At a glance
- Gendered gaps in data and insights are barriers to achieving greater, more equitable impact across many areas, including economic empowerment and adolescents’ health and education outcomes.
- To develop the right solutions to advance gender equality, we must have the right data. For example, many health standards—from drug development and dosing guidelines to nutritional guidance—are based on males by default.
- We work to improve the collection, analysis, and use of data on the issues that matter most to women and girls. We also support partners in creating, testing, and advocating for the inclusion of indicators in key surveys that illuminate the lived experiences of women and girls.
Our strategy
We are committed to developing and funding interventions that are underpinned by evidence, but if that evidence is biased in its definitions or excludes the factors that fully describe the experiences of women, we perpetuate solutions that have caused the gap in outcomes we see today. This is why we seek to improve the collection, analysis, and use of data on the issues that matter most to women and girls.
For example, gender-based violence is a major risk factor for injury and death among women, but there are seven times more data indicators and measurements for risk factors such as smoking than for gender-based violence. This gap is even greater in low- and middle-income countries, leading to undercounting of the profound effects that gender-based violence can have on the lives of women and girls and underinvestment in solutions that could increase their safety.
Our work includes generating more inclusive primary data, promoting gender-equitable data modeling, and ensuring that evidence quickly informs action. We support both internal foundation teams and external partners in creating, testing, and advocating for the inclusion of measures in key surveys to illuminate the lived experiences of women and girls.
Why focus on gender data and insights?
Gender inequality defies clear-cut solutions, in part because of the absence of high-quality data to inform decision-making—such as data on the scope of an issue or the impact of interventions. Sometimes data is entirely lacking. Societies only measure what they value, and for most of history societies have undervalued women. This means that government officials, policymakers, and advocates are either missing information or the information they have is sexist. With data that accurately reflects gendered realities, we believe we can make faster progress on gender equality.
