After Covid-19: New manifesto proposes five post-neoliberal policy strategies for moving forward

Headline in Dutch national newspaper Trouw

How can we come out of the Corona crisis as a more sustainable, equal and diverse society? On Saturday 11 April a group of Dutch environment and development academics released a manifesto calling for post-neoliberal development planning in the post-Covid-19 future, including five key policy strategies necessary to move forward.

The manifesto, which was published in Dutch national newspaper Trouw and signed by 170 academics based at five Dutch universities, calls on the Dutch Government to implement five key policy strategies for moving forward during and after the Covid-19 crisis:

  • a move away from 'development' focused on aggregate GDP growth
  • an economic framework focused on redistribution
  • agricultural transformation towards regenerative agriculture
  • reduction of consumption and travel
  • debt cancellation

Dr. Giuseppe Feola (Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development), who was among the proponents of this Manifesto, stresses that the manifesto brings to the forefront the link between economic development, the loss of biodiversity and important ecosystem functions, and the opportunity for diseases like COVID-19 to spread among humans. “It proposes policies that, as research tells us, are critical for a more sustainable, equal and diverse society - one that can better prevent and deal with shocks, including climate change related ones, and pandemics to come,” he explains.