How do crises and economic downturns impact women?
"One of the most immediate impacts that is very visible is increase in gender-based violence (GBV)... Every six months, the baseline number of women being impacted by GBV in their households is up 30 million due to the pandemic. Every six months, there’s an estimated 7 million unintended pregnancies as a result of lack of access to sexual and reproductive health right services, and around 47 million will lose access to contraception." –Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
"During crisis and downturns pre-existing constraints are exacerbated. We need to factor gender right from the beginning of crises and downturns." –Sonia Maria Dias, Specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO)
“There is a massive data gap in this area. We surveyed very recently and only 9 of OECD’s 37 member countries are regularly providing data about gender. Last year, the OECD identified three new gender-disaggregated indicators… That is, in my opinion, one of the things that the OECD has contributed to this global discussion.” –Rodolfo Lacy, Director of the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
"There’s still not a day that goes by where we don’t talk about gender equality in the context of climate and environment and don’t get some eye rolls or suggestions that we’re overburdening an already complex issue, and we have to be very strategic about our advocacy, our work and our policy-creation in how we deal with that." –Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
“There is not specific data available about the role of men and women... When there is no data, it is very difficult to have political action. We need make our politicians accountable by making sure we can quantify the action, and also measure the impact.” –Christine Lins, Executive Director of the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET)
How does gender equality and women's empowerment support sustainability and resilience?
"There’s more than enough evidence out there on why investments in women and girls health care and education are actually central to creating resilient societies resilient to climate impacts and being able to promote sustainable development." –Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
How can we promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the COVID recovery? What could happen if we fail?
"What if we took the 1.7trillion we spend in global military budgets every year and reoriented towards investment in social protection? What if we really challenged the bail outs that are going to uphold the oil and gas industries, which we know are causing our climate crisis, and really took strong leadership about reorienting that towards supporting front-line workers... to revalue what those jobs are... we have long overdue unrecognised value in our essential workers." –Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
"It’s important to make the extra effort to expand the scope of SDG indicators that can be related, or are related to gender… So we need to expand the metrics of the SDGs." –Rodolfo Lacy, Director of the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
"We really need to think about integrating womens’ empowerment and gender equality in ways that can build the capacity of women with the necessary skills that they need to perform... If we don’t factor in protection and fair payment, sustainability and resilience are kind of a fiction." –Sonia Maria Dias, Specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO)
Recording
Speakers
Anita Bhatia, Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director at UN Women
Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
Sonia Maria Dias, Specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO)
Rodolfo Lacy, Director of the Environment Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Christine Lins, Executive Director of the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET)
Moderated by Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
