The Banking Executive Magazine - March 2022 Issue

Care is the life-giving force that sus- tains health and well-being, binding together societies and ecologies. But everyday forms of care, though es- sential, are systematically underval- ued. Most care is provided by women, whose contributions are cel- ebrated on International Women’s Day, even though they should be marked every day of the year. The COVID-19 crisis has stretched our caring capabilities and high- lighted the fundamental but underap- preciated role that they play in our society. As we take stock of the pan- demic’s wreckage, we must use this moment to overhaul how we meas- ure value, and thus how we organise the global economy. The goal should be to create an economy that sup- ports the health and well-being of every person on the planet, as well as the health of the planet itself. We currently have the inverse: A system that values health only as a means to the end of economic growth. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) all-woman Council on the Economics of Health for All was es- tablished to lead this paradigm shift. We believe that this year’s Interna- tional Women’s Day is the perfect occasion for launching a radical revaluation of care and the economy. Even though the pandemic is still tak- ing lives and creating a political im- petus for transforming economic governance structures, the window of opportunity is closing. We are in grave danger of returning to the old siloed approach, whereby only “for- mal” economic sectors are said to create value. This old system is perversely be- holden to indicators like GDP, an in- discriminate measure of “progress” that ends up rewarding the destruc- tion of people and the planet. The the BANKING EXECUTIVE 28 ISSUE 159 MARCH 2022 ECONOMIC METRICS AND SUSTAINABLE POLICYMAKING