Plans for a Feminist Recovery

This Plan was developed jointly by YWCA Canada and the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. This is the first nationally-focused Plan of its kind. 

The 8-point plan provides a roadmap to address the devastating Depression-era economic lows of the pandemic and proposes ways to improve economic security for women, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people. As Canada transitions from emergency response to post-pandemic recovery, the Plan emphasizes the following pillars for a path towards an inclusive economy:

  1. Intersectionality: Understanding Power by gathering disaggregated, intersectional data, and emphasizing gender analysis and frameworks in policy development and evaluation.
  2. Addressing root causes of systemic racism by implementing programs to support Indigenous peoples and especially women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, as well as implementing recommendations to remediate anti-Black racism from various bodies.
  3. Care Work is Essential Work that should be supported by funding and monitoring of early learning and childcare programs, supporting migrant worker caregivers in decision-making for pandemic recovery, and expanding data collection on the subject.
  4. Investing in good jobs through legislating job protections and lower eligibility requirements of employment insurance, among other recommendations.
  5. Fighting the shadow pandemic through establish a National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence with an emphasis on indigenous and LGBTQ women and addressing racism and hate crimes.
  6. Bolstering small businesses through diverse funding schemes in consultation with Indigenous communities and emphasizing support for underrepresented groups.
  7. Strengthening infrastructure for recovery through affordable housing and clean water infrastructure, as well as addressing the digital divide in rural communities.
  8. Diverse voices in decisions through creating a specified body, ensure gender balance and intersectional representation in task forces, and investing in civil society organizations.

 

This Plan was developed by Femme Fiscale, a network of feminist movements and organizations working on feminist economic and budgetary policies in Austria. 

This is a concrete public investment plan, proposing three “investment packages” focused on the axis of childcare and education, health and elderly care, and solidarity and “saving lives.” This economic recovery plan includes feminist proposals for funding, including ways to ensure contributions from the rich. The Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Austria is meant to provide an alternative to the Austrian government’s official policies, which have failed to support those most affected by COVID-19 or to aim for a shift towards a care-based economy. As a main tool of advocacy, Femme Fiscale started a petition to call the government and Parliament to adopt the Feminist Recovery Plan. 

 

The Plan was written by the Hawaiʻi State Commission on the Status of Women in collaboration with feminist organizations and collectives in Hawaiʻi. 

The Plan makes the following key recommendations: 

  1. The state should avoid austerity or fiscal consolidation measures at all costs.
  2. In the face of shrinking tourism revenues, the state should support displaced workers and social entrepreneurship, and enhance women’s access to jobs and capital (especially those women and sexual and gender minorities’ within the commercial sex industry).
  3. The State should commit twenty percent of the COVID-19-response funds to the Native community for their express recovery needs. In addition, the state’s recovery spending scheme should center wages for family/informal caregivers, funds and infrastructure for high-risk groups, fund healthcare programs, investment in housing, shelter and public services, providing technology for digital access in poor communities, and release programs for incarcerated women. 
  4. The state should develop a plan to diversify the economy through reducing economic reliance on federal military programs, rebalancing the role of tourism within the state’s economy, reorient construction for local needs, and identify new opportunities for more sustainable economic livelihoods (such as PPE manufacturing, and the promotion of green jobs that are gender-inclusive). This economic readjustment should emphasize investing public funds in social services, improve deficits in maternal and neonatal health care in Hawaiʻi, and address gender-based violence in the immediate response and long-term recovery.

The plan also contains key principles to guide Hawaiʻi’s recovery through including Women+* at all levels of the process, among other guidelines to ensure a gender and socially-responsive recovery. 

 

This list is not exhaustive and is being updated regularly. If you would like to make a submission, please email us at feministresponse@wedo.org