The findings and recommendations of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Report on the social economic impact assessment of COVID-19 in Mauritius are currently being scrutinised at the level of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Welfare, and corrective actions, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, will be initiated as soon as possible.

This statement was made by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Welfare, Mrs Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah, at the National Assembly, yesterday. She said that the report was developed with the technical leadership and financial support of the UNDP as part of the advocacy efforts of the wider United Nations system, led by the Resident Coordinator, to support the socio-economic response and recovery efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report, which was released on 2 March 2021, provided an initial assessment of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in Mauritius.

The Minister affirmed that from a gender perspective, the report highlighted that an overview of the trends, across the lockdown and its aftermath, revealed a nuanced picture. Hence, at first sight during the lockdown, female employment showed a more important decline than male employment as at May 2020. However, female employment increased considerably by 7% between May and June 2020, and between June and July 2020, she indicated.

According to Mrs Koonjoo-Shah, the severity of the impact known to be happening elsewhere still appeared to be mitigated in Mauritius. She added that, the success handling of the crisis and the relatively short stalling of the economic activities and the recovery which the country has subsequently witnessed has, to a large extent, cushioned the impact in terms of female employment, except for some sectors which have been particularly vulnerable to the lockdown such as retail and tourism activities.