Attachments
Executive Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has not had an equal impact on women and men. Through our data we are seeing a significant increase for women in caregiving duties, household chores and gender-based violence, as well as a devastating and worsening impact on livelihood for everyone. Despite this, small glimmers of hope are seen where women from VSLAs are increasingly taking on leadership roles within their communities and men are beginning to engage more in household chores.
The Women (in VSLAs) Respond data includes the voices of 4,185 Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) members (3,266 women and girls) in Burundi, Ethiopia, Mali Nigeria, Niger, and Uganda. This initiative sought to assess how VSLA members, both as individuals and groups, are affected by the pandemic and how they responded and adapted to cope with the crisis. The data specifically looks at the impact on individuals and their needs, as well as how groups have been affected, and how they have adapted.
Individual Impact
The data shows that the pandemic impact has progressively worsened for all VSLA members, especially around livelihoods. Far from being over, the consequences of this pandemic continue to wreak havoc amongst members and their communities.
The number one individual priority impact area has consistently been livelihood throughout the data collection period (35% in the first data collection and 43% in the fourth) and has steadily increased as the pandemic unfolded. Other top impact areas are food security, education, access to healthcare (including mental health) and water, sanitation & hygiene.
Respondents are reporting job losses, limited job opportunities and reduced business activities, all as a result of the pandemic. Those who are engaged in farming reported losing much of their revenue as people are not able to purchase food items as before the pandemic. Respondents also reported that lockdowns affected farming operations and livelihoods due to their inability to source fertilizers and transport farm produce.
While in some countries, VSLA members were able to continue their individual savings, in most countries challenges around livelihood, combined with increasing market prices, had a lasting effect on their ability to save. Acknowledging country-specific variations, the global average shows that 35% of respondents are still managing to save the same amount as before the pandemic, however 45% reported that they experienced lower personal savings since the pandemic.
The level of available assistance is falling short and VSLA members are resorting to various coping mechanisms to survive the pandemic, including selling assets, borrowing from extended family and neighbors, food rationing and relying on in-kind or cash assistance.
In our qualitative interviews in all six countries, women say they are more stressed about their finances and their children’s education, compared to pre-pandemic.
Despite the multifaceted challenges VSLA members are coping with, when we compare global level data between women who are in VSLAs to women who are not, we see greater resilience among women in VSLAs