Applying a Gender Lens to COVID-19 Response and Recovery
As the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to challenge progress around the world, it is clear that if we want to deliver health, wellbeing, and dignity for all, we need a strong gender lens on response and recovery. That’s why Women Deliver, together with our partners, has been working with leaders and mobilizers across the globe — from the Secretary General of the United Nations and the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, to Young Leaders, women’s organizations, and the boards of international corporations — to outline key actions that civil society, governments, the private sector, and multilateral organizations should take to address the gendered dimensions of the pandemic.
Women Deliver’s recommendations lay out a roadmap to follow to build the world we want post-pandemic. And what we want is a more gender-equal world, because we know that a gender-equal world is healthier, wealthier, more prosperous, and more peaceful.
Women Deliver’s Ten Recommendations to Build Back a Stronger, More Gender-Equal World
Evidence shows that disease outbreak affects women and men differently, that pandemics exacerbate inequalities for girls and women, who are also often the hardest hit, and that women play an outsize role responding to crises, including as frontline healthcare and social workers, caregivers at home, and as mobilizers in their communities.
That’s why the world must put a gender lens on the response to COVID-19, to ensure the unique needs of girls and women are addressed, and their unique expertise is leveraged. This includes positioning girls, women, young people, and underrepresented populations front and center in the emergency responses, in social and economic recovery efforts, in the equitable distribution of vaccines, and in how we strengthen our health systems for the long term. And we must safeguard the progress we’ve made towards gender equality, including hard won gains for maternal, sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Women Deliver recommends the following actions be included as part of COVID-19 response and recovery efforts to build a stronger, more gender-equal world:
1. Apply best practices and a gender lens to all COVID-19 related efforts.
All policies, programs, and investments, including stimulus and recovery packages, and vaccine distribution plans must be designed with a gender lens, so they don’t overlook or have unintended consequences for girls, women, and gender equality. This approach should include proven best practices such as gender-responsive analysis, budgeting, and auditing processes and a gender marker for tracking.
2. Leverage sex- and age-disaggregated data to inform and shape policies and investments.
Available data indicate that women make up slightly more than half of confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally. Still, the data we have about the gendered-impacts of the pandemic remain incomplete or missing in many countries. To fully understand how the pandemic is impacting women and men differently, decision-makers and stakeholders need more sex- and age-disaggregated data. This data must be collected, analyzed, and used to inform all policies and investments, and must be available quickly and widely to analyze the impact of interventions and drive informed, timely decisions. This information must include those who may often be excluded from national data collection efforts, such as refugees, internally displaced people, migrant workers, and people with non-binary gender identities.
3. Meaningfully engage women and young people through partnerships, funding, and leadership positions.
Women, young people, and underrepresented populations must be meaningfully and authentically engaged in decision-making about their own lives and the communities where they live and work. For an inclusive and representative response and recovery, women-focused and youth-led organizations must be funded and included in partnerships, and all COVID-19 decision-making bodies must embrace diverse and inclusive leadership.
4. Protect and support those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response — the overwhelming majority of whom are women.
Women are 70% of the health workforce and are leading on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Front line responders such as health workers and social service providers must be guaranteed protection, support, and fair compensation. This includes safe working conditions, appropriate equipment, equal and emergency/hazard pay, safe housing, and access to services that reflect their needs as individuals, such as mental health services and childcare.
5. Safeguard maternal, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), the bedrock of gender equality.
In past pandemics and crises, emergency response has resulted in de-prioritizing and de-funding essential health and social services for girls and women — directly threatening their health and rights. As the world continues to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, funding and access to SRHR, including modern contraception, safe abortion, maternal health services and safe childbirth, as well as telemedicine, must be prioritized. In settings impacted by both COVID-19 and humanitarian crisis, this includes implementing lifesaving activities that uphold SRHR at the outset of all emergencies.
6. Prioritize gender equality in health systems strengthening.
We must rebuild our health systems to ensure they meet the needs and realities of all, including in times of crisis. This includes prioritizing and funding Primary Health Care and Universal Health Coverage grounded in gender equality and human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights. Decision makers must examine gender-based differences in health expenditures, disease detection and response, emergency preparedness, research and development, vaccine access and allocation, and the health workforce. And health systems must be strengthened to extend to girls and women living in humanitarian settings and to meet the needs of young people.
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