Image: Margaret Sedziafa (left) and Ayo Ayoola-Amale, leaders from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Chapter in Ghana, distribute supplies in Tema, a suburb of Accra. Photo: Margaret Sedziafa
From the ‘shadow pandemic’ of gender-based violence to the burdens of balancing greater care responsibilities, the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are increasingly clear and well-documented. In many ways, the story of the last year illuminates the ways in which individual women and women-led organizations have, through their daily work, sustained families, communities, and societies at-large through crises. In Spring 2021, the Women, Peace and Security program hosted a virtual exchange, beginning in January, where participants exchanged stories from their work and shared specific challenges in light of the ongoing global pandemic. The exchange connects, for the first time, participants from across the WPS Program’s two Africa-based Peace and Social Change Fellowship cohorts, bringing together women’s organizations with a broad portfolio of peace and security work and spanning 10 countries across the continent: Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Read more about this exchange and the first meeting in January 2021 in our State of the Planet blog.