Here's how to achieve gender equality after the pandemic.

Our response to COVID-19 is fundamentally a question of who we are. When we say that ensuring the wellbeing of half the world's population matters, do we believe it? Or do we say it to be diplomatic?

Most indicators would suggest it's the latter, as we've spent decades admiring the problem of gender inequity with little to show for our efforts. Not one country in the entire world can say it has achieved equality among the genders. And between 2019 and 2020, we've added 55 extra years to the timeline for closing the gender gap in economic equality. We are now an estimated 257 years away from achieving economic gender equity.

If we truly believe that gender equity is the key to global success - and we should because the data overwhelmingly support this conclusion, then now is our time to step up and establish a new, more inclusive world order.

Gender budgeting is the ideal vehicle to drive such a change, and the G20 is the ideal institution to lead the endeavour.

The G20's moment to stand forward on gender budgeting

The expansive reach of COVID-19's economic damage requires a massive and coordinated response at the global level. Being that the G20 members represent nearly 80% of the world's economy, 75% of international trade, and 60% of the global population, we must support their efforts to mitigate the impact of this global pandemic.

Specifically, we must call on the G20 to initiate the ubiquitous application of gender budgeting - preparing budgets or analyzing them from a gender perspective - across response efforts. This is not only in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 5 - to achieve gender equality - it is also in line with the statement released by the Business 20 (B20), the Labour 20 (L20), which represents the interests of workers, and the Women 20, which urged the G20 to "use all available policy tools to minimize the economic and social damage from the pandemic, restore global growth, maintain market stability, and strengthen resilience".

Gender budgeting is among those available policy tools mentioned in the joint statement - and it is perhaps the sharpest tool of them all. Let's explore why.

Why gender budgeting now?

COVID-19 will impact the world of work in three key ways, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO):

1. The quantity of jobs available (unemployment and underemployment)

2. The quality of work (wages and access to social protections)

3. Outsized effects on the most vulnerable employees...