Feminist experts and activists shared their insights on the main impacts of the privatisation of public services on women’s rights and explored feminist alternatives to rethink the organization of essential public services at a session convened by GI-ESCR, the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, OXFAM India and Public Services International during the virtual Global South Women’s Forum on Sustainable Development 2020: Disrupting Macroeconomics (GSWF 2020).

Participants exchanged and strategised together, with the aim to strengthen their advocacy work for gender-responsive public services in the field of education, health and care.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Executive Director of GI-ESCR and Former Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights initiated the conversation to frame debate and explained that, for more than four decades, in most parts of the world, the myth that the private sector could deliver more efficient and accessible social services has resulted in services traditionally owned and delivered by the State to increasingly pass to private hands. These measures, Magdalena highlighted, have not only failed to deliver in terms of costs/efficiency, but they have also raised several human rights concerns and have disproportionately impacted women and girls.

“To realise women’s rights and advance gender justice, we need to envision how we can organise, own, manage and deliver public services for a feminist future.”

In this light, Magdalena shared that the session convened had two main key purposes:

(i) On the one hand, to collectively deepen the analysis and reflection on the impact of the privatisation and commodification of essential public services on women’s rights, and

(ii) On the other hand, to articulate and share ideas, projects, and initiatives on feminist alternatives to the privatisation of public services to build back better and advance gender justice.

What are the impacts of the privatisation of public services on women’s rights?

Kate Donald, Director of Programs, Centre for Economic and Social Rights:

“Privatisation is part of a dangerous shift in values and philosophy of governance. It has mainstreamed the idea that the “private is efficient and the State inefficient”, that the State should be small and that the market can solve all our problems. However, the evidence has shown that, in fact, the market is creating more problems than the ones that it is solving.”

Verónica Montúfar, Gender, Equality, LGBT+ and People with Disabilities Officer Public Services International emphasised that

“Diminished and privatised public services have resulted in greater care burdens for women at home as the lack of adequate public services have shifted care giving responsibilities to the households. Reclaiming back the public is essential to advance substantive equality”.

Anjela Taneja, Lead Campaigner Inequality / Lead Specialist Essential Services, OXFAM India:

“The privatisation of public services has a deep impact on the possibility to realize women’s fundamental rights. It implies limited or no access to essential services for women living in poverty, who are often the ones more in need of these services.”
“ User fees imply women have to use out-of-pocket resources to cover for essential services. This means they often need to make “rationing choices” and place their children’s heath needs before their own.” “In education, privatisation also creates sorting effects as it is more common for parents to pay for a boy’s education than for a girl’s.”

The way forward: Why and how can we rethink the organization of public services to deliver women’s rights and advance gender equality?

Kate Donald:

“We need to change the narrative on public services and reclaim them as public goods and as human rights to which we are all entitled. We also need to change the narrative around care. A big part of the way forward needs to be placing care at the centre of our economies and our societies. Care is not “work” that needs to be redistributed among family members, it is a collective social responsibility which we should be contributing to.”
“The wealthiest in our societies should be the ones contributing more to finance a new social pact on care through progressive taxation. These is all part of a broader shift that we need to reframe our economic model and paradigms.”

Verónica Montúfar:

“The qualifier of “good quality” public services means that public services must be gender responsive. This means that it needs to provide women with the material basis so they can exercise their fundamental rights and that they must integrate a gender transformative approach. Public services must be used to intervene and transform patriarchal structures. Integrating a gender-responsive approach to public services will allow not only to make discrimination more bearable but also to transform and redistribute power and resources between women and men.”

Anjela Taneja:

“The question to me is not about “what?’” but about “how?” Change is political and we need a more political approach to ensure impact. We need to indeed to change the narrative around public services and repeat the message again and again to highlight the private sector’s failures until we can convince the common citizen and change the current paradigm. In these efforts, it is critical to reiterate the role of the State in the regulation of non-state actor’s participation in public services.”

“We also need a national commitment to universal coverage and defend the value of free services.”

“Feminist intersectional leadership is required to make change happen. Agency from women in front-line workers is critical in any process of change. Feminist social movements are the ones who are at the back of any sustainable movement to transform reality.”

Stay tuned!

An outcomes report with the summary records of the discussion, the resources shared and the initiatives and promising practices highlighted will be shared soon.