This report provides a synopsis of the food price rise and global economic crises together with their known and potential impacts on children and women. In outlining lessons and recommendations it argues that now is a critical time for government investment in social interventions, which when well-designed can boost economic growth and make growth more pro-poor. In particular, gender-based policies that build on women’s roles as economic agents and their preference for investing resources in child well-being can help to mitigate the effects of economic crises. Child protection mechanisms should be integrated into expanded social protection programmes.
In the Pacific region most economies can be expected to slow down or contract, apart from Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Children and women in many Pacific Island countries are likely to be among those most severely affected, and those already most vulnerable will face the greatest impacts.
The economic crisis is likely to increase child and maternal deaths and malnourishment, reduce government health expenditures, and put educational gains at risk. It may also:
- Create new categories of those facing hardship and poverty including: the urban poor; small-holder and subsistence farmers; front-line workers if their salaries are not adjusted to keep up with higher commodity prices; low-skilled casual workers (most of whom are women), internal migrants, and immigrants.
- Increase women’s burden of care for the extended family and reduce access to micro-credit schemes, further compromising women’s businesses and their ability to cope during difficult times.
- Increase the exploitation of and violence against women and children, which tends to rise under conditions of economic stress.
Increases in national expenditure on the social sector and social protection do not impede economic growth, yet a key lesson from previous economic crises is that not enough is done to help the poorest people. The poorest are therefore forced to respond with measures that keep them poor and lower future income-earning potential.
A strong policy response can mitigate the impact of the global economic crisis on Pacific Island children and women. While national policies will be context-specific, the regional focus will need to involve: maintaining macro-economic fundamentals to create fiscal space to fund social protection; protecting social budgeting and budgeting for social protection, both to respond to the current crisis and to prepare for future aggregate shocks; and making strategic long-term investments in physical and human capital.
- Pacific Island country policymakers need to seize this opportunity to build political support for initiating new or widening the coverage of existing social protection programmes and embed them within national budgets.
- Donors can provide support to establish new (or expand existing) social protection programmes.
- Reaching the most vulnerable children will be critical to break the cycle of poverty, and gender-based policies are vital when resources are scarce.
- Governments need to increase the efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery in order to pursue policies that adequately protect children and women.
- Existing social protection programmes that target people who are already poor do not always have a clear mechanism to deal with the ‘new poor’ pushed into poverty by the economic crisis. Social protection programmes must remain responsive to changes in the need for assistance.
- Investment needs to be made in better early warning poverty and vulnerability data systems for rapid release of quantitative and qualitative indications of the impacts of the crisis on poor people.
