Inequality

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers September 19 to September 25.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is back in the headlines with new ferocity. Following Virginia’s ratification earlier this year, the House of Representatives moved swiftly to grant the amendment a new lease on life, by removing the previous 1982 deadline for ratification. Though questions remain as to whether the time has run out, one thing is clear: ratification of the ERA would incontrovertibly advance gender equality, both at home and abroad.

In this piece (which is part of a special Just Security “Racing National Security” symposium), Catherine Powell argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a window into the pandemics of policing, poverty, and racism around the globe. National security observers need to broaden the lens for analysis beyond military security—and what Trump today (and Nixon in the 1970s) opportunistically calls “law and order”—to encompass economic, physical, and human security.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, rural land reform is a perennial problem for the Chinese government.

Understanding how systemic racism influences cybersecurity is integral to protecting the American people, deterring adversaries, and defending American businesses as the U.S. seeks to return to its position of leadership.

The coronavirus pandemic is a major setback for efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Nigeria's elites would seem to be already disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. As of April 2, there are reported 184 cases of the virus in the country. This includes 162 active, 20 recovered, and 2 dead. These are still early days for the disease in Nigeria. But, of the relatively small number of cases in Nigeria, one is Abba Kyari, President Muhammadu Buhari's chief of staff, four are state governors, and one is the son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The first death attributed to Coronavirus was that of a senior executive at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation. Nigerian elites love to travel, and some of the victims appear to have been infected in Egypt and Europe. It is also plausible that there are many more than the reported number of cases, some going undetected because of limited testing facilities, others of people not deemed newsworthy. As of March 26, Nigeria had conducted tests on just 846 people, according to the most recent data available. On April 1, the Nigerian Center for Disease Control indicated that it had expanded testing capacity to 1,500 per day across seven laboratories.  The Nigerian medical and public health systems were a shambles long before the coronavirus. It is estimated that half of Nigeria's physicians practice medicine outside of the country, as a visit to the emergency room of urban hospitals in the United States or the United Kingdom will show. Nigerian doctors are also found in Canada, Australia, and anyplace else that needs medical personnel. For years, Nigeria spent perhaps 5 percent of its budget on health, far less than in other African countries. Contributing to the poor medical and health system, rich Nigerians routinely go abroad for medical treatment. A popular saying is, "I get my teeth cleaned in Johannesburg." President Buhari spent around six months in London for a medical condition that was never shared with the public.  Now, however, Nigerian medical tourism faces a new wrinkle. No matter how rich a Nigerian is, or how important they are, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, and other favorite destinations are now closed as part of the effort to contain the spread of coronavirus. For the first time, Nigeria’s rich and powerful are dependent on the same inadequate medical and health facilities as everybody else, though their wealth and influence may buy them preferential access. It remains to be seen whether this will result in a reassessment of Nigeria’s healthcare system.

Nations should use existing international institutions, instruments, and laws to protect and assist vulnerable populations, while mobilizing foreign aid to help communities in the developing world absorb the coming wave of environmental migrants.

Thirty years after South African President F.W. de Klerk ordered his release from Cape Town’s Victor Vorster Prison, Nelson Mandela’s reputation as a genuine hero of the twentieth century holds up. With de Klerk and others, Mandela led the successful transition from apartheid to non-racial democracy, forestalling the race war that many thought was inevitable. Nelson Mandela’s outreach to the privileged white minority preserved South Africa’s modern economy, unlike in Zimbabwe where liberation movements expelled or made settlers unwelcome and the economy collapsed. His unswerving commitment to democracy and the rule of law grounds South Africa’s constitution, which is regarded as among the world’s best in terms of protecting human rights. Nelson Mandela faced criticism from Robert Mugabe, the deceased Zimbabwe tyrant, and many others. That criticism was and still is, essentially, that Mandela conceded too much when he agreed to continued control of the economy by whites and that he did not follow a policy of redistribution of white wealth to the black majority. These criticisms are ahistorical. The transition was a negotiated settlement between the liberation forces of which his African National Congress was the most important. The apartheid-era National Party maintained control of the state and its security apparatus. In other words, the end of apartheid did not represent the liberation movements’ defeat of the National Party. Without the compromises Mandela made, a peaceful transition would have been unlikely and the prospect of a race war and economic collapse would have increased. Today, South Africa faces slow rates of economic growth, the persistence of poverty, especially among the black majority, and poor governance exemplified by the Jacob Zuma administration. Despite these challenges, the institutions established by the constitution enables South Africa to persevere, because it provides a framework for addressing the challenges that persist. 

Multilateral institutions often focus on rhetoric over action in countering violence against women. States inclined to do better should take matters into their own hands and adopt feminist foreign policies. 

In Nigeria, intruders stabbed the managing director of Maersk Nigeria, Gildas Tohouo, and his wife, Bernadette, following a December 8 holiday party at their home. She was killed on the spot while he remains in the equivalent of intensive care. They have three small children, all of whom have been accounted for and are being cared for, according to Maersk. The Lagos media is reporting that the intruders also forced one of the two to drink a liquid suspected to be acid. The Lagos state police have arrested two suspects. They are stating that one of the perpetrators was an electrician known to Tohouo and his wife, who admitted the other suspect to the residence during the course of a power failure.  Tohouo is Cameroonian. Nigerian media variously reports his wife as Hungarian or Bulgarian. Maersk is a major shipping line, based in Denmark. The motive appears to have been theft. There is often an uptick in violent crime in Nigeria during the holiday season when expenses are high. The brutal murders are a nightmare for expatriates and have unsettled the Lagos “establishment.” It occurred during a period of strikes by electric power workers that reportedly shut down the national grid. (The strikes have since ended.) Economically, the times are bad, and the closing of the country’s borders may have made things worse. There is also concern about apparent assaults by government agencies, especially the State Security Service, on the rule of law and freedom of the media. More generally, there is the perception that President Buhari is either returning to what are seen as his authoritarian roots or alternatively that he is largely missing in action, earning his nickname "Baba go-slow." There are also whispers (as there always are) that Vice President Osinbajo, who enjoys the confidence of the business community, has been marginalized by the “cabal” around the president.

Housing for professionals working in the modern economy are challenged in most of the world’s mega-cities. Lagos is no exception, as profiled by the BBC. Its reporter estimates that “middle-to-high-income” housing can cost between $5,000 and $40,000 a year. But the practice of paying a year’s worth of rent upfront sets Lagos apart: the BBC’s reporter was asked for between $11,000 and $22,000 for a two-bedroom apartment with electricity in a good Lagos neighborhood, Victoria Island. For context, according to one estimate, average rent for an apartment in Manhattan is as high as $4,336 per month, or $52,032 per year, and about 97 percent of apartments in the borough rent for more than $2,000 per month. In New York and Lagos, the shortage of housing at all levels in acute. The New York metropolitan area’s population was 20 million in 2016, while that of Lagos state is often estimated to be 22 million. Both cities are built on islands next to the ocean, limiting the amount of land available for development.  But Lagos has particular challenges. Real estate financing and consumer mortgages are usually short-term, often five years or less. Such short term financial arrangements encourage developers to seek short-term profits, which, too often, result in poor construction and shoddy maintenance. The practice of paying rent in advance in Lagos also reflects the difficulty landlords often face in collecting rents.  Nigerians like to see Lagos as their New York. Indeed, the two cities are the cultural, economic, education, luxury, and transportation hubs of their respective countries. They both attract residents from a nation-wide catchment area. Both cities are characterized by gross inequality of wealth, with a small number of rich people and a much larger number of poor, though New York has a proportionally larger middle class. The BBC report cited here reflects the realities faced by a very small middle class in Lagos. In both cities, much cheaper rents are found outside the city center. But the trade-off is long commutes—much longer in Lagos where the transportation infrastructure is still developing. Nevertheless, the most profound difference between the two is that New York is one of the world’s richest cities while Lagos is one of the poorest. That reality intrudes on all aspects of daily life, from housing to education to transportation infrastructure.