This policy brief focuses on some key challenges faced by women during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These include: caring responsibilities outside and at home: employment and risks to women’s jobs, income and the increased risk of female poverty, women in developing countries and gender-based violence. The final section discusses policy challenges and options to support women, workers and families with caring responsibilities or facing job loss, entrepreneurs and small-business owners and victims of gender-based violence. It also presents policy options such as gender budgetting and mainstreaming to ensure policy responses account for gender as well as policy options to safeguard the progress of gender-related SDGs.