The following information was submitted by CARE offices in the countries reviewed in the report to provide additional context and detail.
How Sweden Scored on Our Report Card
What Sweden Is Doing to Support Women and Girls in Crisis
Sweden is recognized for being a global leader in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment, central to its foreign and development policy. Sweden was the first country to implement a Feminist Foreign Policy, which was launched in 2014. The Policy framework for Swedish development cooperation and humanitarian assistance also outlines that “Women and girls are particularly vulnerable in humanitarian crises.” The Swedish Foreign Service action plan for feminist foreign policy 2019–2022 includes direction and measures for 2020, centered around six gender equality objectives.
Sweden’s humanitarian aid strategy is provided through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) 2017–2020. It outlines that “gender equality must be systematically mainstreamed in humanitarian aid” and “should promote gender equality mainstreaming in needs analyses and the application of a gender equality analysis, including gender-disaggregated statistics, in humanitarian organizations.” Prevention of sexual and gender-based violence is a central objective in Sida’s humanitarian assistance. Sweden also has a Women, Peace and Security National Action Plan.
Sida’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic includes 6 million euros allocated to the World Health Organization (WHO) to scale up its efforts against COVID-19. Half of the support is global, and half is allocated to WHO’s work in Africa, where the UN agency works to give people access to information and services within the sexual and reproductive health and rights framework. The purpose is in part to prevent gender-based violence and to provide support to victims, as well as to increase access to contraceptives.