New York, 18 March 2021. Cuba participated today at the interactive dialogue “Building back better – women’s participation and leadership in COVID-19 response and recovery”, of the 65th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
Ambassador Ana Silvia Rodríguez Abascal, Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, explained how the Caribbean nation conceived a preventive, intersectoral and multidisciplinary model to address the health and socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure the protection of the entire population.
She highlighted labor, salary and social security or assistance measures to protect the entire population, especially women and groups at greater risk and vulnerability, including: the increase of remote work and telecommuting, relocation of workers to other posts and extension of salary guarantees.
Rodríguez Abascal also illustrated how Cuba is developing five COVID-19 vaccine candidates; and how from four molecular biology laboratories that existed in the whole country before the pandemic, we have 22 today. In both areas, women have played a leading role, as they represent 60 percent of higher education graduates and 53 percent of those working in the sector of science.
The Cuban representative recalled that her country has had to overcome the unprecedented tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed for six decades by the government of the United States, amid the pandemic.
The blockade, she affirmed, is the main obstacle to our development and hinders the response to the pandemic and the recovery from its effects as it represents a violation of the human rights of Cuban men and women alike
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations
