The COVID-19 pandemic has created universal impacts on mental health.  Anxiety, depression, and other conditions have worsened as financial instability, isolation, gender-based violence, and other factors generated by this crisis have contributed to poor mental health – especially for youth, LGBTQ+ populations, and pregnant/postpartum women. Yet despite the global attention focused on mental health, overall conditions have only worsened in vulnerable communities.

Care work makes all other work possible. It is also the fastest-growing sector of work in the world—projected to add 150 million jobs by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the importance of care work. It has also exposed how women perform most caregiving work, which is unpaid, underpaid, and/or undervalued. Globally, women and girls contribute more than 70 percent of total global caregiving hours (paid and unpaid) and perform more than 75 percent of unpaid care work. The inordinate amount of unpaid care work women and girls perform prevents them from earning a paid income, which contributes to greater gender inequities worldwide.

In recent years, Mexican women have experienced a significant downgrade in the quality and accessibility of public healthcare – and not due to the COVID-19 pandemic – said Irene Tello, Executive Director of Mexican impunity watchdog Impunidad Cero, at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. The expert panel agreed that the greatest barriers for Mexican women seeking medical attention lie in the current government’s nearsighted health policies and mismanagement of the public health sector.

“When women can decide on the timing and spacing of their births, are treated with respect, and offered quality of care across the life course—they are not only able to survive, they, their families, and their communities are able to thrive and flourish. By directly and indirectly contributing to women’s empowerment, midwives are contributing to strengthen economic and productive and equitable societies,” said Dr. Julitta Onabanjo, Director of the Technical Division at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), New York, at a recent event hosted by UNFPA as part of the 66^th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Midwives and midwifery experts convened to discuss the important role that midwives play in the improvement of gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, and climate justice.

“I want this war to be over. I want all of us to rebuild our societies. We are a force that can do that, and we will do that; we are doing it. But I think we also need to see the bigger picture, that women in the world, and now in our region, are not protected from violence – any form of violence,” said Marina Pisklakova-Parker, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Every Woman Treaty, during a recent Wilson Center event on Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian women’s voices in the anti-war movement. 

When Kira Rudik, Ukrainian Member of Parliament and Leader of the Holos/Voice Party spoke with the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative and Middle East Program on the one month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she emphasized the transformative nature of the conflict for every citizen.

“Putin thought he would be fighting our army,” says Rudik. “Instead, he’s fighting every single man and woman in Ukraine, and there’s a huge difference.”

We need to ensure that diversity is shaping and influencing global health decision-making and this is what we mean when we call for gender transformative leaders, said Dr. Roopa Dhatt, Executive Director of Women in Global Health, at an International Women’s Day event hosted by Women in Global Health to launch the first-ever book on women’s leadership in global health. “We’re calling for diverse leadership with intersectionality looking at transforming power and really making sure we’re going to the root drivers of inequities and driving systems change,” said Dr. Dhatt. Some 28 authors and 11 interviewees from 17 countries across 6 regions came together to write this rallying call to redress gender inequity in health leadership. Women and Global Health Leadership: Power and Transformation explores barriers and facilitators to women’s global health leadership; showcases the personal, professional, and political journeys of women leaders across global health sectors including government, academia, and civil society; and offers pragmatic solutions to increasing women’s representation at all levels of leadership, said Dr. Rosemary Morgan, Associate Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.