https://medium.com/sdg16plus/april-2020-newsletter-1ec1bd017a86

https://cic.nyu.edu/programs/sdg16plus

As the world struggles to get a grip on the pandemic and make sense of the new social, economic and political reality that we are suddenly in, the justice workforce finds itself on the frontline.

Governments are taking unprecedented emergency measures that place far-reaching restrictions on people’s everyday lives. Justice leaders are being asked to take on daunting responsibilities for the implementation of these measures.

People-centered justice approaches are needed now more than ever, both for societies to respond to the immediate health crisis and to manage the institutional, social, and economic fallout from the pandemic.

The justice team at Pathfinders, together with over 50 partners from around the world, developed a first briefing on Justice in a Pandemic, with a specific focus on Justice for All in the Public Health Emergency.

The briefing sets out seven priorities for an effective justice response:

The briefing includes a call to action from three eminent global justice leaders, Hina Jilani, Willy Mutunga and Jeroen Ouwehand:

In a new Op-ed, Pathfinders’ director, Liv Tørres and the International Trade Union Confederation’s General Secretary, Sharan Burrow issued an urgent call for global solidarity and action to extend social protection to all in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — focusing on the most vulnerable first.

Read the Op-ed in the Mail and Guardian here.

A new blog from Jeni Klugman (Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security), Matthew Moore (World Bank), and Pathfinders’ Michael Higgins and Paula Sevilla Núñez, explores how spatial inequality shapes the pandemic’s impact and the need for place-based responses. COVID-19 has exposed the inequalities that characterize so many cities in both developed and developing countries. People living in cities are particularly vulnerable to the pandemic, but it’s not on an equal basis. From Barcelona, to New York, to New Delhi we have seen how place-based disparities mean the poorest and most marginalized bear the brunt of the pandemic and face crowded housing, lack of medical care, and shortage of access to water.

The Grand Challenge on Inequality and Exclusion is seeking to develop tools that draw on local data to help partners track disparities in housing, health, service delivery, transportation, environmental vulnerabilities and other indicators in cities. Place-based policies and tools that provide a more granular assessment of local conditions can help governments respond to crises by identifying the areas with the greatest needs.

The discussion highlighted that existing trends of violence have persisted in urban areas, while distrust of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been a challenge to overcome. Some organizations found that responses such as intelligence sharing are working better virtually. Cities also need to prioritize making resources for domestic violence victims accessible and to make reporting mechanisms available to those who may not have access to technology.

The Center on International Cooperation’s (CIC) staff, fellows, and partners are working to shed light on the intersections between the global coronavirus pandemic and the issues we study, from the future of multilateralism and the global humanitarian response to the ongoing work of building peaceful, just and inclusive societies. Visit CIC’s regularly updated collection of articles, blog posts, and policy papers on COVID-19, here. For Pathfinders’ up-to-date commentary and analysis, visit our Medium blog and follow us on Twitter.