15 A UN FRAMEWORK FOR THE IMMEDIATE SOCIO-ECONOMIC RESPONSE TO COVID-19
Secure sustained learning for all children, and
adolescents, preferably in schools: About 90
percent of the total number of school children in
the world have been directly affected by school
closures, with an estimated 370 million school
children missing out on school meals. The UNDS
will work with national education authorities
and private sector education service providers
to support preschools and schools that can
safely remain open, while assisting governments
to scale up digital and other forms of remote
learning. Several UNDS agencies are working
with multiple partners to scale up innovative
approaches to continue learning at all levels
during the crisis, via parenting programmes, tv,
radio, various digital platforms and other deliv-
ery mechanisms. Furthermore, support will be
provided to allow for a safe and quick return of
children to schools. This includes re-instating
school meals, for the estimated 370 million
school children missing out on school meals and
some UN entities are currently providing school
and technical assistance to 70 governments.
Others offer back to school packages, which
include cash transfers and other interventions to
incentivize and support the return of vulnerable
children, particularly girls, as schools reopen.
Furthermore, given the critical role of education
professionals in ensuring learning, the UNDS will
support teachers through professional training
programmes on alternative learning methods.
Support the continuity of social services and
access to shelters. The UNDS will work with
national and local social services to ensure con-
women, and families at risk of violence, abuse,
worry and acute stressors coupled with dimin-
ished availability of social workers and case
programmes that support prevention as well as a
-
riencing violence are available in school or health
settings, in alternative care settings, in child justice
-
itarian situations, as well as in camps and densely
populated urban areas where social distancing
and other preventive measures are not possible.
Support victims of Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
The UNDS will support national authorities, civil
society and women´s organizations in ensuring
that basic essential services are maintained, such
programmes and services for survivors of GBV,
and that new methods are rolled out as part of
the response. Quarantine and isolation policies,
-
violence. It is estimated that this could affect at
least one third of all women.
5
Care and support
to GBV survivors may be disrupted when health
service providers are overburdened.
6
Against this
background, the joint UN Package on Essential
Services to end GBV will be implemented, which
is being adapted to respond to the needs at the
and justice services. The UNDS will support dis-
tribution of information how to prevent GBV or
referral systems improved and hotlines and other
options will provide remote support. In this con-
Against Women and Girls has already started to
intensify its support to these and other measures.
Adoption of a do-no-harm approach and GBV
risk analysis will be mainstreamed into all pre-
paredness and response activities to COVID-19,
5 Analytics show a potential 30% increase in domestic violence, repeating a pattern familiar from Ebola and other crises.
6 For instance, NGO assistance of GBV victims in Jinzhou received three times more reports of domestic violence in February 2020 compared
to the same month last year, while at the same time shelters for GBV survivors in some villages were repurposed for other needs during the
Violence Cases Surge During COVID-19 Epidemic
(available at https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1005253/domestic-violence-cases-surge-during-covid19-epidemic)