Originally recorded on April 9, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring Priyadarshani Joshi, Senior Project Officer of Research with the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report. Priyadarshani Joshi continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador after her appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where she shared insights from her recent work on understanding how countries are coping with COVID-19 . The COVID-19 pandemic represents a historic disruption of education systems around the world. The Global Education Monitoring Report is an independent team housed at UNESCO analyses and contributes to the global discussion around educational progress in the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda through authoritative, evidence-based analyses; and by convening perspectives from a range of national and global experts. This presentation focuses on select recent contributions made by the GEM Report team (and others) on understanding how countries are coping with COVID-19 currently, the growing evidence base on financing, equity and systemic concerns, and what strategies are in place to try and recover from the pandemic.