The COVID-19 pandemic and some of the associated policy responses have had significant, negative impacts on women’s lives around the world, and in India (Agarwal, 2021). India experienced three COVID-19 waves, including a devastating Delta variant surge that peaked in March and April 2021. The Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups developed a brief that focuses on the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially the impacts on members of women’s self-help groups (SHGs) before the Delta variant peaked in India.  We synthesize evidence from various studies on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on SHG functioning as well as the responses from and through SHGs and their federations under the DAY-NRLM up until March 2021. The findings capture lessons about how to adapt SHGs and other women’s group policies in response to large covariate shocks, such as the first year of COVID-19; this brief does not include an analysis of the effects of the subsequent Delta variant, however, which resulted in widespread direct health and economic shocks that exacerbated some of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic analyzed in this brief.  

Read the brief