Recommendation 4

HM Government Acknowledged

The most vulnerable people—those already facing humanitarian emergencies, or those already marginalised, including women and girls—are facing severe indirect impacts of covid-19. Working with the World Bank, the IMF and other institutions, we are tracking the impact of the pandemic on living standards and poverty, to target our efforts for the greatest effect. FCDO publishes research it funds on the Research for Development webpage on GOV.UK. Partners funded by FCDO have been publishing rapid assessments of the impacts of covid-19, which have given rigorous evidence of how the pandemic is affecting already vulnerable groups by reinforcing inequalities and discrimination. For example, recent research on rural households in Kenya found declining employment opportunities, especially for young people, with one-third of agricultural small- and medium-sized enterprises surveyed saying they hired less labour due to covid-19. Findings also highlighted a worsening gender gap as the increase in unpaid care responsibilities and school closures have pushed women out of the productive economy, erasing decades of advancement in women’s economic empowerment. There are further implications for the ability of rural economies to effectively recover from the covid-19 crisis, risking eroding years of progress in improving access to finance, services, and markets for farmers. Drying revenue streams and capital markets have led to a cash crunch, negatively impacting the innovative business models that have fuelled progress in this area. FCDO is implementing a proportionate and strategic approach to monitoring, evaluating, and learning from our covid-19 response, with the primary aims of public accountability, learning to inform ongoing decisions and longer-term learning about how to respond effectively to emergencies. We are working with donors, multilaterals and other partners 6 Eighth Special Report of Session 2019–21 to support their own independent evaluations of relevant streams of work, as well as initiating our own evaluative activity, including programme evaluations, light-touch thematic and process evaluations and cross-cutting strategic evaluations. FCDO will continue to invest in collecting data which allows us to understand the differential impacts of the pandemic, enabling us to design and monitor responses which are relevant, inclusive and effective. FCDO has recognised, from the outset, the need for disaggregated data on the social and economic impact of the pandemic. A new FCDO programme, led by the Institute for Development Studies, supports a portfolio of rapid data collection and analysis activities to provide us with insights (both quantitative and qualitative) into how the pandemic is affecting poor and marginalised groups, including people with disabilities. In addition, FCDO supported the World Bank Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building, which is a multi-donor fund established to strengthen the capacity of statistical systems in developing countries. It aimed to improve the capacity of developing countries to produce and use statistics to support effective decision-making for development and has committed $1.2 million to support two areas—high-frequency phone surveys and use of alternative data sources—that address urgent covid-19 impacts. The projects are monitoring the direct and indirect impacts of covid-19, especially on poor and vulnerable populations in a timely and cost-effective manner. Regarding the impacts on women and specifically on violence against women, FCDO is supporting the UN women-led flagship programme on gender data, Making Every Woman and Girl Count and the joint UN Programme on Violence Against Women data. These programmes are working with developing country governments to improve the production, availability, accessibility and use of quality data and statistics on gender equality and violence against women and girls. The former is supporting rapid assessment surveys to understand the gendered impacts of covid-19 across a number of countries. FCDO has specific internal guidance on inclusive data in our covid-19 response and recovery, noting both the importance of disaggregating data and some of the methodological challenges for data collection presented by covid-19. This complements internal guidance on meaningful engagement with local NGOs and community workers working with vulnerable groups through our Beneficiary Engagement Smart Guide which provides key practical tips and considerations for quality beneficiary engagement. portfolio, we are also using the data and research discussed above to help target our programmes towards the local organisations and community workers that work with, or represent, groups being particularly impacted by covid-19. For example, from the data and research FCDO has funded, we know that the covid-19 pandemic is increasing domestic violence, maternal mortality and the burden of care on women. Local women’s rights organisations have been, and con