Recommended actions to protect women’s rights Advanced planning for crisis situations should include assessments of potential gender impacts and gender-related vulnerabilities. Planning should draw together national action plans and commitments related to WPS and disaster risk reduction and management. Women’s CSOs should also be engaged in planning processes. Gender mainstreaming should be an essential process when enacting emergency measures. In addition, rapid gender assessments, with a focus on women in situations of vulnerability, should be conducted as soon as possible when emergency measures are put in place. Crisis task forces, emergency response teams and inter-agency committees should have equal representation of women and men, as a measure to increase gender-responsive decision-making. In Canada, more than half of the members of the national COVID-19 response team are women. Among surveyed countries, Canada was the only one that announced funding and policy commitments on gender-based violence prevention and response services, sexual and reproductive health care, childcare support and funding that specifically recognizes the economic effect of the pandemic on women (such as targeted support for women entrepreneurs) in the national COVID-19 response.79 Extraordinary measures should not increase pre-existing gender disparities, and must also include targeted actions to address vulnerabilities (based on gender analysis). 5.2. INFORMING THE POPULATION ABOUT EMERGENCY MEASURES The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) explains that, when taking emergency measures, governments are responsible for “[informing] the affected population of the exact substantive, territorial and temporal scope of the application of the state of emergency and its related measures.” Information should be communicated in “an accessible manner so the public at large is aware of the new legal rules and can conduct themselves accordingly.”80 79 CARE International, “The Absence of Women in COVID-19 Response”, op. cit., note 72, pp. 14-15. 80 OHCHR, “Emergency Measures and COVID-19: Guidance”, op. cit., note 27. 27