Symptoms of a broken system: the gender gaps in COVID-19 decision-making

Kim Robin van Daalen, Csongor Bajnoczki, Maisoon Chowdhury, Sara Dada, Parnian Khorsand, Anna Socha, Arush Lal, Laura Jung, Lujain Alqodmani, Irene Torres, Samiratou Ouedraogo, Amina Jama Mahmud (+3 others)
2020 BMJ Global Health  
A growing chorus of voices are questioning the glaring lack of women in COVID-19 decision-making bodies. Men dominating leadership positions in global health has long been the default mode of governing. This is a symptom of a broken system where governance is not inclusive of any type of diversity, be it gender, geography, sexual orientation, race, socio-economic status or disciplines within and beyond health -excluding those who offer unique perspectives, expertise and lived realities. This
more » ... only reinforces inequitable power structures but undermines an effective COVID-19 response -ultimately costing lives. By providing quantitative data, we critically assess the gender gap in task forces organised to prevent, monitor and mitigate COVID-19, and emphasise the paramount exclusion of gender-diverse voices. RETREATING TO THE NON-INCLUSIVE DEFAULT MODE OF GOVERNANCE The global community was unprepared as COVID-19 struck. As a result, countries swiftly established expert and decision-making structures through traditional processes: reaching out to government ministry directors, prominent experts and heads of well-known institutions. Most of these positions are typically held by men, as evidenced by our analysis of 115 expert and decision-making COVID-19 task forces from 87 countries: 85.2% of identified national task forces (n=115) contain mostly men, only 11.4% contain predominantly women and a mere 3.5% exhibit gender parity.* Similarly, 81.2% (n=65) of these task forces were headed by men (table 1) . Men were overrepresented in global task forces to a similar extent to that of national task forces (table 2) . For instance, the WHO's first, second and third International Health Regulations Emergency committees consisted of 23.8%, 23.8% and 37.5% women, respectively. Expert groups, compared with decision-making committees, more frequently had higher proportions of women or gender parity, reflecting potential societal biases and stereotypes in terms of gender Summary box ► Despite numerous global and national commitments to gender-inclusive global health governance, COVID-19 followed the usual modus operandi -excluding women's voices. A mere 3.5% of 115 identified COVID-19 decision-making and expert task forces have gender parity in their membership while 85.2% are majority men. ► With 87 countries included in this analysis, information regarding task force composition and membership criteria was not easily publicly accessible for the majority of United Nations Member States, impeding the ability to hold countries accountable to previously made commitments. ► Lack of representation is one symptom of a broken system where governance is not inclusive of gender, geography, sexual orientation, race, socio-economic status or disciplines within and beyond health -ultimately excluding those who offer unique perspectives and expertise. ► Functional health systems require radical and systemic change that ensures gender-responsive and intersectional practices are the norm -rather than the exception. ► Open, inclusive and transparent communication and decision-making must be prioritised over closeddoor or traditional forms of governance. ► Data collection and governance policies must include sex and gender data, and strive for an intersectionality approach that includes going beyond binary representation in order to produce results that are inclusive of the full gender spectrum. on March 26, 2021 by guest. Protected by copyright.
doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003549 pmid:33004348 fatcat:eymurja5p5b2be4rga6gru6fue