Publications

This rapid assessment examines how the impacts of COVID-19 are threatening women’s ability to access justice. The assessment reflects challenges faced by women and girls of diverse backgrounds and socio-economic groups, including those experiencing overlapping disadvantages—for example, women on the front lines—and those facing amplified challenges in humanitarian settings. Cross-regional and local experiences are highlighted, and quantitative data is utilized where available. Past epidemics are informative—and sobering—in terms of risks for women and offer lessons about how to prevent and mitigate these risks.

Sex workers and people who use drugs are subject to widespread violations of their human rights, which, for the most part, go unchallenged. Globally, these groups are subjected to repressive and discriminatory laws, policies and practices. These policies and practices fuel stigma, discrimination, widespread violence, and significantly increase the risks and vulnerabilities of both populations to sexually transmitted infections and blood borne viruses, notably HIV and hepatitis B and C. In settings that have detrimental and punitive drug and sex work laws and policies, sex workers who use drugs experience interconnected layers of risk and vulnerability, caused by the compounded effects of criminalisation, stigma, and discrimination.

Pandemics and outbreaks have differential impacts on women and men. From risk of exposure and biological susceptibility to infection to the social and economic implications, individuals’ experiences are likely to vary according to their biological and gender characteristics and their interaction with other social determinants. Because of this, global and national strategic plans for COVID-19 preparedness and response must be grounded in strong gender analysis and must ensure meaningful participation of affected groups, including women and girls, in decision-making and implementation.

The World Health Statistics 2020 summarizes recent trends in life expectancy and reports on progress towards the main health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. It also assesses the current availability of those data, and describes how WHO is supporting countries to improve health information systems and global health security. The 2020 edition also includes four indicators (relating to poliomyelitis, hypertension and obesity in adults and school age children) from the Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019−2023 (GPW13).

A side event was held at the 2019 conference for the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in October 2019 to consider the effective use of global health resources. The meeting underscored the potential public health impact of expanding viral hepatitis elimination programming through strategic integration, including integration with existing efforts to eliminate AIDS and TB. Conclusions outlined in this report call for the integration of the viral hepatitis response within programmes funded by the Global Fund and other funding agencies under a broader logic of UHC, as well as the establishment of catalytic funding for setting up and implementing national hepatitis plans.

The updated regional analysis presents evidence in the areas of unpaid care work, needs of women healthcare workers, gender-based violence, exploitation of women, girls, and at-risk groups, access to livelihoods, impact on women migrant workers, access to healthcare, exclusion from leadership roles, marginalization of women’s groups and networks, access to information, compounding impacts of secondary disasters, and equal access to shelter and to safe quarantine facilities. It presents recommendations for action to humanitarian leadership, to donors, and to governments for a more gender-responsive approach to COVID-19 response in the region.

Women and girls’ immediate and long-term needs must be addressed and integrated into Timor-Leste’s COVID-19 response, in order to ensure both women’s access to services and human rights, and to enable women to contribute to shaping the response. Based on lessons learned from previous outbreaks, this brief outlines gender issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and response in Timor-Leste, and puts forward key questions to be considered by COVID-19 decision makers in Timor-Leste. 

This guidance note is meant to assist humanitarian actors, youth-led organizations, and young people themselves across sectors, working at local, country, regional, and global levels in their response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. It begins diagnostically, exploring the impacts of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on young people. It then proposes a series of actions that practitioners and young people can take to ensure that COVID-19 preparedness, response plans and actions, are youth-inclusive and youth-focused – with and for young people.

This guide provides practical guidance on how to design, implement and monitor programmes aimed at removing human rights-barriers to HIV services. It will help implementers of such programmes to:

• Cost, monitor and evaluate programmes
• Effectively combine and implement them
• Use a comprehensive approach
• Achieve the right level of investment
• Increase meaningful local capacity
• Improve community engagement
• Strengthen health and community systems
• Ensure sustainability

Funded by GIZ BACKUP Health, the guide was developed with the help of governments, donors and civil-society organisations, and in close collaboration with The Global Fund.

We are facing a global health crisis: health systems are being tested, as shortages of both staff and resources place intense pressure on services. As the world struggles to get COVID-19 under control, our global health workforce is under increasing strain – and woman-centred, midwifery-led care is more at risk than ever. This publication provides clear actions to ensure the continuation of midwife-led care, and the protection of maternal health and rights.