Women’s Sector at Risk of Financial Devastation – Implications for Canada’s COVID-19 Recovery

Against the backdrop of decades of systematic defunding of the women’s rights sector and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on women and women’s organizations, YWCA Canada, the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), the Canadian Women’s Foundation, G(irls)20 and Oxfam Canada conducted an online survey to assess the state of the women’s rights sector in Canada and the impacts the pandemic has had on these organizations to operate their vital services in Canada.

The purpose of the online survey was to collect concrete data and firsthand accounts from fellow women’s organizations to inform our collective advocacy efforts and to propose women’s sector specific solutions. The online survey findings confirmed anecdotal evidence showing that the pandemic has had a major impact on women’s rights organizations across the country. This Briefing Note reports that women’s organizations have incurred additional costs and expenditures, have been forced to reduce and even cancel their programming and have had challenges in adapting their programming to virtual delivery, as well as being unable to access emergency funding.