‘The economics of violence are simple and devastating. No one gains. Everyone loses, and we have to turn this around. As we face COVID-19’s devastation, there has never been a more important moment to resolve to put our combined resources and commitment behind the biggest issues, and to end violence against women and girls, for good. We know what it takes to fight a pandemic. Now we need the will to do it, and with Generation Equality, lead the way’. - Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women Executive Director

The economics and geo-politics of knowledge generation and dissemination

In this ‘post truth’ era we are continuously exposed to the views of populist leaders who – in desperate attempts to gain or cling to power – are making use of fake news . The reasons for not listening to experts’ opinions and supporting ‘stupid’ decisions  are very complex. And there is no doubt that the Covid 19 crisis has further exacerbated the spread of this misinformation – particularly around vaccines – and with it the ignorance and mistrust of evidence and science. The politics of research around Covid 19 has reminded us of the importance of evidence in all disciplines, if we are to overcome the huge health and social challenges faced by all countries, especially those classified as low and middle income.

But the world of knowledge creation is fraught with power imbalances, hierarchies of knowledge and lack of adequate resources. The most recent UNESCO science report: towards 2030 shows that - although some low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have increased their investment in research – the gaps at global level remain huge:

‘The ‘Big Five’ – US, European Union, China, Japan and the Russian Federation still account for 72% of all researchers. Researchers from lower income countries are still pursuing career opportunities abroad but their destination of choice is widening’.

The scenario is replicated in the field of violence against women and violence against children in LMICs, where research to support evidence-based programmes is scarce .  The European Union is by far the single largest donor of overseas development assistance on gender-based violence, however, funding for GBV related projects comprises only 0.9%  of the total state members aid budget. Whilst information on how much of that budget is allocated to research is difficult to track, the SVRI is doing just that through our project Tracking the Funding Flows on Research on VAW in LMICs to see to what extent the “10/90 gap” is still pertinent. [1]

The power imbalance is also manifested in the language choice for most academic dissemination, with  English being the preferred language among the academic community. The bias has a number of negative consequences, for both non-native English-speaking researchers and potentially for key stakeholders and communities in the settings where they live and research. The hegemony of the English language means we know less about the possible research happening in LMICs – if produced and published in other languages - and we are poorer in terms of understanding and addressing the pervasive human rights violation that is violence against women and violence against children.