Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards
It is vitally important that people of the world recognize how public health policy in many nations has been harnessed to global markets. Instead of serving those at risk of sickness and death, these policies of financialization are constructed to benefit social impact investors. Transnational global capital demands the creation of new investment products to circulate the holdings of billionaires and further concentrate their wealth. This program continues to advance even as poverty rates skyrocket under conditions of economic lockdown. Social impact finance is the centerpiece of this new era of “stakeholder capitalism,” which was launched with great fanfare in Davos this January.
Data-driven “pay for success” deals are structured around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). “Health” is goal number three. The World Bank has played a role in creating new investment products aligned to the UN SDGs. You can read more about the UN SDG financial apparatus here.
“Pay for success” finance is a performance-based contracting system that been applied to a wide range of social issues ranging from pre-k, mental health and elder-care services to workforce training and supportive housing. It clear to me that “pandemic preparedness” is being fitted out for pay for success profit-taking, too.
The “pay for success” finance model works as follows:
1. Identify a social problem. In this case the possibility of a pandemic.
2. Get an academic institution or think tank to cost out the problem as a negative externality. Remember, the more expensive the problem, the CONTINUE READING: Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards – Wrench in the Gears