Covid-19, instituciones financieras internacionales y continuidad de las políticas androcéntricas en América Latina

Abstract

This article analyses, from a human rights and feminist economy perspective, the emergency financial policies deployed by the international financial institutions (IFIs) –in particular the IMF and the World Bank- to help States in Latina America to cope with the Covid-19 crisis. The macroeconomic and fiscal assumptions as well as the underlying economic policies behind the loans that IFIs are granting to States are studied, identifying clear signals that fiscal discipline and pro-market options will continue being the priorities as soon as the emergency has been overcome. The study explains how the adjustment and austerity policies implemented in the countries in the region have adversely and disproportionally affected women’s rights, in particular reinforcing the invisibilization of gender inequalities in the domestic and care work and how this situation, in turn, has put women in a situation of greater vulnerability to the pandemic. It also criticizes the (self)called “gender approach” of IFIs for being merely instrumental to economic growth without consideration to the intrinsic value of gender equality and women’s rights. The responsibility of IFIs for complicity with economic reforms with known adverse effects on gender equality is studied. Given the policy and legal implications of the findings presented in this research, the article concludes that States in the region should consider carefully the conditions of the loans being offered by IFIs, for which it is crucial to conduct ex ante evaluations of the impact of these financial contacts on the human rights of the population, and in particular on gender equality.