Coronavirus: Hasina's efforts lauded in Forbes article

Forbes, an American business magazine, featured eight women global leaders, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who deserve to be recognised: for their efforts in dealing with COVID-19 challenges to reshape the future.

Bangladesh, a country of some 161 million people, led by Sheikh Hasina, is no stranger to crises, the magazine wrote.

She was quick off her feet standing up to this one, with a response the World Economic Forum called “admirable”.

Sheikh Hasina, the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister, started evacuating Bangladeshi citizens from China in early February.

After the first case was diagnosed in early March, she closed educational institutions and nudged all non-essential businesses to go online.

Then she harnessed tech, installing screening devices across international airports which screened some 650,000 people (of which 37,000 were immediately quarantined), something the UK still is not doing, the article reads.

Both Singapore under President Halima Yacob and Hong Kong, China, under Chief Executive Carrie Lam, have been globally admired for their early and highly effective lead in getting ahead of the crisis, it said.

Now Singapore is scrambling with a second-wave whiplash, while Lam has done better at nipping resurgence in the bud.

Different cultures and issues in every country mean responses will never be a one-size fits all.

Women now govern 18 countries and 545 million people globally.

That is 7 percent of the world’s population (Exactly the same percentage, by the way, of women CEOs on the Fortune 500.)

From Bangladesh and Ethiopia, to Georgia and Singapore, women are emerging into political leadership across the globe. And this revelatory crisis is showing their talents.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, a global gender-balance consultancy, wrote the article.


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