The EU Is Preparing to Launch Legal Proceedings Against Vaccine Producer AstraZeneca Over Vaccine Shortfalls

The European Union and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca have had a rough vaccine rollout, and many are complaining that regulators were too slow to approve the shots. AstraZeneca repeatedly slashed its delivery commitments, telling the public that they could not deliver as many vaccines as the bloc was counting on, which has led to delays in the COVID-19 vaccine in 27 EU nations. 

The European Commission raised the matter at a meeting of EU ambassadors Wednesday, during which the majority of EU countries said they would support suing the company on the grounds that it massively under-delivered pledged coronavirus vaccine doses to the bloc. However, five to six countries have raised concerns about launching a lawsuit against AstraZeneca, saying that the lawsuit wouldn’t guarantee that the EU got more doses. 

Some ambassadors also felt that launching a lawsuit would damage the image of AstraZeneca, diminishing citizens’ trust in the vaccine. In March, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had expressed disappointment with AstraZeneca during a press conference, saying that “AstraZeneca has unfortunately under-produced and under-delivered. And this painfully, of course, reduced the speed of the vaccination campaign.” AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot had told EU lawmakers in February that low yields at EU production plants were causing the delays. 

EU countries also discussed on Wednesday contracts for more EU vaccines, following the Commission’s announcement last week that the EU secured 1.8 billion BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines through 2023. According to a diplomat, some ambassadors worried that the EU essentially is giving Pfizer a “monopoly” and said the EU needs to have a broad portfolio of vaccines. 

A spokesman for AstraZeneca said the company was not aware of any legal proceedings "and continues to hold regular discussions on supply with the commission and member states.” The EU has also decided not to take up an option to buy 100 million extra doses of AstraZeneca under the contract, after safety concerns about very rare cases of blood clots linked to the vaccine as well as supply delays.

Global Companies Are Taking Action Towards Ensuring Living Wages

The IDH (The Sustainable Trade Initiative) has allied with ten global companies to ensure workers’ living wages throughout their supply chains. The participating companies include Aldi Nord, Aldi Sud, Eosta, Fyffes, Fairphone, L’Oreal, Schijvens, Superunie, Taylors of Harrogate, and Unilever, as stated on IDH’s Call to Action: Better Business through Better Wages. The call to action also mentions that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how vulnerable our societies are, and now is an opportunity to change the way business models operate to benefit a broader range of those in the community, interrupting the cycle of poverty and strengthening the foundations of the global economy. 

“To eradicate poverty, a living wage is the first step,” says Daan Wensing, CEO of IDH. “Helping workers achieve a living wage is a shared responsibility across the entire supply chain, but the business community must be a driving force. We are proud that 10 companies already will work together towards living wages and encourage other businesses to join the call to action and do the same.” Paying a living wage to workers will provide a good standard of living for them and their families and have been shown to reduce worker turnover and improve motivation and morale.

Unilever has also made a statement to commit to building a more inclusive society. Unilever’s main commitments include:

• Ensuring that everyone who directly provides goods and services to the company earns at least a living wage or income by 2030

• Spending €2 billion annually with suppliers owned and managed by people from under-represented groups, by 2025

• Pioneering new employment models for our employees and equipping 10m young people with essential skills to prepare them for job opportunities by 2030

Alan Jope, Unilever CEO, explained, “The two biggest threats that the world currently faces are climate change and social inequality. The past year has undoubtedly widened the social divide, and decisive and collective action is needed to build a society that helps to improve livelihoods, embraces diversity, nurtures talent, and offers opportunities for everyone.”

The IDH Roadmap on Living Wages develops and scales solutions for workers in the global supply chain for a living wage. The companies that joined the Call to Action will work with the Roadmap to develop and scale solutions for workers in global supply chains with the ultimate goal of achieving a living wage. The ten action steps on the roadmap include:

1. Identifying living wage gaps in their operations and supply chains.

2. Establishing shared frameworks with supply chain partners to close the gap.

3. Join multi-stakeholder partnerships that target areas with significant living wage gaps.

4. Building awareness and understanding among consumers of how they contribute to better livelihoods. 

5. Implementing practical solutions to remove barriers and close living wage gaps, and share costs in an equitable way. 

6. Support freedom of association with robust social dialogue and wage-setting mechanisms.

7. Adopt sustainable procurement and trading practices. 

8. Ensuring that value created reaches workers. 

9. Transparently reporting on progress towards a living wage. 

10. Sharing learnings, challenges, and solutions to inform and elevate all efforts as they find new pathways for reaching living wages.

Investing in Water Access for Vulnerable Communities To Fight COVID-19

COVID-19 has revealed a critical fault in the lack of clean, safe water. Three billion people globally lack handwashing facilities at home. While the pandemic has thrown this crisis into sharper focus than ever before, people worldwide have had no water in their homes, schools, and even medical facilities for decades.

80% of illnesses are linked to dirty water and poor sanitation in many developing countries, and often factors like income, geography, and gender determines who has access to clean water

In developing countries, approximately 80 percent of illnesses are linked to dirty water and poor sanitation. Frequent and proper handwashing requires education, access to a water source, pipes, pumps, and facilities where people can turn on a tap. Safe water access programs are often prioritized in cities, leaving 8 in 10 people in rural areas without access. 

The PepsiCo Foundation announced on March 18th, 2021, that the company has helped more than 55 million people gain access to safe water globally since 2006 and catalyzed nearly $700 million in additional funding to support safe water access investments in partnership with leading non-profits worldwide. This marks significant progress towards PepsiCo’s goal of reaching 100 million people with safe water by 2030.

The Foundation also announced new programs to help communities recover and rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

• Building sanitation facilities and community water systems for dispersed rural communities with WaterAid in Colombia and Acción Contra El Hambre in Guatemala in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

• Providing microcredit loans to families in Brazil with water.org and IDB to build water infrastructure in homes.

• Working with local entrepreneurs to provide affordable, clean water to communities in Bangladesh with BRAC.

• Installing water access points and increasing hygiene education in Hyderabad, India, with Safe Water Network.

• Providing affordable washing units in homes and handwashing stations in high-density areas in South Africa.

Handwashing and hygiene infrastructure can prevent future pandemics before they start and improve global health and livelihoods on a massive scale — but only if people continue to prioritize these initiatives with community-based interventions that address existing inequalities.

COVID-19 Widens Existing Gender Inequalities in Vietnam

Women in Vietnam have been facing multiple inequalities in the labor market, even with the remarkably high labor market participation rate. A research brief by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Vietnam shows that 70.9% of Vietnam’s working-age women are in the labor force, while the global level is 47.2%. 

The research also indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities and created new gender gaps. Valentina Barucci, the Labor Economist for ILO Vietnam, says that before the COVID-19 pandemic, both women and men had relatively easy access to jobs. Still, the quality was, on average lower among women than men. Female workers are overrepresented in vulnerable employment, particularly in contributing to family work. Women earned 13.7% less than men and are underrepresented in decision-making jobs; they accounted for nearly half of the labor force but less than ¼ of overall management roles. The gap women face in job quality, and career development stems from the double burden they carry. They spent an average of 20.2 hours per week cleaning the house, washing clothes, and shopping for the family, whereas men spent only 10.7 hours. 

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, total working hours dropped significantly in the second quarter of 2020. Overall working hours did recover through the second half of the year, but women’s working hours recovered faster than men’s. “The women who worked long hours in the second half of 2020 possibly wanted to make up for the income losses in the second quarter,” says Barcucci. “Such additional hours made the double burden heavier to carry, as the time spent by women on household chores remained disproportionately high.

The research brief states that work equality in Vietnam can only be built on a shift in approach, from protecting women to providing equal opportunity to all workers, irrespective of their sex. A Labour Code that came into effect on the 1st January of 2021 opens opportunities to close gender gaps in employment. The Code introduces a reduction in the retirement age gap, which will gradually be implemented. In addition, female workers will no longer be excluded by law from certain occupations considered harmful for child-bearing and parenting functions. Rather, they will have a right to choose whether or not to engage in such occupations after being fully informed of the risks involved. Vietnam’s Socio-Economic Development Strategy for 2021-30 is expected to call for gender gaps to be reduced across several areas of citizens’ political, economic, and social lives. 

New ILO-EU-UNESCO Collaboration Focuses on Jobs and Cultural Heritage in Iraq

The International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the European Union (EU) have launched a new program that will use employment-intensive approaches to create jobs for internally displaced persons, Syrian refugees, and host community members. The program will also try to preserve and rehabilitate cultural heritage sites at the same time. 

The collaboration will help generate around one thousand job opportunities for skilled and unskilled workers who will be employed to safeguard and rehabilitate cultural heritage sites, including the Erbil Citadel – a World Heritage site. Some of the jobs include cleaning and maintaining sites, including clearing away vegetation and rubble, installing shaded areas, and rehabilitating access roads and parking areas. 

The program will help provide short-term jobs that are associated with labor rights according to the international and local standards but also create jobs that contribute to tourism and promote local culture. 

The ILO in Iraq has also joined forces with local authorities in the Governorate of Dohuk to implement integrated employment-intensive investment program (EIIP) interventions aimed at creating more than 180 decent jobs. 

Some of the targets of the program with EIIP include: 

• Creating 184 short-term jobs equivalent to around 10,000 worker days.

• About 50% of those employed will be women.

• EIIP interventions will help improve 50 KM of irrigation channels and support the sorting of 240 tons of solid waste per day for 6 months.

• The projects will engage the local community in different areas, such as recruitment processes, prioritizing needs, and adopting sustainable practices (such as sorting from source).

• The EIIP team is working on other sectors as well to create decent jobs for forcibly displaced persons and host community members. Sectors include transportation, municipal services, and public maintenance, linking these works with skills development opportunities and empowering private sector contractors.