The UN Women WCARO annual report aims to share information about the regional office's activities on women empowerment and gender equality in 2020. The said year has been a particularly difficult year around the world with the COVID-19 pandemic. In West and Central Africa (WCA), women and girls were particularly vulnerable to the crisis. To counter these burdens and build medium and long- term recovery measures, the UN Women WCA Regional Office successfully provided multi-faceted assistance...

The publication innovates "The Matrix of Her Success", a case study of UN Women's Economic Empowerment successes in Mali. It delineates the supremacy of the personality of the businesswoman, Mme Sirébara over all other factors. the personality is classified as the essential factor, the "Unbeatable desire to succeed, opportunity readiness" which generates "sustainability potentials as both causal & enabling variables of business". Unique testimony to the unique potentials of UN Women flagships deployed within a public-private-partnership.

The R-GTG wishes to contribute to the efforts in progress to confront the current pandemic by sharing this note with the Coordinators residing in the region with the intention of encouraging and proposing tools to improve the consideration of the gender issue in the response to COVID-19. In this respect, it addresses the main risks connected to gender when considering the pandemic and makes a specific number of recommendations to respond to it.