Webinar on Inequality and COVID-19: how grassroots communities are taking action

COVID-19 has demonstrated stark social and economic inequalities, with vulnerable and marginalised groups being disproportionately impacted. These vulnerable communities are at the frontline of any global crisis, including the climate emergency.

As part of London Climate Action Week, this online event on Thursday 2 July will bring together speakers working with social movements and grassroots organisations to examine inequalities in the face of COVID-19, how grassroots organisations and communities are responding to multiple risks and shocks, and what we can learn from these actions to better respond to global crises.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the inequalities for groups that are particularly vulnerable to disasters, for example female-headed households, children, person with disabilities, indigenous and ethnic minority groups, landless tenants, migrant workers, older people, and other socially marginalised groups.
People living in densely populated informal settlements and indigenous communities fall into this highly vulnerable category, with poor access to public services including health care, water, and sanitation. It is these communities that are also on the frontline of the climate crisis.
This online event will bring speakers from social movements and networks working with indigenous people, people living in informal settlements and women working in the informal economy, to reflect on the response of their communities to COVID-19.
The event will examine inequalities in impacts and coping strategies and discuss mechanisms to address inequality and manage future risks and shocks. How do we make room for innovation, how do we become more accepting of risk and increased experimentation? And what we can learn that will help us tackle the climate crisis?

About the panel

Saleemul Huq (chair) is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh, and is an expert on the links between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of developing countries.
Sheela Patel is the founder and director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) India, which is based in Mumbai, and works in partnership with the National Slum Dweller Federation and Mahila Milan. She is also chair of Slum Dwellers International (SDI).
Prema Gopalan is the executive director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog, a grassroots women’s collectives that enables women’s entrepreneurship and leadership in sustainable development.
Martha Chen is a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and international coordinator of the global research-policy-action network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

About the series

This is the second online event in a series hosted by IIED and ICCCAD on the climate crisis and COVID-19 – working together for the change we need which will be hosted between June and October 2020. This event is also hosted working in partnership with ICCCAD and the Global Resilience Partnership and is also a part of the London Climate Action Week series of online events.
In conversation with colleagues around the world, from civil society organisations, universities and governments, this series will look at what we can learn to make us more ready for the new ways of working we need to tackle the climate crisis.
Building resilience, capacity, and adaptation have always provided a pathway to change – how can we use what we know and have achieved so far to ramp up our climate ambition? Drawing on lessons learned through capacity building, advocacy, and grassroots action, how can we catalyse a different future?

About attending

Webinars are online workshops that people can attend via the internet from their desk or portable internet device.
This webinar will use the Zoom video conferencing platform. For those who have not attended a Zoom webinar before, please read this guide to participation as an attendee.
The event will be recorded to be distributed publicly afterwards. By registering for this event, you agree to give your consent for this.
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Image: Sellers continue work at a vegetable market during COVID-19 crisis, part of the informal economy in Antananarivo City, Madagascar. (Photo E. Raboanaly/ILO, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)