A time to rise: Women’s leadership for global justice
Strategy update 2020-23
Right now, we are living amidst the largest ever global humanitarian crisis. ActionAid is responding in over 40 countries globally to the ‘three waves of crisis’ unleashed by COVID19 as a public health pandemic, economic shock and widespread hunger converge to take a deadly toll worldwide.
The gender impacts are stark with an alarming spike in violence against women worldwide and an estimated one billion1 women in low paid and precarious employment left jobless and destitute. Women are also bearing the brunt of this pandemic as the majority of frontline workers and unpaid carers looking after children when schools close and the sick when hospitals are at the brink. Refugees, the majority of whom are women and children, are among the most excluded.
While no country or segment of society is immune, COVID-19 has exposed inequalities within and among countries in access to health care and economic security, and glaring gender disparities in all societies. The prevailing development model is clearly broken and is failing much of the world’s population. It’s time for a radically new approach.
Right now, we have a moment of societal upheaval that opens a window to disrupt and transform government policies and investment towards a more just, equitable and sustainable world for all. This is the moment for women to collectively rise up against injustices that have limited women’s opportunities, exploited their labour and kept many women trapped in poverty and exclusion. It’s time for