The impacts of crises are never gender neutral, and the COVID-19 crisis is no exception. Beyond the public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an economic and social crisis. Rampant inequalities have once again been revealed and further exacerbated. The Beijing Platform for Action – the global blueprint for gender equality – and the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 1995 and 2015 respectively, continue to be relevant roadmaps for action. It is more crucial than ever to achieve them, starting by mitigating the gendered impacts of COVID-19.

Parliaments and their members are in a unique position to exercise political will and contribute gender-responsive action to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls and to drive a gender-responsive recovery post-pandemic.

The IPU, in collaboration with UN Women, will organize an Inter-parliamentary Dialogue on Gender-responsive recovery post-COVID-19 organized in the form of a series of three online meetings taking place once a week between 7 and 21 April 2021, on Interprefy, as follows:

• Women’s Economic Empowerment: 7 April, from 2 to 4 p.m. CET
• Violence against women and girls: 14 April, from 2 to 4 p.m. CET
• Gender-sensitive parliaments and gender-responsive legal reforms: 21 April, from 2 to 4 p.m. CET

Additional information and relevant documents will be available soon on this webpage.

These online meetings will have simultaneous interpretation in English, French, Spanish and Arabic