COVID-19 has been declared a public health emergency of international concern and a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. This global threat to health security underscores the urgent need to accelerate progress on achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, particularly Target 3.D, which calls for improving early warning systems for global health risks, as well as reduction and management of such risks.1 The pandemic highlights the need to massively scale up international cooperation to deliver on SDG 3. It also reveals what is less obvious, but no less urgent: how health emergencies such as COVID-19, and the response to them, can exacerbate gender inequality and derail hard-won progress not only on SDG 3 but on all of the SDGs. To date, more men than women have died from COVID-19. The lack of data on testing and infection rates by sex, however, leaves many questions unanswered, including on risks and exposure among different groups of women and men, particularly those from marginalized communities. As more disaggregated data become available and testing expands, it is important to revisit the gendered effects of COVID-19, including by analyzing sex-disaggregated statistics on fatalities. In tandem, the gendered economic and social impacts of the pandemic also need attention as they are already predicted to bring more and broader harm to women and girls, exposing and reinforcing entrenched gender norms and inequalities.2 This impact will continue for generations, and if unchecked it could reverse gains in gender equality and poverty alleviation in many countries.
