Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shrinking working hours, increased care burdens, and heightened violence have exacerbated the challenges that women and girls face. Unless action is taken, by 2021 around 435 million women and girls will be living in extreme poverty, including 47 million pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19. This publication presents the latest evidence on the multiple impacts of the pandemic on women and girls.

The objective of the Action Model is to ensure that UN Women, as an expert agency on gender equality and women's empowerment, offers appropriate programmatic options for the purpose of generating transformative changes for women and girls in the region, within the framework of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

In recent years, we have advanced progressively in the development of a conceptual and methodological basis for improving the processes of programme and project evaluation. This Guide has been elaborated with the intent of integrating gender equality, human rights and interculturality approaches into the UN Women evaluation cycle. It is a practical tool for those who undertake, manage and/or use evaluations.