Building Resilience of Women during COVID-19
Keeping pace with several impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladesh’s economy, the government has proposed a variety of relief packages for the affected groups—both local and export-oriented businesses and vulnerable groups. These packages are meant to boost public spending, expand social security net coverage and improve cash availability for the immediate, medium, and long term. In this context, the research study has examined the adequacy of stimulus packages and challenges in accessing the stimulus packages by women.
In view of this, the policy brief puts some timely and essential recommendations for strengthening government stimulus measures to stimulate women’s economic empowerment and recommended mechanisms for making these measures impactful, inclusive, transparent and accountable. Holistic human rights and gender-responsive policies have also been suggested to respond to the crisis, to promote the creation of a more just and egalitarian community that is more stable in the face of various forms of crisis, and to support progress towards the 2030 Agenda for SDGs.
The policy brief titled “Building Resilience of Women during COVID-19” is based on a research conducted by Dr Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Mr Syed Yusuf Saadat, Senior Research Associate, CPD, as part of the “Rapid assessment of the gender and human rights dimensions of proposed socio-economic recovery measures by the Government of Bangladesh, including stimulus measures” project supported by the UN Women.
Authors: Fahmida Khatun and Syed Yusuf Saadat
Publication period: September 2021