Assessing gender responsiveness of COVID-19 response plans for populations in conflict-affected humanitarian emergencies

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated rapid development of preparedness and response plans to quell transmission and prevent illness across the world. Increasingly, there is an appreciation of the need to consider equity issues in the development and implementation of these plans, not least with respect to gender, given the demonstrated differences in the impacts both of the disease and of control measures on men, women, and non-binary individuals. Humanitarian crises, and particularly those resulting from conflict or violence, exacerbate pre-existing gender inequality and discrimination. To this end, there is a particularly urgent need to assess the extent to which COVID-19 response plans, as developed for conflict-affected states and forcibly displaced populations, are gender responsive. Methods Using a multi-step selection process, we identified and analyzed 30 plans from states affected by conflict and those hosting forcibly displaced refugees and utilized an adapted version of the World Health Organization’s Gender Responsive Assessment Scale (WHO-GRAS) to determine whether existing COVID-19 response plans were gender-negative, gender-blind, gender-sensitive, or gender-transformative. Results We find that although few plans were gender-blind and none were gender-negative, no plans were gender-transformative. Most gender-sensitive plans only discuss issues specifically related to women (such as gender-based violence and reproductive health) rather than mainstream gender considerations throughout all sectors of policy planning. Conclusions Despite overwhelming evidence about the importance of intentionally embedding gender considerations into the COVID-19 planning and response, none of the plans reviewed in this study were classified as ‘gender transformative.’ We use these results to make specific recommendations for how infectious disease control efforts, for COVID-19 and beyond, can better integrate gender considerations in humanitarian settings, and particularly those affected by violence or conflict.

Evidence-Based Policy Making during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…Eleven (11) articles were assessed for eligibility, and each article was assessed for risk of bias. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Finally, 11 eligible articles were included in this systematic review. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] In order to discuss advances in policy making and EBPM in the early, middle, and late stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors analyzed these articles separately according to publication year as follows: 2020, 2021, and 2022 (Table 2).…”

“…23 Magnified gender-based disparities due to the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed. 24 The articles published in 2022 discussed the collection of large amounts of high-quality data and the development of methods to analyze them, as well as emerging issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Methodological and Ethical Implications of Using Remote Data Collection Tools to Measure Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender-Based Violence Outcomes among Women and Girls in Humanitarian and Fragile Settings: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Research

“…Humanitarian and fragile settings are often associated with periods of chronic stress, poverty, conflict, forced displacement, strained social support networks, as well as the loss of medical and public health infrastructure which erode the provision of SRH care and exacerbate GBV (Classen et al, 2005; Logie et al, 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased women and girls’ vulnerability to GBV and has led to disinvestment in lifesaving SRH services (Asi et al, 2022; Carter et al, 2020; Stark et al, 2020). This pattern of magnified GBV risk and reduced SRH service availability is particularly pronounced in humanitarian and fragile settings (Lokot & Avakyan, 2020; Tran et al, 2020).…”

“At the Root of COVID Grew a More Complicated Situation”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Guatemalan Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response System during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Numerous publications have underscored how the pandemic has contributed to substantially increased incidence and severity of GBV globally [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], mimicking patterns observed during previous infectious disease epidemics, such as Zika and Ebola [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. These increased experiences of violence can largely be attributed to existing gender-insensitive policymaking systems that do not address structural and environmental risk factors for violence [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The availability and accessibility of GBV services have also shifted during the pandemic: justice/legal support systems and emergency shelters for GBV survivors have been particularly impacted, limiting survivors’ access to critical safety services and increasing time between disclosure and support [ 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”