Thread. Few questions to hold onto re: urban social protection. It’s hard to think of a “post” now, but policy makers and urban practitioners must at least grasp at the questions that must guide us through the transitions to come so we don’t go back to a deeply unjust “normal.”
1. What are the new ways to deliver social protection innovated during emergency time that must remain and endure “post” this crisis? Eg. direct cash transfers to informal workers, technological innovations, community kitchens, rent protections.
2. Which of the measures currently seen as “relief” should just be normal social entitlements? eg. expanded food support, living wages + basic income supports, universal health care, rent protections, eviction moratoriums.
3. How much of the full relief falling into place is actually a description of the social protection we should have had before the next crisis? eg. health spending, universal social infrastructure, dignified protective equipment. What can we learn from its design and delivery?
4. What are the systems that we realised we need because of their absence? eg. portability of benefits, identity documents, secure tenure for households, secure rental arrangements, and dignified housing, adequate sites for health care access.
5. What kind of public finance arrangements are needed to sustain expanded safety nets if they weren’t only relief but also recovery and everyday thriving? What percentage of GDP are we talking about? How did these funds suddenly become a priority? What could sustain this?
6. How can the literal evidence of the actual vulnerability of a majority of our fellow citizens - made clear by how many cannot last even days without new income - become the starting point, a kind of common sense, for urban policy and practice after this has passed?
7. What data do we have and use publicly that allows us to see/unsee impacts before the happen? What data hides certain realities? eg. income distributions, spatial geographies of vulnerability, migration patterns.
For a most urban Indians, the lockdown shows us again that the distinction between this crisis and just everyday life is thin. It will remain so unless we hold onto what is today emergency relief but tomorrow must be a minimum safety net that allows thriving, not just survival.
Most of these are old questions, but to paraphrase Audre Lorde, there are no new ideas, just new ways of making them felt. Perhaps one way to do this is also by asking them at one of the many right times.
