During the pandemic, former UN Women chief Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says many women were "caught up in the crossfire that is not of their own making," accounting for two-thirds of jobs lost due to COVID. What's more, she adds, women forced into the informal job market to make ends meet had a hard time returning to formal jobs once lockdowns ended. And since government incentives didn't target them enough, "women fell between the cracks."

She spoke during "Measuring what matters: How women are critical to pandemic recovery," a livestream conversation on October 28, 2021, hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.