AFRICA HUMAN CAPITAL PROJECT April 2022 Assessing the Damage Early Evidence on Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis on Girls and Women in Africa At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was global concern about the negative indirect impacts the crisis would have on girls and women and their human capital. Two years into the crisis, this brief summarizes the evidence to date on how the prediction of a shadow crisis has played out in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)1.The brief is intended as a call to action for policymakers, since available research sets off multiple alarm bells. It also proposes urgent policy responses. What we know is only the tip of the iceberg Evidence to date confirms that the COVID-19 crisis has had profound negative impacts on the education, health, employment and empowerment of girls and women including in SSA. Available data is still limited, but what is known to date suggests that we are seeing the tip of an iceberg. Many impacts will have long term repercussions for girls’ and women’s human capital. Decision makers are at a pivotal moment to invest now in women and girls, to neutralize immediate but also prolonged costs to individuals, societies and economies. Africa Human Capital Project 1 HOW HAS THE COVID-19 CRISIS DAMAGED GIRLS’ AND WOMEN’S HUMAN CAPITAL? TRADITIONAL GENDER NORMS The pandemic and the shocks it presented to economic, social and GENDER-BASED health systems have affected both VIOLENCE girls and women and boys and men. GIRLS’ AND CHILD MARRIAGE Still, the crisis has exacerbated WOMEN’S AGENCY existing inequities, hitting women DROP-OUTS and girls disproportionally hard MATERNAL HEALTH across four dimensions of gender LEARNING LOSSES equality (“4Es”): SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION JOBS ENHANCED HEALTH EARNINGS AND PROFITS EMPLOYMENT EMPOWERMENT Africa Human Capital Project 2 1. DISRUPTED EDUCATION How are girls and women impacted? When schools close, girls are exposed to distinct risks that add to their longstanding disadvantages in terms of access to education and learning outcomes. These include learning losses2, with uneven access to digital technologies by gender making it harder for girls to attend distance learning. Girls out of school are also vulnerable to child marriage and early pregnancy, making it more likely that they permanently disrupt their education. These risks further increase when girls engage in transactional sex or marry early to cope with the economic shock inflicted by the crisis. How much do we know to date about COVID-impacts on girls’ education? WHAT CAN WE DO? • A study of 193 countries found that women To reverse learning losses, and to prevent girls and girls were 1·21 times more likely to report from permanently dropping out of school, we dropping out of school compared with men need to invest in remedial learning, enable and boys.3 pregnant girls and young mothers to continue school, make education systems more inclusive • In rural Kenya, researchers observed a tripled and resilient to crisis also using technology, risk of dropout among secondary school aged and set-up education opportunities outside girls, rising from 3.2 percent in pre-pandemic the formal school system for early school years to 9.4 percent. The risk of getting leavers. We also need to strengthen national pregnant prior to completing secondary data collection systems to be able to better school also doubled, and adolescent girls measure the full impact of the COVID-crisis were more likely to report undesired sexual on girls’ education. encounters.4 • In Nigeria, in the northwest of the country where child marriage is more prevalent, adolescent girls’ enrollment was found to be much more affected than that of boys. 5 • In Malawi, marriage and pregnancy were cited as the main reasons for girls to drop out, whereas boys did not re-enroll because of Women financial constraints.6 and girls are • A study covering 46 countries across the globe revealed that one in five girls felt they had too 1.21x more many chores to learn, double the proportion likely to drop out of school of boys.7 compared with men and • In West and Central Africa, 60% of girls were boys across 193 countries* lacking learning materials when school closed compared to 44% of boys.8 *Based on estimates from countries across the globe During the Ebola crisis, school enrollment of girls ages 12-17 dropped from 50% to 34% in Sierra Leone, and primary school dropouts of girls tripled in Liberia.9 Africa Human Capital Project 3 2. IMPACTED HEALTH SERVICES How are girls and women impacted? Overwhelmed health systems, confinement measures, and fear of getting infected make it harder to access health services. The challenge can be particularly great for girls and women, who have unique health needs and face specific challenges in accessing health services.10 11 How much do we know to date about COVID-impacts on girls’ and women’s WHAT CAN WE DO? access to health services? While a lot of the damage done to girls’ and • In a series of SSA countries, women sought less women’s health is irreversible, the crisis has antenatal and postnatal care.12 exposed structural weaknesses of health systems that can be remedied. We can build • In Malawi, around 6 percent of households reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and with women of childbearing age that needed adolescent health care that is more resilient to antenatal or postnatal care were not able to crises. This requires planning and budgeting access it, largely due to the unavailability of for a continuation of essential health services, medical personnel.13 strengthening of and innovation in frontline • Institutional deliveries dropped below pre- service delivery, and supporting demand for pandemic levels in 6 out of 10 SSA countries, sexual and reproductive health and other with declines ranging from by 2% in DRC to 5% essential health services. in Liberia, and between 7-11% in Nigeria and Mali.14 • Women in slums in Kenya and Nigeria faced increased challenges to access sexual and reproductive health services.15 Between 2019 and 2020, • Estimates from countries across the globe maternal deaths increased conclude that the first year of the COVID-crisis ~2x in Kenya, 1.28x in Botswana, resulted on average in increases in maternal and 1.18x in Mozambique deaths by 37 percent, stillbirth by 28 percent, and a six-fold increase in ruptured ectopic pregnancies.16 • Between 2019 and 2020, an almost doubling of maternal deaths was observed in Kenya, and a multiplication by 1.28 in Botswana and by 1.18 in Mozambique.17 In 6 out of 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, institutional deliveries dropped below pre-pandemic levels Africa Human Capital Project 4 3. LOST EMPLOYMENT How are girls and women impacted? Many women in SSA work in less-paying and less- secure jobs than men, making them more vulnerable to both earnings’ and job losses in case of economic shocks. When women take on an increased caregiving role during a health emergency, their ability to work outside the household is also reduced. How much do we know to date about COVID-impacts on girls’ and women’s WHAT CAN WE DO? employment? A first line of defense against the impact of • High-Frequency Phone Surveys data for 40 shocks on women’s employment and earnings mostly developing countries find that women are expanded social safety nets, targeted at were substantially more likely than men to vulnerable households including those headed stop working between April and June 2020 by women. We also need to build women’s (on average, 36% vs. 28 %).18 The difference economic resilience and opportunities by was distinct in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, supporting their ownership and control over Malawi, Uganda and Zambia.19 assets and productive inputs, increasing their education and skills for jobs, improving their • Rapid Gender Assessment data also reveal access to information, and reducing their that in Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, domestic work burden. Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, eSwatini and South Africa, more women than men reported losing their jobs during the COVID-19 epidemic, with a greater impact on both women and men in Eastern in Southern Africa compared to in West and Central Africa.20 • In all the forementioned countries, except for in Ethiopia, women experienced a significantly higher increase in domestic work than men.21 More women than men reported • In Nigeria, employment among women losing their jobs and an increase aged 21-55 was found to have dropped by 9 percentage points, compared to a drop of 6 in domestic work in Mali, Senegal, percentage points among men.22 Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, • In Ethiopia, the COVID-19 pandemic has Eswatini and South Africa further widened the gender gap in business earnings.23 • Ghana24 and Nigeria25 registered higher shares of closures of women-led businesses. During the Ebola epidemic, both the health crisis and preventive measures resulted in reduced economic activity and earnings and increased poverty rates among women. While men›s economic activity returned to pre-crisis levels soon after the preventive measures ended, the impact on women›s economic security and livelihoods lasted much longer.26 Africa Human Capital Project 5 4. DIS-EMPOWERMENT How are girls and women impacted? During public health emergencies, girls and women tend to experience higher risks of Gender Based Violence (GBV), including child marriage. This can be due to economic stress, quarantines and social isolation, or reduced access to services. GBV affects women’s health, education, employment and overall human potential. How much do we know to date about COVID-impacts on girls’ and women’s WHAT CAN WE DO? empowerment? A first priority is to expand and enhance • Survey data shows that 68% of respondents GBV prevention and response services, and in Ethiopia, 70% in South Africa and 81% in supporting access to these services. Addressing Uganda thought that GBV had increased since the issue at its roots also requires addressing the onset of the pandemic.27 harmful social norms and strengthening laws and policies and their implementation. • A study in Kenya found that the pandemic caused women to perceive an increased risk of GBV violence both inside and outside the ETHIOPIA home by 45% and 24% respectively.28 • In Ethiopia, a 2020 survey of married or cohabitating women found that as much as 22% 68% of them had experienced some form of intimate partner violence during the lockdown.29 • In Zimbabwe, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Liberia, the Central African Republic and Mali, health and police records registered an increase in reports of domestic violence cases and other UGANDA forms of violence against women.30, 31, 32, 33 Survey data shows that a majority SOUTH of respondents thought that AFRICA 81% GBV had increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 70% During past epidemics, including in SSA, risks of GBV increased, with the most common forms being intimate partner violence and sexual exploitation and abuse.34 In Sierra Leone, for example, the spread of Ebola was accompanied by a surge in violence against women and girls, prostitution, child marriage and teenage pregnancies.35 Africa Human Capital Project 6 References 1. A Comprehensive overview of evidence to date on impacts of the COVID-19 crisis 17. In contrast, Burundi, Malawi, Madagascar and Zambia reported fewer maternal on women and girls globally, on which this note draws, can be found in: De Paz Nieves, deaths compared to the same period in 2019, which could be due to under-reporting. Carmen; Gaddis, Isis; Muller, Miriam. 2021. Gender and COVID-19: What Have World Health Organisation – UNFPA – UNICEF Interagency Tool for Monitoring We Learnt, One Year Later?. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 9709. World Continuity of Essential SRMNCAH Services in East and Southern Africa (2020)). Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ 18. Kugler, M., Viollaz, M., Duque, D., Gaddis, I., Newhouse, D. L., Palacios-Lopez, handle/10986/35829 A., & Weber, M. (2021). How Did the COVID-19 Crisis Affect Different Types of 2. 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The Lancet Global teachertaskforce.org/knowledge-hub/overview-emerging-country-level-response-providing- Health, 9(6), e759-e772. educational-continuity-under-covid Africa Human Capital Project 7 AFRICA HUMAN CAPITAL PROJECT Africa Human Capital Project 8