U.S. was judged to be the most prepared country for pandemic in the world.

 

こうしたコメディは複数指標に恣意的な重み付けを行って作るランキングすべてにいえることなんだけど、US News等の大学ランキングはそれ自体がレピュテーションになるという循環で精度が高くなるんだよね。学歴って名前だから。https://t.co/HO28IE7PMg

— Spica (@Kelangdbn) February 26, 2021

（Global Health Security Index）PDF

Expert Opinion Can’t Be Trusted If You Consult the Wrong Sort of Expert

GHSI researchers evaluated global pandemic preparedness in 195 countries, and the U.S. was judged to be the most prepared country in the world. The U.K. was rated second overall. New Zealand clocked in at 35th. Vietnam was 50th. Well, those experts certainly got that wrong. Vietnam and New Zealand had among the best responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; the U.K. and the U.S. were among the worst.

To evaluate American preparedness accurately, the GHSI group needed input from anthropologists, psychologists and historians who understood American politics and culture. In fact, it would have had to grant social scientific expertise primacy because social factors, such as racial inequality, most strongly shaped the American outcome. Around the globe, whether countries were able to mount an effective pandemic response depended crucially on governance and the response of their citizens to that governance. The GHSI team got it wrong because the wrong experts were chosen.

評価には社会科学の専門家を含めるべきだっった、と。

The US ranked lower than Zimbabwe for gender equality this year, see how low it sank

The World Economic Forum report looked at data from 153 countries.

Nicaragua came in fifth, followed by New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Rwanda and Germany. The U.S. actually fell two spots from its ranking last year.

 

NICARAGUA’S GENDER GAP: RANKINGS AND REALITY

The index is designed to measure women’s positions compared to men in their own country rather than the status of women compared to women in other countries. Thus, despite what rankings might suggest, the report does not claim that the status of Nicaraguan women is better than or on par with other countries in the top ten. Yet headlines such as Nicaragua in Fifth Position For Gender Equality in the World or Nicaragua, the world’s unlikely champion of gender equality suggest otherwise.

 Nicaragua has high rates of gender-based violence. As many as half of Nicaraguan women experience gender-based violence in their lifetimes. According to the United Nations Population Fund, Nicaragua has the second highest rate of adolescent pregnancies in Latin America. Almost 30% of women give birth before age 18, and half of those are in girls ages 10-14. Many of these pregnancies are the result of sexual assault. In fact, more than 80% of sexual violence victims in Nicaragua are 16 or younger. Women and girls lack the freedom to make decisions on their reproductive health. Abortion, previously legal for limited health reasons, was made illegal in November 2006. While Nicaragua’s maternal mortality rate has improved in recent years, it remains high. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), 20% of all maternal deaths were adolescent mothers.

In 2008, only 8.6% of mayors were women. These are important strides in increasing women’s representation in government, but has that increase in women in elected office translated into policies that improve the lives of women? 

Under pressure from the religious leaders, provisions in the law were struck down by courts. Other key provisions had no budget. Two years later, a presidential decree weakened the law by emphasizing family units over the rights of women. In 2016 the country’s women-only police stations (comisarías), which were specifically charged with investigating violence against women, were closed. 

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap rankings create a false impression of progress in many countries, including Nicaragua. This gap between ranking and reality obscures the very real struggles faced by women in countries like Nicaragua, where structural discrimination and gender-based violence persist.

ジェンダーギャップインデックスも、その国での男女差を示すかもしれないが、その国の女性の地位、現状が、他国の女性の地位、現状より いいとは限らない、と。ジェンダーランキングで高い位置にいて、女性議員が多く、格差解消の法律はあっても格差解消のために機能していないこともあるし、女性の経済的地位は他国に比べて低く、女性に対する暴力も頻繁で、子供を産まない自由も実質的にはない、ということだってある。