5.1. GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN EMERGENCY PLANNING An important feature of many stand-alone national laws on equal rights and opportunities for women and men, or on equality more broadly, is the requirement of gender mainstreaming in government processes. Specifically, draft legal acts should be submitted to gender analysis or equality reviews to ensure compliance with the principle of equality. The OSCE Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality endorses the use of gender mainstreaming throughout the Organization’s own activities and policies, as well as those of participating States.70 Gender mainstreaming is also a recommended element of conflict prevention, and of conflict management and rehabilitation processes.71 The existence of a gender mainstreaming requirement suggests that emergency measures (many of which have been enacted by decree or specific laws) should have been assessed for any potential negative impacts on gender equality. It is not clear, however, whether national emergency powers permit gender mainstreaming processes to be bypassed in crisis situations. It was also not possible to determine whether any OSCE participating States have submitted draft laws enacting emergency measures to gender expertise but, given the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that this has not happened at the time participating States were introducing such measures. It is likely that this process was overlooked by participating States. It is possible, however, that national inquiries will be conducted after the fact and once the immediate crisis has eased.72 Additionally, neither the gendered impacts of the pandemic nor of the measures to contain it have been incorporated widely into the response at the inter-governmental level, despite the existence of similar gender mainstreaming obligations.73 Women have been largely absent from coronavirus response teams. A rapid assessment (conducted in 30 countries worldwide) found that, on average, women represent only 24 per cent of members of such response teams; of the OSCE participating States that were included in the study, these figures ranged from 52 per cent in Canada to nine percent in the United States.74 Although information is not publicly available for all participating States, several emergency task forces to address COVID-19 were initially formed without any women or with minimal representation.75 This is despite the fact that the majority of OSCE participating States 70 71 72 73 74 75 OSCE, “OSCE Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality”, op. cit., note 38, para. 10(a). OSCE, Ministerial Council Decision No. 14/05, “Women in Conflict Prevention, Crisis Management and Post-conflict Rehabilitation”, op. cit., note 37, para. 9. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee has launched an inquiry on the unequal impact of the coronavirus (including a sub-inquiry on gendered economic impact). It has been noted that “The gendered impacts of the pandemic and measures to contain it have not been reflected in the [European] Commission’s coronavirus responses. Despite its self-obligation to gender mainstreaming, the EP has not brought the missing gender perspective to the debate in its own positions.” See: Gaweda, B., “The Politics of the Missing Gender Perspective: Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic through Parliamentary Politics”, Tampere University Website, 17 April 2020, <https://research.uta.fi/eugendem/the-politics-of-the-missing-gender-perspective-responding-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-through-parliamentary-politics/>. CARE International, “The Absence of Women in COVID-19 Response”, 10 June 2020, pp. 13-14; 32-38, <https://careclimatechange.org/the-absence-of-women-in-covid-19-response/>. In the United Kingdom, all key government decision-makers on coronavirus are men; only 14 of 50 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) are women, see: The Fawcett Society, “Exiting Lockdown: The 25