As the fallout from the pandemic deepens, CARE is drawing attention to the short- and longer-term effects of the crisis on women’s economic wellbeing. Although people of all genders have been affected, women and girls will suffer disproportionately. The economic and financial impacts of public health crises are extremely gendered. Globally, and particularly in development and humanitarian settings, women are more likely to work in informal and/or low-paid jobs—the very jobs that are most prone to disruption during public health emergencies. These jobs frequently lack the legal and social protections that could help mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. When considered alongside the gender norms that restrict women’s and girls’ roles in society and their intersectional identities, it is clear that COVID-19 puts decades of progress towards women’s and girls’ economic justice and rights at risk. Drawing on lessons learned from past public health emergencies and CARE’s decades of experience working with women to advance their access to financial and economic resources and opportunities, this policy brief outlines how the pandemic will affect women’s economic justice and rights, and recommends that national governments, international and regional decision-makers, business partners, and the private sector must prioritise women and girls in socio-economic crisis responses by integrating a gender lens throughout the economic response, prioritising women and girls because it is right and because they are agents of recovery and change, and ensuring women’s voice, co-leadership, and balanced representation in decision-making bodies and processes.