Engaging Youth and Civil Society Organisations in Pakistan for an Inclusive Covid-19 Recovery Response

Gender Concerns has been at the forefront of the fight for women and children impacted by Covid-19 since its launch of the #SheCaresCovid19 campaign in March 2020. In May, Gender Concerns expanded its campaign to tackle the impact of the coronavirus in Pakistan with the creation of a consortium with five partner organisations based across the country focusing on climate change, women’s rights and bodily autonomy, psycho-social support and counselling, youth inclusion and engagement, and the empowerment of young girls.

A powerful consortium of change-makers, the civil society organisations uniformly commit themselves to prepare diverse communities of people and their leadership for an engaged and inclusive Covid-19 response as part of the SheCaresCovid-19 action. An effective response requires the utilisation of international support to stimulate and bring CSOs together in addressing an ongoing injustice regarding political policy frameworks in crisis management and disaster response to Covid-19. An inclusive and effective response requires a combination of youth and women to come together to fight against their exclusion from participation in the development of the Covid-19 response plan.