The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in at least 27 million cases and over 900,000 deaths worldwide according to the . Despite women’s enormous contributions to mitigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis is threatening to erase decades of progress for women and girls.
COVID-19 has exacerbated economic crises, care deficits and , with disproportionate impacts on women. Inequalities between groups of women based on race, disability, income, age and more have also been starkly apparent in both the spread and the impact of the virus.
How have governments around the world responded to these challenges?
What measures have they put in place to tackle the surge in violence against women, address the rise in unpaid care and strengthen women’s economic security?
To answer these questions, UN Women and UNDP have joined forces on the .
The tracker compiles and analyzes over 2,500 policy measures across 206 countries and territories. Key findings include:
- 164 countries have taken a total of 992 gender-sensitive measures in response to COVID-19
- Only 25 countries have a holistic response, with measures that span violence against women, women’s economic security and unpaid care.
- 20 per cent of countries analysed (42 countries) register no gender-sensitive measures in response to COVID-19 at all.
- Some 71 per cent of all gender-sensitive measures (704 measures across 135 countries) focus on preventing and/or responding to violence against women and girls.
- Meanwhile, the global social protection and jobs response has been largely gender-blind: out of a total of 1,310 measures analysed only 18 per cent are gender-sensitive in that they directly address women’s economic security or unpaid care.
Explore the Global COVID-19 Gender Response Tracker
The tracker will be regularly updated to contribute to the global evidence base on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and to highlight gender-sensitive policy options.
To provide information on national measures to be included in the UNDP-UN Women COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, please contact covid.gender.helpdesk@undp.org.
