Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

Research has shown that disasters impact men and women differently. While COVID-19 has been shown to disproportionately affect men physically, women are more likely to be adversely impacted by disasters generally, and more likely to be failed by recovery efforts that do not meet their needs. Consider how to develop gender-inclusive disaster recovery that considers impacts of COVID-19:

• Tackle the drivers of gender inequalities in areas such as access to healthcare and economic recovery e.g. impacts of COVID-19 on low paid precarious work, health risks to care workers
• Include multi-stakeholder processes that ensure women's rights organisations are included in designing national response and recovery measures - this should also include groups representing vulnerable or marginalised women
• Assess bid for new funding using an additional criteria of impact on gender responsiveness
• Increase funding and capacity development for local and national women's groups; including for action against gender-based violence which saw a global increase during the pandemic
• Strengthen COVID-19/disaster responses to address women's leadership roles, not only their vulnerability to the virus
• Examine the availability of gender-responsive health services and vital sexual and reproductive health needs at local level
• Consider communications designed for women, to reach women. Women and girls may be less likely to receive and contribute to accurate COVID-19 information due to patriarchal norms/structures
• Include the voices and rights of trans women in response and recovery so they are equally involved in determining needs