This project aims to advance economic and social equality for women and girls in Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The initiative supports these four Eastern Caribbean countries to address the most pressing challenges to gender equality exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, including in the areas of women’s economic empowerment, including paid and unpaid care work, gender-responsive social protection and sexual and reproductive health and rights. It works with governments, communities, the private sector and regional bodies to develop and implement critical legislation, frameworks, and systems. The project seeks to increase access to skills training and social and sexual and reproductive health services for women, girls and marginalized and vulnerable groups. Project activities include: (1) providing technical assistance to governments to develop and implement legislation, frameworks, and policies on paid and unpaid care work. This includes budgeting for paid and unpaid care work, and data collection and analysis on unpaid care work through Labour Force Surveys and subsidized childcare cost; (2) providing business skills training, including financial management and digital marketing, for women-owned micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises. This includes in the care, tourism, and agricultural sectors, and unemployed and underemployed women; (3) providing technical assistance to governments to implement public assistance programs for women with children up to five years old, including priority access to childcare and sexual and reproductive health services; (4) providing technical assistance to governments and training for service providers on integrating social protection services into and digitizing sexual and gender-based violence referral pathways; and (5) providing technical assistance to governments on legislative and policy reform where the law bars or hinders access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and technical assistance to governments and service providers to make sexual and reproductive health services more responsive to the needs of young women and adolescents girls.
