NEW YORK/YEREVAN—The Open Society Foundations will give more than $130 million to combat the ravages of COVID-19 around the globe, with a focus on providing immediate relief for vulnerable communities and pushing back against government encroachment on political freedoms.
Open Society’s commitment includes rapid response at the local level where many of our staff live and work—from Berlin to London, to Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, to Amman and Cape Town. Half of Open Society’s initial COVID-19 response will go toward the United States, which has so far suffered the largest number of confirmed deaths, and where systemic inequality will have profound global consequences in the years to come. As the virus spreads across continents, we will also focus our efforts in the Global South, particularly in countries where weak institutions face both public health and economic disaster.
Our funding centers on those who are most at-risk, including informal, low-wage, and gig economy workers; refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers; disadvantaged groups such as the Roma in Europe; homeless people; frontline health workers and caregivers; and detained and incarcerated individuals.
“The scale of this pandemic has laid bare the fault lines and injustices of our world,” said George Soros, founder and chair of the Open Society Foundations. “We missed the opportunity to create a more just economy after the financial crisis of 2008 and provide a social safety net for the workers who are the heart of our societies. Today, we must change direction and ask ourselves: What kind of world will emerge from this catastrophe, and what can we do to make it a better one?”
“This is the first step of our ongoing response to address the economic and political dislocation wrought by this disease,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Open Society Foundations. “Our emergency relief efforts will support our grantees to immediately reach those who cannot access aid through government systems. But just as critically, we aim to ensure that the centers of power never again allow those who are the backbone of our economies to suffer in the shadows.”
Deeply concerned about grave threats to democratic accountability and individual freedoms, Open Society will also fund partners that are challenging violations to political freedoms, as leaders take steps to suspend access to information, roll back sexual and reproductive rights, extend surveillance beyond public health means, and look for scapegoats to blame, exploiting the pandemic as a means to seize unchecked power.
Specific elements of the funding package include:
- Nearly $42 million for our global partners to support low-income workers, including in the informal sector, care givers, and the undocumented; protect refugees, migrants and asylum seekers; and provide access to new vaccines and treatments, regardless of economic or citizenship status.
- $37 million to initiatives to support workers and their families in New York City, home to Open Society’s largest office, and $12 million will contribute to emergency relief for vulnerable workers in numerous other U.S. cities and states. $2.5 million will fund additional community efforts in Baltimore, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.—communities in which Open Society works and to which the Foundations maintain deep ties.
- $9 million toward the ongoing struggle to end the excessive use of mandatory imprisonment and detention around the world, which will have a catastrophic impact on health, including for those at greatest risk in crowded facilities in the United States and across Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin America.
- $3 million for Europe, including both London and Berlin, for local groups countering disinformation and serving the cities’ most vulnerable people, such as senior citizens. Budapest and Milan have each received over $1 million already.
- $3.5 million for southern Africa, through the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, to support essential emergency services and care work, and to bolster an equitable public health response from civil society, the media, the government, and the private sector.
Starting from the first days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Armenia, Open Society Foundations-Armenia has mobilized resources and brought together civil society actors to respond to the emerging crisis in a variety of ways.
Owing to the Foundation’s support and the creative spirit of the partner organizations, accessible yet impactful videos and posters were created to help raise public awareness by disseminating them throughout the country, whilst encouraging people to display a high level of social responsibility.
In the initial phase of the crisis, the Foundation extended emergency relief to address the social and health needs of the more vulnerable parts of society, purchased necessary medical supplies and personal protective equipment, and helped to safeguard the accessibility and proper delivery of health services to all citizens without exception.
Faithful to its mission, the Foundation remained focused on the marginalized and vulnerable groups in the country from the very onset of the crisis by continuing to pronounce the need to safeguard their rights now more than ever, as well as directly assisting the process of addressing their primary needs by collaborating with civil society and governmental agencies. The Foundation provided care and relief to around 3,000 single elderly persons, persons with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and persons living with HIV in Yerevan and Armenia’s regions.
To expand testing among the general public, the Foundation provided US $50,000 to purchase and deliver to the Armenian Health Ministry 2,200 COVID-19 diagnostic tests. 20 kits of personal protective equipment were purchased for the medical personnel at the Nork republican hospital for infectious diseases.
The COVID-19 pandemic has struck a heavy blow upon the education system, as well. Unfortunately, the lack of equity in the education system, which the Foundation has been reporting over the last five years, became even more obvious during the crisis. Reiterating our commitment to safeguarding the right of access to education, and with a view to helping to ensure the continuity of education for children left out of the distance learning scheme, the Foundation supports the video-recording and broadcasting throughout Armenia’s regions of daily classes of mathematics and the Armenian language.
Faced with the emergency, the Foundation remains concentrated on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Foundation and a number of civil society organizations have voiced strong concern over the amendments made by the National Assembly to the Law on the Legal Regime of the State of Emergency, which create disproportionate restrictions that undermine the exercise of rights related to personal data protection, respect for private and family life, the freedom of communication, and confidentiality.
Together with our partners, the Foundation continues to follow the developments in the country in order to safeguard that the steps taken by the Government to combat the pandemic do not permit a retreat from the principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
Particular attention will focus on closed and semi-closed institutions, women who have lost their jobs, victims of domestic violence, and representatives of socially-vulnerable groups in terms of not only their assistance needs, but also safeguards of their rights.