COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker
The COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker monitors policy measures enacted by governments worldwide to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, and highlights responses that have integrated a gender lens. It includes national measures that are directly addressing women’s economic and social security, including unpaid care work, the labour market and violence against women. The tracker is coordinated by UNDP with substantive leadership and technical contributions from UN Women. It is co-created by both entities and based on publicly available information, including media coverage, official documents, and other COVID-19 policy trackers. In some cases, information on measures was provided by UNDP and UN Women country offices. It can provide guidance for policymakers and evidence for advocates to ensure a gender-sensitive COVID-19 policy response.
Learn about the methodology here
Find out more about global and regional highlights from the Tracker in these factsheets
Rewatch the launch of the tracker in Arabic, English, French or Spanish
Watch this video to find out how to use the main functions of the Tracker.
Questions and Answers
What is the definition of gender-sensitive measures?
For the purpose of the tracker, gender-sensitive measures are defined as those that seek to directly address gendered risks and challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis. In the current version of the tracker, these risks include: (i) violence against women and girls, (ii) women’s economic security, and (iii) unpaid care work.
- Measures to tackle violence against women are gender-sensitive by default.
- Gender-sensitive measures that support women’s economic security include: (a) social protection measures that target women or prioritize them as the main recipients of benefits; (b) labour market measures aimed at improving women’s access to paid work and trainings; and (c) fiscal and economic measures that channel support to femaledominated sectors of the economy.
- Gender-sensitive measures that address unpaid care include: (a) social protection measures that support women and men with care responsibilities or improve services for populations with care needs; and (b) labour market measures that help female and male workers with care responsibilities to cope with the rising demand for unpaid care.
Further details are available in the methodological note here.
I don’t see gender-sensitive measures for my country. How can I find them?
If gender-sensitive measures for your country are missing in the tracker, it means that the tracker hasn’t identified such measures based on publicly available information. If you have this information, you are welcome to send it to covid.gender.helpdesk@undp.org.
Does the tracker provide information on initiatives conducted by UN agencies, civil society and other organizations?
The tracker focuses on policy measures that are taken by governments and doesn’t aim to cover initiatives implemented by other stakeholders including UN agencies and non-governmental organizations. Nonetheless, measures that have been supported by the UN or other organizations are included in the tracker as long as they have been led by governments.
Does the tracker distinguish between measures which are entirely new and have been adopted since the pandemic emerged and those which were previously in place but have been scaled up in response to COVID-19?
The tracker focuses on measures that have been taken in response to COVID-19. These include new measures (such as cash for care) and those which have been adapted or scaled up in the COVID-19 context (such as expansion of social protection coverage, waiving of cash transfer conditionalities, or adaptation of existing services for survivors of gender-based violence to continue functioning during the pandemic).
How can the data provided in the tracker contribute to more gender-sensitive response and recovery?
The tracker identifies clear policy gaps in the global response to COVID-19, showing the disproportionate policy response to women’s economic security and unpaid care work. This suggests that countries need to take firm action in social protection, labour market and fiscal and economic policies to fulfil women’s needs and rights. The tracker also offers a wealth of good practices and country examples of what has been done to address gender-differentiated risks of COVID-19. This provides an evidence base on what countries can do to build forward better prioritizing gender equality in their response and recovery efforts.
Do you have data on gender-sensitive measures for countries in fragile and conflict-affected settings?
The tracker classifies countries based on fragility status and includes relevant data where available. You can find disaggregated information on policy measures in countries in fragile and conflict-affected settings under regional analysis on the second page of the tracker.
Is there any information on measures to support women in urban vs. rural areas and related occupations?
While the tracker doesn’t explicitly disaggregate data by urban and rural locations, you can identify gender-sensitive measures undertaken by countries at municipal and rural levels through a relevant key word search in policy details on the fourth page of the tracker.
Is the data age-disaggregated?
The tracker doesn’t disaggregate data by age (partly due to the limited availability of such data in policy responses to COVID-19), but the tracker includes different measures that target women at different stages of the life cycle, including young girls and older women. They can be found in policy details on the fourth page of the tracker.
Are there markers that are tracking sexual and gender-based violence and other forms of violence and economic deprivation of LGBTIQ people?
While the tracker focuses on measures to prevent violence against women and girls, it does include measures that also target LGBTIQ populations. This is noted in the policy details of each measure and is an aspect that can be assessed systematically in future iterations of the tracker.
National and local governments continue to change their policies due to the pandemic. How do you ensure that the tracker captures this information?
The tracker a living database with more measures to be added, updated and validated across existing and new policy categories.
Does the tracker look into funding allocated to gender-sensitive plans and policies?
We plan to include and analyze gender-responsive budgeting in the following phases of the tracker development.
What other policy measures are you planning to include, and when?
We plan to expand the tracker and include more policy dimensions, including green economy, digitalization, women’s participation/leadership, and gender-responsive budgeting. Updates are expected to be conducted quarterly. Please check the tracker page for further details.
For more information or feedback to improve the Tracker, please contact:
covid.gender.helpdesk@undp.org.