In this episode we explore the socioeconomic impact of Covid-19, paying special attention to its implications for gender and North-South inequalities. Our guests include Mark Weisbrot, Co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research; Mehrinaz El Awady, Leader of the Gender Justice, Population and Inclusive Development Cluster at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; and Julio Gambina, Professor of Political Economics at the National University of Rosario and member of partner research network CLACSO. As a bonus, this episode includes excerpts from interviews with leaders of partner grassroots women’s organizations in Gulu, Uganda, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma and West Virginia University. At the end of the episode, Security in Context's Omar Dahi and Firat Demir discuss the main highlights of the interviews and share their own takes on the content.
Professor of Political Economy at the National University of Rosario.
Julio C. Gambina is a professor of Political Economy in the Faculty of Law of the National University of Rosario. He is president of the Foundation of Social and Political Research (FISYP) and a Member of the steering committee of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO).
www.juliogambina.blogspot.com
Leader of the Gender Justice, Population and Inclusive Development Cluster at ESCWA.
Mehrinaz El Awady is the Leader of the Gender Justice, Population and Inclusive Development Cluster. She previously served as Director for the ESCWA Centre for Women. Prior to that, she was ESCWA Senior SWAP Coordinator, in charge of mainstreaming gender within the organization. She has a long record in development organization and management at the grassroots and the policy levels.
Prior to her career as an international civil servant, she was the Youth and Women Regional Advisor for Save the Children, where she conducted research, situation analysis and proposal development on gender-related and human rights issues in the Arab region. Before joining Save the Children, Ms. El Awady worked for several international development organizations, including the Education Development Centre, the Centre for Development and Population Activities, and Care International.
Ms. El Awady holds a Bachelor in Economics from Cairo University, a Masters in International Development from the American University in Cairo, and a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Her current research areas include gender mainstreaming, combating violence against women, and gender justice in the Arab region.
Co-director of the CEPR and writer on economic and policy issues.
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is author of the book Failed: What the “Experts” Got Wrong About the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy.
He writes a regular column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by the Tribune Content Agency. His opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and almost every major US newspaper, as well as in Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs.
