Emerging Findings: The impact

of COVID-19 on girls and the Girls’ Education Challenge response

Focus on South Asia (Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan)

This Focus on South Asia brief summarises emerging findings around the impact of COVID-19 on learning, wellbeing and return to school from Girls Education Challenge (GEC) projects in Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan. It is one of a series of five regional Emerging Findings briefs which covers the time period from March 2020 to June 2021. It is primarily aimed at South Asian national governments, INGOs and NGOs working in the region who are interested in understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on learning, wellbeing and return to school. This brief has continued relevance because of the ongoing uncertainty and continued impact on schools and in some cases, school closures and learning. It outlines interventions that support the reopening of schools, and the continuation of remote learning where schools remain closed.

The evidence presented in this paper around learning, wellbeing and return to school from the GEC projects in South Asia was collated from March 2020 to June 2021.