The Covid-19 crisis is different from previous crises and has hit women and gender minority communities hardest. The studies included in this Research for Policy and Practice Report supported by the Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) Programme of IDRC provide solid evidence about these impacts and the ways ahead.
The study by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) provides evidence about informal women workers, be they domestic workers, home-based workers, waste pickers or street vendors, indicating that recovery from the deleterious economic shock is far from complete. The research project REBUILD, from International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) Asia, gives insights to the experiences of domestic workers and street vendors in New Delhi. Finally, the African School of Economics (ASE) study focuses on the effect of Covid-19 containment policies in Benin, Burkina Faso and South Africa, revealing significant differences between the three countries, in particular on their effects on gender-based violence.
Based on these diagnostics, all three studies demand gender-responsive policies which focus on: protecting women informal workers’ livelihoods; countering food insecurity; providing access to long term social protection, and providing informal workers organisations’ the avenues for representation in key decision- making and rule-setting processes.
This Research for Policy and Practice Report is available in English and French.
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