scores of international NGOs, several UN agencies, and the Director-General of the World Health Organisation. But there is opposition, particularly from countries that are home to large pharmaceutical companies. This means that the decision has yet to move forward within the WTO. Meanwhile, vaccinations are under way in high-income countries that made multiple bilateral advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies. Developing countries are having to wait. Caroline Southey, editor of The Conversation Africa, asks Ronald Labonte and Brook Baker to unpack the issues.

    Has the WTO failed developing countries?

    No. The failure rests with some of the WTO member states. The WTO is an intergovernmental institution that is rules-bound and whose actions are directed or guided by the many trade treaties (including TRIPS) that it oversees. Those treaties are the products of negotiations between governments of countries that are member states of the WTO. Some member states are withholding support for the proposed TRIPS waiver. These are the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, the EU and Brazil. Most are home to pharmaceutical companies benefiting from TRIPS extended patent protections. All have inked advanced purchase agreements with vaccine companies.

    Some countries, including Canada and those in the EU, are using voluntary measures, like promises to donate excess vaccine or contributions to the WHO’s COVAX facility, as a defence against the need for the waiver. COVAX now has enough financial commitments to make just over one billion doses available to eligible developing countries by the end of 2021. But the supply and the roll-out is insufficient to meet the need. The bottom line for the non-supporters appears to be: protect TRIPS patent rights first, worry about globally equitable vaccine access second.

    What difference would the waiver make?

    The waiver would allow WTO members to choose to neither grant nor enforce certain sections of the TRIPS agreement. This would allow WTO member states to collaborate on manufacturing, scaling up and supplying COVID-19 medical tools equitably.

    The waiver would be temporary, in effect only until the WHO declares global herd immunity. It would apply only to those drugs, vaccines and medical technologies related to the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19. It would be optional; countries could elect not to abide by the waiver.

    WTO member states arguing against the waiver maintain that existing TRIPS flexibilities already allow countries experiencing a public health emergency to issue compulsory licences to domestic pharmaceutical companies to produce generic (and less costly) equivalents. This is true, but the process is cumbersome and does not yet apply to trade secret know-how and cell lines needed to copy vaccines and biologic medicines. Compulsory licences must be issued on a country-by-country, case-by-case basis. Some compulsory licences require prior negotiations with rights holders and some are only for public, non-commercial use. Moreover, even for a single medicine, compulsory licences might need to be issued in the country that produces the active pharmaceutical product, the country that produces the finished product, and the country that imports and uses the medicine.

    The rules covering export of a compulsory-licensed product to a country lacking its own production capacity are so complex that this flexibility has only been used once. Countries attempting to invoke these TRIPS flexibilities in the past have been subject to criticisms and trade pressures from the US and the EU in efforts to discourage them from doing so. Attempts to bypass patent rules on several COVID-19 related medical technologies have already faced implementation barriers.

    Approving the waiver will not immediately solve all access issues. Underfunded or limited health system capacities in developing countries will remain a challenge. Countries will also need to share manufacturing capacities and the technical production knowledge that newer health technologies require, and allow export to other countries. And countries that want to use the waiver may need to implement their own legislative changes or emergency declarations to do so.

    The waiver doesn’t solve these concerns, but it does create an enabling context for their more rapid resolution.

    What role are pharmaceutical companies playing in the waiver deliberations?

    Member states within the WTO will make the final decision on the waiver. But many are home to rich and powerful pharmaceutical industries or have secured bilateral agreements with them for vaccines or other COVID-19 health products. It is reasonable to infer that domestic lobbying by pharmaceutical companies may be at play, or that support for these industries for some countries has simply become accepted practice. The pharmaceutical industry itself has been vocal in opposing any efforts to undermine the patent system, arguing that intellectual property “is the blood of the private sector”.

    Pharmaceutical companies have long argued the need to be rewarded for their risks in researching new discoveries. But what of the $12 billion plus that governments have directly contributed to vaccine discovery and expanded manufacturing? It is true that private funding for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was four times that of public funding. But governments have also entered into $24 billion of advance purchases agreements, including an estimated $21 billion in 2021 for the Pfizer vaccine, sales of which are expected to generate a 60%-80% profit margin.

    Is there anything developing countries can do to ensure they don’t get left behind?

    Negotiations at the TRIPS Council in January and February may well produce a draft text or declaration on the waiver. When, and if, the waiver or declaration text makes it to the WTO General Council in March, both developing and developed countries should vote in support of it. WTO member state decisions are usually made by consensus. But in the absence of one, they can be passed with a three-fourths majority (123 of 164 members).

    Between now and then government leaders of developing countries and others who support the waiver should contact non-supportive member states directly, making their arguments in favour of it. Emphasis should be placed on:

    • the extent of public financing for COVID-19 medical discoveries,
    • the degree of UN and broader civil society support for the waiver, including support from global public health leaders,
    • the slow roll-out of vaccines to developing countries in its absence,
    • the inequalities this will worsen as some countries are able to access vaccines and treatments and so recover more rapidly than others, and
    • most countries’ already stated acknowledgement that until everyone receives the vaccine everyone remains at risk.

    If the waiver fails, developing countries should explore a collaborative effort to make use of TRIPS Article 73 (Security Exceptions). A legal interpretation of this article suggests that the pandemic satisfies the conditions set out in the article and its conditions could achieve much the same outcome as the proposed waiver.

    Invoking Article 73 might be challenged and have to undergo a formal dispute settlement process. Nonetheless, it is a strategy that merits consideration.

    Finally, there is an urgent need to clarify public interest and public health exceptions to TRIPS intellectual property rights. Compulsory licensing for all applicable intellectual property rights should be improved so that full technology transfer and access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics can be more easily guaranteed in the future. This body of work should proceed quickly this year so that the world can better address predictable pandemic threats and global health needs – now and in the future.The Conversation

     

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Main Photo by Shubhangee Vyas on Unsplash

    The Charles Telfair Centre is non-profit, independent and non-partisan, and takes no specific position. All opinions are those of the authors/contributors only.

    1...161718...21Page 17 of 21