Women were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and school closures. With decades of progress erased, it will take everyone to reclaim what’s been lost.

Each new study and special report coming from Asia’s development banks, regional monitors, and even governments is telling the same grim story. Women workers and women-led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have thus far borne the brunt of the economic downturn from COVID-19. Even worse? The fallout isn’t over.

In Thailand, for example, women accounted for 60% of all job losses, while in the Philippines approximately one in five were out of work. In Viet Nam....