Your Highness Queen Maxima,
Ambassador Munir Akram,
Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
In times of crisis, the disadvantaged and marginalized segments of society suffer the most.
And this is due to two inter-linked reasons: 1) they are more exposed to the adverse impacts of shocks; 2) they lack the resources to withstand such impacts.
The current crisis caused by COVID-19 is no exception.
Women and girls are still among the most disadvantaged in our societies, despite remarkable progress in gender equality.
Many of the sectors hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic employ a high share of female workers. Workers in these sectors typically earn low wages and many are in informal employment (especially in low- and middle-income countries) with limited, if any, protection. They shoulder the brunt of the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19.
Among vulnerable workers, women are at even greater risk of falling into poverty and being left further behind. They already earn less than men for comparable work, with the global gender pay gap at 16%; that becomes as high as 35% in some countries.
Women and girls are also impacted by the pandemic as essential frontline workers, and at home as demand for care falls disproportionately on them. Indeed, women continue to bear more responsibility than men for unpaid care work—a burden that has increased during the Covid-19 crisis. As a result, they have less access to existing social protection programmes. They also have less time to engage in formal employment and in education.
As we prepare for a robust recovery from the pandemic to accelerate progress in the SDGs, we need to give particular emphasis to building resilience and leaving no one behind. The economic empowerment of women and girl is particularly important in this context.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Social protection is a powerful tool to reduce poverty, achieve gender equality and promote the social inclusion of all. The unprecedented expansion of social protection programmes over the last year and a half speaks to its importance in securing livelihoods to protect people, as it acts as an automatic stabilizer to shore up economies in times of crises.
While the social protection response to Covid-19 unfolded on a scale never previously seen, gaps in access and coverage, particularly among women, also became painfully clear.
UNDP and UNWomen “COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker.” (https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/) shows that only a fraction of social protection measures, introduced as a response to Covid-19, have addressed women’s economic security or unpaid care work. The crisis put a spotlight on the fragility of care arrangements, including the over-reliance on women’s unpaid and under-paid labour, and the weakness of care services, including health, childcare and long-term care.
Going forward, the world needs a stronger equity lens to the design and implementation of social protection systems. The expansion of social protection prompted by the Covid-19 crisis must not be short lived; instead, we must build on the successes we have achieved in social protection during these challenging times to achieve universal coverage. Universal social protection, including national social protection floors, must be in harmony to the needs of a diverse population, at every stage of the life-cycle. This means that even within social protection systems that provide universal coverage, measures tailored to the needs of women and girls at high risk of exclusion are needed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Gender equality is central to the realization of the 2030 Agenda. Women and girls are agents of change. The economic empowerment of women and girls, namely expanding opportunities for their participation in economic development, lays the foundation for advancing gender equality on many other fronts. In this regard, access to employment and decent jobs with adequate social protection is the practical point of entry for the inclusion and empowerment of women and girls, to leverage their contribution to society as a whole, for a fuller implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and to the benefit of everyone.
Thank you.