Gender Data:
Embracing the Next Chapter in Gender Equality
by
Krista Jones Baptista, Data2X and
Shaida Badiee, Open Data Watch
10 June 2024
On May 13th, Melinda French Gates announced her departure from the Gates Foundation. Throughout her tenure, she has not only been a formidable advocate for gender equality, but she has also driven tangible change through her influence and resource giving. She has demonstrated leadership and visionary impact on shifting mindsets towards gender equality and evidenced-informed policies on gender equality. Her efforts have led to substantial transformations, at national and local as well as global levels, as organizations are starting to embrace and integrate gender equality into their core values and practices.
For Data2X and Open Data Watch, one of Melinda Gates’ most impactful contributions at the Gates Foundation has been her focus on gender data. By making gender data “cool,” she directed millions of dollars towards funding gender data initiatives worldwide, establishing the Gates Foundation as a consistent and top funder in this space year after year.
The good news is that despite Melinda’s exit from the Gates Foundation, she will continue to champion evidence-informed gender equality. Shortly after her departure announcement, she made headlines again when she revealed plans to donate $1 billion over the next two years through her Pivotal Ventures group.
This funding includes $200 million in grants for U.S.-based organizations fighting for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, $240 million for partnerships with 12 global leaders to distribute funds to impactful organizations, and $250 million through an open call with Lever for Change to identify organizations improving women’s health worldwide.
Her continued commitment underscores the urgency and imperative of gender equality. With women’s rights under threat globally, and political, health, and climate challenges vying for attention, the funding will help “even the match” and advance women’s power globally. After all, research consistently shows that gender equality brings profound societal and economic benefits, with far-reaching ripple effects. In fact, Data2X was founded to focus on the data needed to pursue this vision of a gender equal future that benefits society. And Open Data Watch contributes significantly to monitoring and supporting pursuit of open gender data worldwide.
What struck us about the impressive and far-reaching funding announcement was the important role of evidence-informed policies and why the data to support this agenda matters. The journey towards achieving universal gender equality is not without its challenges, many well covered by the announcement.
Data serves as a powerful tool that illuminates many of the barriers noted in the announcement and guides us towards finding effective solutions. We firmly believe that achieving gender equality is impossible without robust gender data. Gender data provides critical insights, revealing gaps, effective strategies, and new opportunities. It helps us understand the impact of our investments and tailor our programs for maximum effectiveness. Gender data is our guiding light. Without it, we are navigating in the dark; with it, we can accelerate progress towards inclusive gender equality. Thanks to the noteworthy support by the Gates Foundation, since the launch of the SDGs, we’ve already seen significant advancements driven by comprehensive gender data across sectors.
To continue the progress she has championed, we encourage grantees of Pivotal Ventures to harness the power of gender data in their work:
- For those fighting for reproductive freedom in the U.S., use gender data to communicate the detrimental impact of certain policy changes on individuals and overall society and share the immediate effect on the lives of women and girls.
- For the global leaders distributing funds, lean on gender data to monitor progress, identify successful interventions, and design programs that will drive the change we want to see in achieving gender equality, in a measurable way.
- And for the potential grantees working to improve women’s mental and physical health worldwide, harness gender data to uncover biases in traditional data collection and use methods and advocate for disaggregated data that leaves no one behind.
Melinda Gates’ departure from the Gates Foundation is the end of a significant chapter, but it also marks the beginning of a new one filled with potential. Data2X and Open Data Watch stay committed to advancing an evidence-informed gender equality agenda with the same passion and commitment she has demonstrated.
