Gender responsive crisis management guideline

The COVID-19 pandemic affected all sectors of economy and provoked long-term changes in how the entire world population lives and does business. To address the challenges caused by the pandemic and to adapt to the new reality, private sector companies had to
react in agile and decisive ways. At the same time, The COVID-19 pandemic reminded that a crisis can occur at any time. Moving forward, it appeared crucial for businesses to identify new opportunities, and to consider lessons learned from the pandemic in order to prioritize actions to enhance business today and build strategic resilience for potential next crises. Moreover, Covid-19 exacerbated existing gender inequalities, as women disproportionately experienced negative impact of the pandemic, thus, managing crisis in a gender-responsive way turned out to be an absolute necessity.

The objective of the gender-responsive crisis management guidebook is to develop practical and functional guidelines for private sector to
address crisis in a gender responsive way. It is highly likely that future crises, whether it is another pandemic, natural disaster, mass
migration, security or technology issue, will have their unique impact on gender equality. Therefore, the lessons learned from the
Covid-19 pandemic should allow businesses and corporations to prepare better for next crises by adapting the learnings to the potential
challenges. The present guideline is precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessity of managing its effects in a gender-responsive way within the private sector, however crisis management tools designed in the guideline are intended to be informative for all future crises, especially for any future pandemics and/or health crises.

Approaches proposed in the guidebook are based on Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) which aim to help businesses develop
and share best practices for empowering women and promoting gender equality within the company, marketplace and community.