COVID Guide ▸ Thematic funding spotlight – Women and Girls

COVID Guide – Women and Girls

Lockdown procedures around the world have led to an increased focus on the issue of domestic violence. However, according to the OECD the economic and social consequences will exacerbate existing inequalities and discrimination against women and girls, especially among the most marginalised and vulnerable.

The European Women’s Lobby further notes that the situation is particularly worrying for women and girls made vulnerable by the crisis including sole carers, those in unsafe accommodation, those in precarious work or economic uncertainty, those requiring care or those who already face social exclusion.

In turn, this had led to increased calls for collaborative intelligence gathering to determine on-the-ground needs, as well as increased funding to enable organisations to adapt their service delivery to support vulnerable women and girls.

Fondation CHANEL has convened other key European donors in an Alliance for Women in Europe. The aim is to bring a structured response to the COVID-19 emergency as well as building capacity for long term support for women’s organisations in Europe. The initiative includes:

A pooled fund offering flexible operational grants that provides a single point of access to donors and organisations;
A dialogue and advocacy platform to share research and best practices, where experienced and new donors can convene with experts in their country and field of expertise through referrals.

Please contact the team for a follow up call:
Marion Schaefer, Head of European Programs (marion.schaefer@chanel.com)
Magali Nougarède, Executive Assistant (magali.nougarede@chanel.com)

Meanwhile, in the UK Rosa, the fund for women and girls, has conducted a women’s sector survey in partnership with the Women’s Resource Centre, Smallwood Trust and Women’s Fund for Scotland, which had over 318 respondents.

Here are some of the top line findings from the survey:

Over 50% wanted to see a national campaign for protection of the sector.
Over 42% worked with BAME women.
66% are worried on some level about surviving this crisis.
Over 50% said there was lack of time/capacity in finding suitable funds, and 40% said they had little capacity to write bids to reach emergency funds.
Organisations are asking funders to give them as much flexibility as possible. 74% said they needed projects and programme proposals to be adaptable, and 55% said they needed to divert funds to core funding.

Read more about the survey here…

Internationally, the picture is different. According to new data from the International Rescue Committee, reports of abuse have decreased by 50% in Bangladesh and 30% in Tanzania as a result of restrictions on mobility, lack of information, and increased isolation. Once restrictions are lifted, UN Women expects a significant increase in the demand for services for those who have suffered gender based violence through the lockdown periods.

Among other activities, organisations have been supporting telephone support lines and looking for safe ways to maintain data on gender based violence throughout the crisis.

Read more about this story here…

The COVID-19 crisis has worsened persistent forms of gender inequalities and increased discrimination against women, particularly through increased cases of violence against women and disruptions to accessing essential sexual and reproductive health services.

On 16th July 2020, End FGM European Network, the European Women’s Lobby, IPPF-European Network and Women against Violence Europe, members of the European Coalition to end violence against women and girls, delivered an open letter to President of the European Council, Charles Michel, Head of Presidency of the Council, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and EU Heads of State, regarding the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MMF) 2021-2027 and the EU’s recovery plans.

“We are calling for their urgent commitment to ensure increased and adequate EU funds to gender equality and the fight to end violence against women and girls.”

The week prior, the European Commission reversed the decision to cut the Justice, Rights and Values Fund by 20%. This group are now urging the European Council to echo these commitments to gender equality and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls.

Their letter included recommendations for the European Council:

Increasing funds to advancing gender equality and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, which has been made worse during the COVID-19 crisis.
Increase investments to the European Institute of Gender Equality to sustain their work on advancing these objectives.
Apply gender mainstreaming and a gender budgeting lens across all funding areas of the EU’s recovery plans and MFF.

Read the full letter here…

In the UK, greater funding for the vital service for women and girls is essential. Drive, a partnership between Respect, SafeLives, and Social Finance, is one of a range of programmes across the UK that work with high harm, high risk and serial perpetrators. The programme involves intensive case management, working closely with victim services, the police, probation, children’s social services and housing, substance misuse and mental health teams.

Evaluation of Drive by the University of Bristol this year found convincing evidence of its benefits: physical abuse was cut by 82% and sexual abuse by 88% and there was a sustained reduction in perpetrators assessed as posing a risk of murder or serious harm.

Drive actively advocates that programmes with perpetrators should not imply a loss of focus on supporting survivors. UK chancellor Rishi Sunak in March announced £10m for new approaches like Drive, but more is needed.

Internationally, the safety and security of women and girls is particularly at risk. The Lancet has issued findings from around the world on how COVID-19 is effecting women and girls including:

UNFPA predicts there could be up to 7 million unintended pregnancies worldwide because of the crisis, with potentially thousands of deaths from unsafe abortion and complicated births due to inadequate access to emergency care.
Marie Stopes International (MSI), which works in 37 countries, predicts that the closure of their services would result in up to 9·5 million vulnerable women and girls losing access to contraception and safe abortion services in 2020. That disruption could result in as many as 2·7 million unsafe abortions and 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths.
In Colombia, reports of gender-based violence during lockdown increased by 175% compared with the same period last year, according to Plan International.

Campaigners are also fearful of the threat to girl’s education in the developing world. More than 350 million girls and young women lives have been upended by school closures to stem the spread of Covid-19. Whilst the full extent of the impact on education is unknown, previous crises demonstrate that they amplify existing inequalities and that girls’ education will disproportionately suffer as a result and it is estimated that ten million children may never set foot in a classroom again in the developing world.

Read the full Lancet article here…

Research & Insights

COVID Guide – Women and Girls

Update - 13th August 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has worsened persistent forms of gender inequalities and increased discrimination against women, particularly through increased cases of violence against women and disruptions to accessing essential sexual and reproductive health services.