Responding to the gender impacts of COVID-19 – including lost economic opportunities when taking on more domestic and care work in the health sector and at home, and increased violence – requires more tailored policies and resources that support gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also means including women in leadership and decision-making in all aspects of the recovery.
This paper provides recommendations to better align official development assistance (ODA) allocations to sectoral responses that address gender inequalities, and strengthen partner government systems for the disbursement of COVID-19 relief and recovery funds. It analyses ODA trends from 2017-2018 in four areas that are critical for gender-responsive COVID-19 recovery: social infrastructure, employment and economic growth, social services and governance.
The paper also considers how public finance management (PFM) systems should be strengthened by donors and partner countries to address the gender impacts of recovery policies. This includes expanded use of ex-ante gender impact assessments, gender budget tagging, gender budget statements and gender budget audits.