We truly believe, and we are seeing from data that's come out recently, that COVID has exponentially affected girls and women much more. This is no different in developing countries. As Michael said about school closures, people can see it here, but when that can put millions of girls at risk of early marriage....
One of the biggest issues with school closures is that when the girls cannot go back, there can be early marriage. As well, access to services for reproductive and sexual health and rights is stopped. The school is not just an education system; it's a protective environment for children. I think more than ever we all understand that.
At Plan International, we have very strong gender transformative programming and measurement. We talked about accountability, not only demonstrating but also measuring and seeing the actual change happening among girls and boys, especially girls. We are able to demonstrate even during COVID that gender transformative approaches can actually be applied. We are very pleased and very happy to see the feminist international assistance policy of the Government of Canada, not only because it is the right thing to do for an NGO, but also because it is good economically for the country and for the organization.
Thank you.