Author: Tara Padmore

Content Editors: Tonni Brodber, Debbie Budlender, Sharon Carter-Burke, Isiuwa Iyahen and Asha Kambon

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a tremendous threat to global health, poverty reduction gains and advances made towards gender equality. Globally, by April 13, 2021, 136,115,434 confirmed cases, and 2,936,916 deaths [1] had scarred nations. The 35 countries/territories in the Caribbean region alone had suffered 630,239 confirmed cases and 8,571 deaths, as of April 6, 2021[2]. Still, this pandemic has had impacts far beyond public health. The crippling economic and social fallouts of the pandemic threaten to derail hard-earn gains towards the sustainable development goals.The report highlights the differential and varied impacts of the pandemic on women and men, uncovers their coping mechanisms, and provides a gendered analysis of governments’ response efforts. It finds that, while everyone has suffered, COVID-19 has forced women into greater social, economic, and physical insecurity than men.

[1] Cases reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO COVID-19 Dashboard as of April 13, 2021, 5:56AM AST - https://covid19.who.int

[2] CARPHA COVID-19 Tracker Dashboard as of February 18, 2021 11:47 - https://carpha.org/Portals/0/Images/Dashboard-TrackingCOVID19-CARPHA.jpg