Protecting Workers During COVID-19 Millions of workers worldwide remain affected by deepening poverty, inequality, and job uncertainty due to the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In many parts of Asia, which are critical manufacturing and sourcing regions for Amazon’s goods, workers continue to experience health and financial challenges due to low vaccination rates and reoccurring lockdowns, which can shutter factories. Building on our 2020 investments in organizations providing critical front-line support to workers impacted by the pandemic, in 2021, we made an additional $1.65 million investment to collaborate with several organizations and invest directly in suppliers of Amazon-branded products. This investment will help provide an estimated 54,000 workers with access to crisis response resources, with a focus on Asia’s most COVID-vulnerable regions. Through a collaboration with Catalyst Management Services, a social investment specialist group, and PATH, a global public health nonprofit, this commitment will facilitate vaccine assistance, provide a medical hotline for workers and their families, and assist factories in establishing crisis response plans. Additionally, we continue our collaboration with Nest to provide tools and training to help more than 70 artisan small business owners in Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines weather the financial impact of shop closures, staffing shortages, and canceled orders. Learn more about our human rights partnerships . Gender Equity Gender equity is a fundamental human right and a necessary foundation of a sustainable supply chain. Quality jobs for women translate to positive impacts for communities, and we are actively working to empower women to make their own decisions on health, finances, and career development. In 2021, we scaled our work and investments to advance the rights of female workers in supply chains. We made a $1 million investment in the Resilience Fund for Women in Global Value Chains. The Resilience Fund pools corporate investments to drive local, women-led solutions to some of the toughest problems facing women in global value chains. Established by BSR, the UN Foundation, and Women Win, the Resilience Fund aims to raise at least $10 million to make strategic, long-term investments in women’s economic resilience, health, and well-being. Learn more on About Amazon . We worked with International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) Advisors and The Mara Partners to advance women’s rights across our global value chain, and joined Better Cotton’s Working Group on Decent Work & Gender to improve working conditions for cotton farmers. In addition, we signed and adopted the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) . Supported by more than 6,000 corporate signatories, the WEPs were established by the UN Global Compact and UN Women to offer businesses guidance on ways to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community. 2021 Sustainability Report Introduction I Environment I Society I Governance I Appendix 63