Early evidence suggests that the global pandemic has had an outsized negative impact on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. Before COVID-19 hit, women’s labor force participation, access to finance, quality employment, pay, and advancement were all already unequal to men’s, and the pandemic and global recession are predicted to exacerbate these gaps. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that two-thirds of 103 countries surveyed cited initial disruptions to family planning and contraception services. And while over 200 countries and territories have put in place social protection policies to help communities recover from the pandemic, the extent to which these policies are reaching and benefiting women and girls is still unclear.

While the COVID-19 pandemic itself has been disastrous for global health and the global economy, this moment of rebuilding presents a major opportunity for policymakers across the globe to make gender equality core to building back better and to improve the opportunities of women and girls worldwide.

This global research initiative will examine COVID-19 recovery policies in three areas to determine the best ways to address long-standing gender inequality:

• Health policy: The initiative will examine how COVID-19 and its response measures are indirectly impacting women’s and girls’ health, including access to sexual and reproductive health services and other essential medical care, in order to develop possible solutions to mitigate adverse effects in ongoing and future epidemics.

• Social protection policy: The initiative will examine the design of social protection policies already enacted during the pandemic and provide recommendations to ensure that future social protection programs reach and benefit women and girls.

• Economic development policy: The initiative will examine data on the impact of the COVID-19 global recession on women’s work in low- and middle-income countries, including entrepreneurship, wage and salaried work, work in subsistence agriculture, and unpaid care work, and make recommendations to design policies to promote women’s economic opportunities and empowerment.