Blog by Linda Witong, SI Advocacy Advisor.

Upon attending the first virtual United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) event with thousands of other participants in both New York and Geneva, the message was clear. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic had rocked our world on its axis, it would not hold us back as this “would not be a century of planning but a century of action”.

People of all ages and walks of life told the audience that this pandemic offered the opportunity for greater international cooperation and global solidarity that would be inclusive, courageous and effective in order to put the world back on the right track. The closer we worked together, with everyone having a part to play, the more likely we would be to succeed in ‘building back better’ post-COVID-19 and transforming  the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into reality.  The pandemic would also offer us a pivotal opportunity to change our societies and cement women’s leadership as we recover from it. In addition, it was also clear that, as the young persons who attended the meetings had seen the climate crisis and a host of other burdens  “dropped into their laps,” they deserved more than to be at the table, they deserved to take part in the design and implementation of the table. After all, it was their future that we were addressing.

But it was agreed that the challenges that we faced even prior to COVID-19 were complex and numerous. While some progress had been made prior to the pandemic, it had not been shared equally. Women and girls remained challenged by limited implementation, pushback and erosion of gains. No viable solution appeared to be on the horizon prior to the pandemic either as economic inequality had not moved for the past 20 years and 740 million women had still been stuck in the informal economy, earning low pay, with little or no security. In addition while education was seen as critical to achieving the SDG’s and enabling women or girls to eliminate poverty in their lives, there still were a half a billion women across the world who were illiterate prior to the pandemic. As such, it had looked like these women would still be unable to change their circumstances or have equal access to the new future in employment; digital technology.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also acknowledged that women’s equal participation and leadership in political, public or private business was pivotal to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Yet, despite women’s increased engagement and representation at different levels, the world was still ‘far away’ from achieving gender equality in public life prior to the pandemic.

However, upon the entrance of the COVID-19 pandemic the world stopped as it was in humanity’s interest to do so. Within a year, numerous lives were lost, numerous inequities were spotlighted and decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and women’s rights were reversed. For example, women and girls experienced an unprecedented level of gender-based violence around the world due in part to women and children being effectively confined with their abusers while resources and support services were redirected. The pandemic also imposed its havoc on physical and mental health, education and labour force participation. Approximately two-thirds of the jobs which were lost as a result of the pandemic belonged to women working in the informal sector. As a result they were thrown into financial insecurity, without regular income or effective social safety nets while facing the worst economic depression since World War 2, as well as employment opportunities that have been described as being akin to the “ice age”. 1.6 billion children, many of them being girls, were also unable to attend a school or receive the services schools provided ranging from food to social or health services. In many cases, it was left to the women and girls to also assume the burden of additional unpaid work making it even more challenging to find employment or return to school when and if that was an option for a girl.

One speaker, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, who was the first female Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization outlined several other challenges courtesy of the pandemic. The first challenge involved collecting data to accurately measure both mortality and the incidence of COVID-19 as well as ensure new ways of collecting, using and sharing relevant and timely data in order to enable local, contextualised decision-making. When testing the effects of vaccines, she also expressed the desire to ensure that children and pregnant women were included in such testing so we could also be assured that we had vaccines which were safe for them as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic also continued to exacerbate challenges when it came to a woman’s right to take part in decision-making and equal participation in society. Data revealed that women were still underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide, and achieving gender parity in political life still appeared to be an elusive dream. E.g. while there had been some progress, women served as Heads of State or Government in only 22 countries, only 10 countries had a woman Head of State, only 13 countries had a woman Head of Government [3], only 21 per cent of government ministers were women and only 14 countries had achieved 50 per cent or more women in cabinets [4].There were also 27 States in which women accounted for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, including four single/lower chambers with no women at all [11] Finally, 119 countries had never even had a woman leader [1] and at the rate that we were going, gender equality in the highest positions of power would not be reached for another 130 years [2] while  gender parity in national legislative bodies would not be achieved before 2063 [12].

The irony was that while the latest data revealed that there was seldom gender parity in decision-making on COVID-19 task teams and response efforts globally, in several countries where women hold leadership positions, the response to the pandemic had been described as being particularly effective. It appeared that when more women were in decision-making positions, more inclusive decisions were made, diverse voices were heard, and different solutions were created. Building back better from COVID-19 obviously needed women at the centre, leading, making decisions that serve the planet, addressing inequalities, and achieving equal power-sharing.

However, there were indications that this goal might be not be achieved even if women were able to become leaders, as many of them as well as their families were subject to hate speech, hate mail, threats in person or online as well as assaults or even murder. This did not happen as often to men. These actions discouraged many women from  pursuing or remaining in a political office. Our speakers were adamant that States must  ensure that women are protected from being targeted and brutalised in this  manner by making it a crime.

Seeing that the scale and pace of change has not been what it should be, 900 million girls in the world also became impatient for action that would improve their lives as they do not want to go through the experiences of their elders and the elders were, quite frankly, tired of waiting. The Gender Equality Forum has been created to begin a global public conversation for urgent action and accountability for gender equality and to achieve transformative change soon as we are running out of time. While we may be living through a gender crisis at this time, we are being presented with the opportunity for gender equality advocates from every sector of society – governments, civil society, private sector, entrepreneurs, trade unions, artists, academia and social influencers – to drive urgent action and accountability in order to build back better, achieve the goal of gender equality and meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda.

Visit the SI NGO/CSW Exhibit Booth to connect with us.