Executive Board Informal Session on UN-Women’s work for women and girls with disabilities in the joint response to COVID-19 crisis

In light of the unprecedented global crisis that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, UN Women provided an informal briefing to the Executive Board on its gender and disability inclusive response to the crisis. The briefing was co-organized by the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN and co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the UN.

The informal session was chaired by the President of UN Women’s Executive Board, H.E. Mr. Jukka Salovaara and opened by Ms. Anita Bhatia, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women. The session featured speakers from across the UN System and well as civil society to talk about UN Women’s collaborative response to the COVID-19 crisis. Monjurul Kabir, UN Women and Ola Abu Alghaib, UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities made a joint presentation on a global response, and joint programme on disability inclusion funded by the UNPRPD to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, this joint programme is being coordinated by UN Women. The presentation also highlighted UN-Women’s special stream of work on disability inclusion in Women, Peace, and Security (WPS & Humanitarian) Contexts. Leyla Sharafi, UNFPA and Amanda McRae, Women Enabled International spoke about the joint checklist on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and Gender-Based Violence for UNCTs they are developing in collaboration with UN Women. Lastly, Niluka Gunawendra representing HYPE Sri Lanka gave the participants an overview of the situation of women with disabilities in South Asia. The presentations were followed by a lively question and answer session, where Member States, including Australia and a representative on behalf of the European Union made statements.

More information about the session, including presentations and remarks, can be found here.