Publications

This brief highlights the challenges and opportunities for effective risk messaging. Special emphasis is placed on reaching and helping to protect vulnerable communities and deploying tactics to counter misinformation and disinformation which threaten the public health responses and increase societal tensions.

The objective of this report is to assess the situational landscape during mid-May 2020 surrounding the value chain of the production and distribution of generic antiretroviral medicines in low- and-middle-income countries and to provide recommendations on mitigating the risks of potential disruptions.

The Global status report on preventing violence against children 2020 charts countries’ progress towards the SDGs aimed at ending violence against children. Jointly published by WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Violence against Children, and the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, it collates inputs from over 1000 decision-makers in 155 countries who assessed their violence prevention status against the evidence-based approaches set out in INSPIRE: Seven strategies for ending violence against children. The report shows that while many of the participating countries are taking some action, government officials from these same countries acknowledge that their efforts are clearly insufficient to achieve the SDG targets. The report concludes with recommendations for boosting INSPIRE implementation efforts and accelerating national progress.

Several countries affected by COVID-19, have seen increases in levels of violence occurring in the home, including violence against children, intimate partner violence and violence against older people. Countries also face increasing challenges in maintaining support and care for survivors of violence. This brief compiles key actions that the health sector can undertake within a multisectoral response to prevent or mitigate interpersonal violence based on existing WHO guidance.

This brief explores the multi-dimensional impact on women migrant workers, highlighting that COVID-19 is not only a health crisis but also a crisis with detrimental effects on freedom from violence and harassment, employment, income, social protection, access to services, and access to justice.

The civil society organizations participating in the Gender Monitoring Network facilitated by UN Women Bangladesh, are concerned by how the COVID 19 pandemic is disproportionally affecting women and girls. Inspired by feminist and human rights principles, the Gender Monitoring Network calls on Policy Makers to recognize women human rights and integrate an intersectional gender equality approach in the COVID 19 Response to ensure everyone has access to necessary information and supports and resources. The Call for Action represents the voices of women and other vulnerable groups who are most affected by the pandemic.

The Philippines is among the worst affected countries in the South East Asian region in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic – it has experienced the highest number of new confirmed cases per day, second highest number of deaths, and third highest rate of infection. This second Gender Snapshot from UN Women Philippines highlights the situation of women and girls during the COVID-19 pandemic in the period of April to June 2020. 

COVID-19 is not only a health issue, just as HIV never was. It impacts on a wide range of human rights, and although it affects all people, it does so unequally. Women and girls in all their diversity are experiencing the greatest impact of the crisis. COVID-19 has highlighted the stark inequalities across societies, with a lack of pandemic preparedness and fragile or non-functioning institutions posing graver impacts.

This Mapping Report highlights recent steps taken at a regional level to improve trans people’s access to comprehensive health care, including gender-affirming health services. It also outlines the purpose of the From Bridges to Barriers conference and how this report would be used in health and policy discussions.

This operational guidance for South and South-East Asia and Pacific regions has been prepared to help countries prepare a continuity plan for maintaining good quality and equitable sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services during the COVID-19 pandemic.