Covid-19: Overseas Development Assistance

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UK played an instrumental role in establishing the SDGs, and even before Covid-19, we knew that global progress was off track. I am particularly concerned with goal 4, on quality education, and goal 5, on gender equality. The SDGs have a key role in framing and shaping recovery, and the decade of action will be more crucial than ever. We will use the international opportunities we have to build our continued SDG leadership, and we will include in that the SDG summit at UNGA this September and our G7 presidency next year.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, women and girls are being disproportionately affected by the impact of Covid-19. Can the Minister please assure me that DfID will address the specific vulnerabilities that women and girls face in the light of the pandemic, and, looking ahead, that women and girls will remain a key focus for DfID?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank my noble friend for that question. She is of course right that during times of crisis, the rights of women and girls are often overlooked. In this time of crisis, when people are at their most vulnerable, women and girls need our support more than ever. We must learn the lessons of past epidemics and explicitly include the needs of women and girls as part of our humanitarian response, and in order to stop more lives being needlessly lost. We are therefore working with our international partners to act now, putting gender at the heart of our response. The impacts of coronavirus are not gender-blind, so nor should our response be.