Women4Mediterranean Conference 2020 – Report

COVID-19 has immersed us into a new era, bringing to the fore alarming vulnerabilities and inequalities. The consequences and effects of this pandemic will be extremely far-reaching and will surely unfold for years ahead, particu-larly in the Euro-Mediterranean region, where conditions of fragility are further concentrated. Across our region, the virus poses the highest risks to the most vulnerable, especially to those who were already living on the economic and social margins. Emerging data confirms that the impacts of crises are never gender neutral, and COVID-19 is no exception. Women and girls are particularly affected by the resulting economic and social fallouts of predicaments. Women are losing their livelihoods faster because they are more exposed to hard-hit economic sectors. According to a new anal-ysis commissioned by UN Women and UNDP, around 435 million women and girls will be living on less than $1.90 a day by 2021 — including 47 million pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19.

November 2020