Browse by Theme: Covid19

Microfinance organisations serve approximately 140 million low-income people around the world. And the vast majority of these are women (roughly 80%), who live in rural areas (roughly 65%) . At the end of March when the world was starting to wake up to the harsh social and economic realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant number of these institutions suddenly found themselves wondering if/how they were going to survive this global crisis.

“We know that when emergencies hit, women and girls come last,” says CARE’s Humanitarian Policy Director, Susannah Friedman. CARE has been thinking about how COVID is going to impact gender based violence since early March, when we released the first Gender Implications of COVID report in mid-March.

Cash support in times of crisis can keep markets functioning, keep money flowing to small businesses that desperately need it, and save lives and livelihoods at the same time – because it means people can get what they need, when they need it. As a woman in Bangladesh told us: “People are unable to go out for working. People are having difficulty getting their daily necessities. We are being told to wash hands frequently. We are having trouble buying necessary items as it is, how will we afford handwashing soaps? … In this case, cash support might be more helpful.”

In the midst of the global pandemic, there lies what the UN Secretary General described as the ‘invisible pandemic’ – gender-based violence – a pandemic that even before rates started to rise during COVID-19 affected an estimated 1 in 3 women globally.

The garment industry employs 60 million workers around the world, nearly 75% of whom are women. The International Labour Organization has estimated that nearly 25 million jobs could be lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and women working in garment supply chains are particularly vulnerable. During this period of crisis, CARE is calling on brands, governments, supplier factories, trade unions and civil society to take action to protect the rights of women working in the garment industry.

What do health workers in refugee camps see change when they get support? In Uganda they say, “It has helped a lot… people used to die so much in the communities but they were made aware of good health seeking behaviours which they adopted fast.” In Jordan, case workers say they’re getting more effective at their jobs: “The training made me make many changes to the way I work…”

All over the world recently there have been outpourings of support and appreciation for frontline health workers (FHWs) and their heroic efforts fighting COVID-19. Of course, doctors, nurses, midwives, and other health providers have been performing vital and life-saving services at great personal sacrifice even before this global pandemic, and we will continue to need them long after it is over.