The UN India team, through its 26 entities, has stood with India in her fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. We are on the ground – with the government, civil society and partners at the centre and in the states - supporting frontline workers, strengthening systems, delivering essential equipment and medical supplies, working with communities, securing livelihoods, fighting misinformation, protecting the most vulnerable, and providing hope. 

Through this year, we worked in tandem with the government, responding to challenges as the pandemic evolved – starting with the epidemiological response, tracing contacts, procuring and distributing equipment, training health workers, supporting outreach to hundreds of millions of people – and more recently, with the roll out of the vaccines.

UN Agencies also worked hard to provide key support in mitigating the socioeconomic impacts of COVID – ensuring essential non-COVID health services continued despite the pandemic, including vaccinations, maternal, new-born and family planning services, nutrition programmes and referrals. We supported children to continue their learning despite the digital divide; developed innovations that linked millions of disadvantaged persons to the public distribution system and to public works programmes; and provided water and sanitation services, and social protection information for millions of migrants. We supported women and farmers access livelihood opportunities. We are facilitating business continuity support to Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, and providing support to the important efforts to respond to gender-based violence. Throughout this work, our consistent effort has been to ensure that vulnerable and marginalized groups are not left behind, and that the recovery efforts build back better – fairer and greener.

Through this showcase, that is by no means a comprehensive reflection of the work of the UN in India, we present to you some of the highlights of our work in 2020, through photographs.