7 April 2020

2X Challenge and Gender Finance Collaborative response to the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting global health, economic and financial systems at remarkable speed. Emerging markets are expected to be especially hard hit by the pandemic and its aftermath, and development finance institutions (DFIs) are coming together to identify common solutions to help the private sector in these markets weather the crisis.

As DFI-led initiatives with expertise in gender lens investing, the 2X Challenge and the Gender Finance Collaborative (GFC) stress that the COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to disproportionately affect women and girls, and our response to it should take these differences into account. We are therefore calling for a gender-sensitive response to the crisis by investors, including our peer DFIs, by providing a set of practical recommendations to incorporate in to COVID-19 relief strategies.

Read the full response here