A 2022 UN Women and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) monitoring report has shown that 388 million women worldwide will be living in extreme poverty before the end of 2022.
The report also shows there are 19.7 million fewer paid jobs for women globally than before March 2020, compared to 10.2 million fewer jobs for men.
According to the report, dire setbacks in women’s economic opportunities will widen an already cavernous gender poverty gap.
The report indicated that countries must do more to recognize the value of domestic work carried out by women, developing better social protection for those with care responsibilities as the backbone of a more integrated and resilient economy.
“The tracker’s analysis of nearly 5,000 measures demonstrates that countries tend to work within their existing systems and structures when crises hit.
“This new report presents a great opportunity to make the case for improved, gender-sensitive social protection and to ensure the meaningful participation of women in identifying solutions to acute and chronic challenges that leave no one behind,” the report states.
women in leadership
The report further stated that countries with greater women’s leadership, universal social protection and care systems, and space for feminist organizations to participate in democratic decision-making are more effective in responding to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
It recommended that governments ensure that their economic recovery and emergency preparedness strategies are gender-sensitive, integrated and resilient. She stated that the overlapping impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts threaten gender equality and women’s rights.
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The international body said that countries with higher proportions of women in elected office, regardless of national income, adopted more policies and budgets that integrated gender considerations.
“Countries with strong democracies, powerful feminist movements or a high proportion of women in parliament adopted an average of five more gender-sensitive measures than countries without them,” UN Women said in a statement.
“Yet even in countries with unequal representation, women political leaders demanded that their voices be heard.”
The investigation
According to UN Women, UNDP-UN Women reviewed nearly 5,000 policies over a two-year period COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, the most comprehensive global repository of gender-responsive government responses to the pandemic.
The agency noted that the tool identifies how global decision-makers reacted to the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, which continue to fall disproportionately on women.
“In 196 of the 226 countries surveyed, at least one gender-sensitive measure was adopted, according to the new report released today, June 22, 2022, ‘Government Responses to COVID-19: Lessons on Gender Equality for a World in Crisis’ ‘, the indicated body.
including women
For her part, the Executive Director of UN Women, Sima Bahous, said that the world must take advantage of the many political innovations observed in each region during the pandemic and redouble efforts to ensure that women are included in decision-making in crises. .
He said that countries with stronger social protection systems and public services perform better on gender equality and have therefore been better able to weather the storms of recent years. But the world is still in crisis.
“This report shows that when women lead, everyone benefits from a more inclusive and effective crisis response and more resilient economies and societies, today and in the future,” said Ms. Bahous.
Also speaking, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said the report shows what governments can achieve in their crisis response when they prioritize gender equality.
Ms. Steiner said that the economic consequences of the pandemic for women around the world are compounded by the increased burden of unpaid work.
“Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, women around the world were doing more than three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. Now, rising inequity in time spent caring for children, the elderly, and other family members is forcing many women out of the paid workforce,” she said.