The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economies, food systems, and schools, creating chain reactions of other crises.
In the aftermath of the outbreak, it could take years for countries to recover.
Global Citizen’s Global Goal: Unite for Our Future campaign focuses on ensuring the world has enough tests, treatments, and vaccines to contain COVID-19, but it also aims to support countries as they recover from the pandemic and get back on track to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The campaign is highlighting international and regional response organizations that are working to build a resilient future and calling on corporate partners and philanthropists to support their efforts however possible. These organizations bolster food systems, ensure children receive a quality education, promote women’s empowerment and combat domestic violence, and much more.
You can learn more about them below.
Education Cannot Wait
Education Cannot Wait (ECW) distributes funds where they are needed most, as quickly as possible, to continue children's education in times of conflict or crisis. With 1.5 billion kids out of school due to COVID-19, ECW’s multi-million-dollar appeal is supporting the most marginalized children with distance learning, mental health, sanitation, hygiene, and meals.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations that aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Its investments increase rural prosperity, food security and resilience for poor small-scale farmers, women, youth, indigenous people and other vulnerable populations in rural communities across the globe. IFAD’s new multi-donor fund, the COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility, will help mitigate the effects of the pandemic on food supply chains by ensuring farmers have access to the inputs, markets, information and finances they need to continue growing and selling food.
The Global Financing Facility
The Global Financing Facility is supporting 36 low and lower-income partner countries to help prevent a secondary health crisis from the pandemic by protecting and promoting delivery of essential health services that are proven drivers of reducing maternal and child mortality.
The Global Partnership for Education
The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a partnership and a fund that mobilizes global and national investments and brings partners together to help nearly 70 developing country partner governments build strong education systems. GPE has mobilized an initial $258.8 million to support countries’ education needs during COVID-19.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a public-private partnership led by national governments with six partners – the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Its goal is to eradicate polio worldwide. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s assets have been repurposed to respond to COVID-19, including disease surveillance, social mobilization, training of personnel, and coordination structures in 58 countries so far.
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
LISC's Rapid Relief and Resiliency initiative is supporting tens of thousands of residents in need across the United States and Puerto Rico. LISC does this by providing grants, loans and tech infrastructure to more than 2,000 community-based organizations and to thousands of small businesses, especially those owned by women and people of color and rooted in historically underserved places hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pan American Health Organization
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is providing critical leadership and leading regional efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean. PAHO is supporting individual countries to save lives, slow the spread of the disease, and protect the most vulnerable individuals, including health care workers. Through well-established mechanisms, PAHO also facilitates the procurement of PPE and essential medical supplies.
The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund
The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) will evolve into the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF). WSSCC has already reached millions of people around the world with essential and life-saving interventions in sanitation and hygiene. Building on WSSCC’s achievements, the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund will support countries to access increased and catalytic financing to close the gaps in their national sanitation and hygiene strategies
The UN COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund
The United Nations Building Back Better Fund offers emergency development assistance to 100+ countries struggling with the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. This means ensuring that governments rapidly obtain the capacities to respond to the health crisis in some countries. In others, this means extending social safety nets to the poorest, building WASH facilities in communities, and keeping children in school. The Fund is committed to closing the digital divide and generating economic opportunities that are sustainable and inclusive. Together, we can build back better.
UNICEF
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of children and their families as health systems buckle, borders close, and schools and businesses shutter. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is working with health experts to promote facts over fear, bringing trustworthy guidance to parents, caregivers and educators. UNICEF is on the ground in more than 190 countries, partnering with front-line responders and providing them with the information and resources they need to keep children healthy and learning, protected from sickness and violence.
UNFPA
UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, supports life-saving sexual and reproductive health services in underserved communities around the world. As the COVID-19 pandemic strains public health systems and exacerbates gender-based violence, UNFPA is addressing the outsized impact on women and girls by ensuring the continuity of reproductive health services, including family planning, antenatal care and safe delivery care, and providing support to survivors of violence and exploitation.
UN Women
UN Women is undertaking on-the-ground COVID- focused programmes, as well as bringing up-to-date global information and analysis on how and why gender matters in COVID-19 response. The organization’s response framework focuses on five priorities to address the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls: a) incidence and impact of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, is mitigated and reduced; b) social protection and economic stimulus packages serve women and girls; c) people support and practice the equal sharing of the burden of care; d) women and girls lead and participate in COVID-19 response planning and decision-making; and e) gender is mainstreamed into national, regional and global efforts including through gender data and coordination mechanisms.
World Food Programme
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) are ensuring that schoolchildren receive the meals and health services they critically depend on. Both agencies aim to reach 10 million children in the most vulnerable countries that have been affected by school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can join the Global Goal: Unite for Our Future campaign by taking action here to help ensure everyone, everywhere can access the tools that are vital to putting an end to COVID-19, and mitigate its impacts on the world's most vulnerable people.
You can find out more about COVID-19, what's needed to tackle it, and how it's impacting the lives of people around the world, through our COVID-19 coverage here.
