Beyond COVID-19: A feminist plan for sustainability and social justice

As the world learns to live with COVID-19, to emerge from the current crisis, and to “build back better”, UN Women’s new “Feminist plan” provides a visionary but practical roadmap for putting gender equality, social justice, and sustainability at the centre of the recovery and transformation.

COVID-19 has revealed and worsened inequalities and is a reminder of just how unsustainable and fragile the world’s economies and democracies are. The crisis also provides a warning about what is rapidly coming down the track on climate change and environmental degradation. This has created both a need and an opening to rethink economic and social policies and re-evaluate what needs to be prioritized.

The “Feminist plan” maps the ambitious and transformative policies—on livelihoods, care, and the environment—that are needed to build a more equal and sustainable future. To get there, it calls for context-specific policy pathways, tailored political strategies, and financing. The plan identifies key levers that can create change and the actors at global, national, and local levels that need to take action to move towards this vision.

Additional documents

Data – Lessons from COVID-19:

Recommendations – Key levers to:

Video

Background research

Compiling the “Feminist plan” has been year-long process, in which more than 100 experts from the United Nations, civil society, and research institutes were convened to discuss the key challenges posed by the pandemic to gender equality, and concrete proposals on how to overcome them. As well as the final plan, this process has produced a series of other resources for policy makers and activists.

“Feminist ideas for a post-COVID world” think pieces:

Articles:

Expert group meeting reports: