Episode 4: Gender inequality

In the first mini-series of Good with data we explore one of the most important issues in global development today, the Leave No One Behind Agenda; what it means, why it matters, and how we can make it a reality by improving data and making best use of existing data and evidence. 

After concluding our three-part mini-series on the Leave No One Behind Agenda, our colleagues at Paris 21 got in touch and suggested we apply our data and data systems thinking to one of the oldest and most pervasive inequalities around the world – gender inequality. We thought that was a great idea, so they joined us for a bonus episode exploring this issue and the data and analysis needed to ensure that no women and girls are left behind.

Our guests are: 

• Fridah Githuku, Executive Director of GROOTS, a national movement of grassroots women-led community-based groups and Self Help Groups in Kenya.
• Emma Phiri, Gender Specialist at the Zambia Statistics Agency, a statutory body responsible for the publication of official statistics.
• Lauren Harrison, Data Ecosystems Lead at Paris 21, an organisation hosted which promotes the better use and production of statistics to achieve national and international development goals.

For more on the subject of inequality including with respect to gender, our briefing paper explores the relationship between inequality and poverty and some key indicators and associated data issues. An accompanying factsheet draws on this data to summarise recent global inequality trends. Lastly, this report gives an overview of funding for gender equality and women and girls in humanitarian crises.

During the episode, we asked our panellists to share their recommendations for listeners to explore issues relating to gender inequality further:

• Fridah recommended publications from UN Women’s Women Count programme; GROOTS Kenya’s Gender Data Dashboard; Equal Measures 2030’s SDG Gender Index; and Paris 21’s work with national statistical offices.
• Lauren recommended exploring the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data which includes information on funding for gender statistics, and the Gender Data Network.

Good with data is a production of Development Initiatives, a global organisation harnessing the power of data and evidence to end poverty, reduce inequality and increase resilience. 

To stay up to date with our work, follow us on Twitter or Linkedin, visit our website, and register for email updates.

We value your feedback! If you have comments or ideas for the show please contact us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a 5 star review wherever you listen. 

Transcript

Deborah Hardoon: 0:02

Welcome to Good with data from Development Initiatives. I'm Deborah Hardoon. And in our first mini-series, we've been exploring one of the most important issues in global development today. The Leave No One Behind Agenda, what it means, why it matters, and how we can make it a reality by improving data and making best use of existing data and evidence. In the other episodes in this series, guests from across multilateral and national institutions, as well as from civil society have shared their perspectives on data in the context of the Leave No One Behind Agenda, we've discussed the importance of inequality and inequality data, how data on risk can be useful to help us think about who may fall behind as a result of shocks and crises, as well as considering the quality and investments needed in the broader data ecosystem. After our first three episodes, our colleagues at Paris 21 got in touch and suggested we apply our data and data systems thinking to one of the oldest and most pervasive inequalities around the world - gender inequality. We thought that was a great idea, and as this show is all about creating collaborative content that's a useful resource for partners and allies, we're really pleased to have them with us today for a bonus episode. If you have ideas for future episodes, please do get in touch, we'd love to hear from you, and we'll leave contact details in the show notes. So let's get started. In this episode, I'm speaking with Fridah Githuku, who is executive director of GROOTS, a movement of community and self-help groups led by women in Kenya. We also have Emma Phiri. Emma is a gender specialist at the Zambia Statistics Agency, the official body responsible for the publication of statistics in Zambia. Completing the lineup, we have Lauren Harrison, who is the Data Ecosystems Lead at Paris 21. Paris 21 is an organisation hosted by the OECD which promotes the better use and production of statistics to achieve national and international development goals. So today, we're talking about the data and analysis that's needed to ensure no women and girls are left behind. It seems like there's been a really healthy growth in gender disaggregated data, and certainly more tools and indices that measure gender inequalities. So to start, let me ask each of you, what do you think are the most important innovations in gender data? But also, where are there some glaring gaps? Things we just don't know about, that mean, our policies and programmes are missing critical information. Let's start with you, Emma.

Emma Phiri: 2:41

Gender Statistics has been very helpful in trying to help us plan and put appropriate interventions in place. So in Zambia, we have a report that we compile called the gender statistics, gender status report. So this gender status report, we compile different types of gender statistics across the sectors of which sometimes we rely on administrative data. As Zambia, we still have gaps existing when it somes to gender statistics. You know how it is for people when you talk about gender statistics, they think that you are disturbing their studies that they are doing, because they do not seem to give us a chance even when to sit down with them as they are planning to make sure that their surveys are engendered. But the challenges are that, as Zambia Statistics Agency, we seem not to have financial resources that can help us come up with the studies specifically which can help us [inaudible]. So, it has still remained a challenge because we are relying on administrative data, and even secondary data, of which secondary data cannot address everything that we would want in the gender circles, because some of the variables could be missing and even important variables that would be in need of could have not been a priority to them. But if muscle we can be able to generate many gender statistics across sectors, vis a vis responding to the SDGs because even now, as Gender Unit, we are not able to respond to most of the SDGs because we don't seem to have the data sources. So that is still a big challenge and it is my prayer that one day we can be able to bridge the gaps.

Fridah Githuku: 4:54

I just want to add on a few points on what Emma has said. And of course comparing Zambia with Kenya. I think also the establishment of a gender statistics department by the national statistical offices, I don't know whether it's the same. So Zambia has been a good innovation because the issue of gender statistics, we must all agree that you're also doing late learning. Traditionally, when stisticians are being trained, the gender perspective and feminist perspectives were not as advanced as they are today. So this is an area where we have to invest a lot in terms of building knowledge, and setting up those specialised committees with an agenda within the national statistical offices have been very instrumental. But over and beyond that, also the establishment of the interagency committee, meaning that the National statistical offices are also learning from other people who are not statistician, who may be more skilled on issues of gender, who are more advanced in terms of feminist theories have really advanced the manner in which tools, survey tools are developed, what areas data are collected into. And for me, I see that as a good evolution, as a good process to help us to achieve what we really need to achieve. The establishment also of specific programmes on their agenda, statistics and data. And specifically, I would want to flag this programme by Women Count, because it's resources that are being allocated both financial and human, to target, and intentionally produced gender statistics, promote its dissemination and promote its use, I think that path is good. And if we stay on it, we might be able to make good progress in closing the gender gap that we see today.

Deborah Hardoon: 6:50

Picking up on a point you just mentioned there Fridah about promoting the use of gender statistics. Can you give us an example where an organisation in your movement has used gender statistics as part of an advocacy piece or to promote a kind of issue or a concern that wouldn't have otherwise been possible without that underlying data and evidence?

Fridah Githuku: 7:13

Yeah, so one of our investments as an organisation has also been on citizen generated data. In the in the past years, we did conduct a survey on a how much time women were using to collect, to go to the rivers to collect water. And that data, although not official citizen generated data, we were able to use it to influence the, it's called Nanyuki, Water and Sewerage company, the local water company, to actually establish a water kiosk in the slum areas, but also in the jurisdiction where they're supposed to supply water because we were able to see that a lot of time, women, women use a lot of time in their day, to just go fetching for water, or of course fetching for firewood and all, but because there's an authority that exists already in that jurisdiction responsible for supply of water, we were able to use that report to convince them to come up with an intervention that would take water to the household, or close to the communities and several water kiosks were actually established out of that.

Deborah Hardoon: 8:22

That's really encouraging, thanks. I mean, did you get any pushback on the statistics you used? You mentioned that they weren't official, they were community generated? So did you receive any challenge about the validity of that data?

Fridah Githuku: 8:33

We did because the data was actually not very contradictory to what they had as administrative data as a water company. And also, you know, data gives you strength and power. Perhaps if you were making that case without that data, you wouldn't have made those kinds of inroads.

Lauren Harrison: 8:52

Maybe just to compliment, I think, on Fridah's excellent points. You know, I think that I was reflecting on your original question, Deborah, and even with the points coming from Emma as well, to me, often when we think about innovation and gender data, we think about new survey methods; new tools; new products; we don't necessarily think about the innovation that happens through collaboration and engagement across stakeholders. And to me, that is the thing that I see happening in the gender data movement in at the country level at the regional level and global level, this kind of dynamic exchange and community starting to emerge, which is I think, what's really going to make the difference in the end. I think the example that Fridah gave on CGD is a great one. And your question was really important because I think what we seen with CGD it's potentially quite important in terms of a solution in terms of closing a data gap when it comes to gender equality. Partially because of this, the way that knowledge and expertise is kind of siloed, civil society organisations often have a deeper understanding of gender equality issues at the local level than a national statistical office would, and so this more dynamic exchange between classic data producing agencies and you know, advocacy or civil society actors, I think is really quite key in terms of building our understanding of what to measure and how to measure it. But we still have that question of, okay, how do you bring those kinds of pockets of innovation into scale. And so one of the things we worked on in Paris 21 is creating tools to promote exchange and sort of systems and standards to bring in citizen generated data into the official system. And that's one of the things we're working on with in Kenya with Fridah and some of her other colleagues across civil society in the SDG forum in Kenya. But I think that to me, when I think about what really excites me, and the solutions that I see emerging, it's as much about the kind of collaborative spirit. And I know that sounds really soft and mushy, but it's something that I think is, in the end, what's what's going to really move the ball forward when it comes to gender data is these really catalytic partnerships across stakeholders.

Emma Phiri: 11:16

For me, I just want to also echo something on what the Fridah alluded to. So like in Zambia, what I did as an innovation, to advertise gender statistics, we arranged a one day workshop for media personnel. And this idea emanated from the workshop I attended in December last year in Nevada, Kenya, where media personnel brought together and the one of the important aspects Laura can accept, can attest to what I'd say, was the issue of data, the importance of working with gender data. So I can tell you that that workshop has performed wonders, because we brought journalists, editors everyone together to talk about the importance of gender statistics as they are reporting. Like she was saying, the statistics actually gives strength, because that's empirical evidence, which gives you proper direction from an informed point. So even as you are planning, you are planning for exactly what is on the ground. And like where you're using assumptions, it poses a danger. So you would find that it is indeed, very, very important to be innovative when it comes to gender data. Like I mentioned, for us, we rely on administrative data, even secondary data. And I wouldn't lie, where gender statistics are concerned, we've not done a study of primary source, we've been trying for years to do a Time Use Survey. But like I already mentioned, due to none of finances to finance the the strategy, we have failed, but of course, being a member of Africa data network, I've seen some of the countries that have done it using secondary data. And that is something I want to embark on, probably early next year to try and see because I'm just trying to gather this and that and also want to make use of the upcoming 2022 Census of Population and Housing. Everyone is excited. It's the first time Zambia is doing an E census. So I can't wait to see the dataset so that I can play around with it to formulate different gender statistics across sectors.

Deborah Hardoon: 14:05

It sounds like it is a really innovative time in Zambia. And I was wondering whether you can give us an example or two of the how this innovation has led to some findings or some results that you wouldn't have otherwise been aware of when it comes to the differences of people's experiences based on their gender, that you wouldn't have been able to see if you hadn't have these kinds of innovations.

Emma Phiri: 14:33

Great, except for data from censusm as much as yes, it's a good basis, but at the same time, it has a disadvantage because of the periodicity, 10 years, that's a long time. So already like now we've been trying to see as a country if we could have a study on child marriage. We've been failing, and we've been using the Demographic and Health Survey as the source of qualitative data on child marriage. But for me, as a gender practitioner as well as as a gender statistics practitioner, it saddens me because it leaves out a good block age of my interest, since it starts from 15 years to 49. You see, so what happens even to a woman who is in my age group 50, going up? Are you telling me that a woman who is 50 going up, they're not victims of domestic violence and other things? So but if we had, if we can have as a primary source study, that can be the best and even periodicity if that study can be held every year annually. It can even be a perfect because it will provide us with a lot of statistics that we can use throughout unlike the situation now.

Fridah Githuku: 16:04

Yeah, I think Debs that data on the early child marriage and FGM, female, female genital mutilation. Don't worry, my mind may be going to slip because I'm waiting for the presidential, the presidential results. Yeah, I think that's that's a set of data with all its limitation, it's a set of data that have really been put to use. And of course, thanks also to all the UN agencies who joined that campaign, and local institutions. Because I see like in my country, of course, we've known from the past DHS, that the rate of FGM was at 21%. Now we are waiting to see whether there will be a decline the later stages that was done in 2022. I think the report is being compiled. But we've seen really advocates using that data to a point of pushing even the president to make a declaration that in Vancouver, you probably saw during the women deliver conference that Kenya is committed to bringing down, ending FGM by the end of his term. Now, of course, it is coming to an end. But beyond that declaration, we also saw that the local administration, of course, because this is a presidential declaration, putting so much effort to ensure that these incidences of FGM are not happening in their jurisdiction. And that is really what we want. So data is empowering, I think it's a good case study, depending on how the results come out for the DHS, we will be able to see that whether we have made progress in bringing it down below 21%.

Deborah Hardoon: 17:42

A really powerful tool if it picks up the right issues that are important to people, right? I just want to pick up on something that Lauren was talking about, from a collaboration perspective in particular. And that's really important in this conversation, because this conversation is all about the Leave No One Behind Agenda. And part of that agenda is ensuring meaningful participation of people throughout the development process. So this includes thinking about inclusion and participation in the data lifecycle too so that people aren't just the subjects of the analysis, but very much part of the process of understanding people and their outcomes through the data process and the analysis process itself. And so I was wondering, so Lauren, thinking about the international community and funding for statistical systems, to what extent do you think that's recognised that the voices of women and their experiences are important elements of the design and investment of, you know, what we're building through statistical systems?

Lauren Harrison: 18:46

You know, I think we've got a ways to go, if I'm being honest. But I see some of the shifts happening, and some of it is coming through. I mean, one of the things is, we have to tell better, we have to tell the stories more often we have to tell, you know, the stories around the impact and what these collaborations look like and how they work. And, you know, that's something I would say in the past, hasn't necessarily come through that clearly. But you're seeing initiatives start to happen and gain a lot of steam and thinking of like the Inclusive Data Charter of GPSDD and others, you know, to kind of raise the profile of what it looks like to have more inclusive and participatory approaches. CGD is often kind of trotted out as kind of be the solution. And I think it is an important one. But, you know, when we look at what we've learned about gender data, up to this point, bringing women and girls into kind of the data lifecycle, you know, I think one that's been there for a while is having female enumerators and the difference that that can make in terms of the type of responses you get the type of data that you can collect the accuracy of that information. So, bringing kind of like a gender-aware and gender-sensitive sort of perspective throughout the whole kind of data lifecycle, we're still learning how to do that, but I think that there's an increasing recognition that that has to be part of the solution. And I think one of the important elements also, I would say that we've seen in our work, particularly working with countries on kind of developing more like medium-term plans for how to improve gender data and statistics, is this collaboration between the kind of national women's [inaudible] leading ministries on gender and the national statistical office, because often, you know, there's you it takes time, I think, even as Emma was mentioning, kind of how you build that, that, that institutional knowledge and awareness of the kind of, you know, approaches that should be taken, that's not necessarily always there. So you kind of have to bring together the right people into the room to have a conversation about what it really means to be gender-sensitive and gender-aware in how we collect data. And so I'm really encouraged by a lot of the lessons that I've seen, I mean, even in the COVID, 19, pandemic, you know, UN Women and IDinsight, not just publishing insights about, you know, what's happening on the ground for women, but also the things that they've learned about how to collect gender data. And people are becoming, I think, more vocal about the right way to do this, and how to become more more inclusive and participatory in terms of how we approach gender data. So I would say we're on the right track, that we have a ways to go.

Fridah Githuku: 21:37

Yeah, and on the issue of donors, I see, I see donors as a double-edged sword. One, because they give us the resources that we are able to make the progress that we are making. But also they come with very specific interests. Remember, most of them are custodians of specific SDG indicators. So some might interested in health in health, only others are interested in the poverty indicators. But the data we desire is the data that is intersectional, that will show us the progress overall. And for me, that is where I find it limiting because it means the donor has moved money a lot of spotlight and weight is put on the datasets that they are interested in. So if the World Bank is investing on everything, economy, that's where then you will find Kenya inputting more effort into because probably the bank is the one giving most of the resources, it gets foundations that are interested in health and you find that's where the spotlight is being put, and that process is limiting. And I think if we could have some level of coordination among the data, the donors who are funding data work, we probably could see a bit of improvement and get some more datasets that are, you know, intersection are talking about development as a whole. I think that's for me, is what I desire.

Emma Phiri: 23:02

To add on that, the pattern for Zambia, is also not different. Because like for Zambia, of course, yes, we've got a good number of cooperating partners. But the challenge is

what Fridah has mentioned: 23:15

they come in with the specific interests. And even when you look at the catchment area, if it's not an area whereby even if you collected statistics, statistics can be representative. You know, because of not being representative across the country. So that poses a challenge. And the moment they address their interest, the next thing, they will leave that path, and even there's no sustainability, it will just die like that turning into a white elephant. So it's high time, measures should be put in place. Of course, we do appreciate the cooperating partners, they really help us but even them, I think it's high time time they change their perception and even how they plan things. Then the other challenge is that much as yes, they're bringing in finances, but they also want to give you conditions on what to do. Again, if a cooperating partner is coming in indirectly as an implementing agency it poses a challenge, because they are left with without. You can't work freely, there's always interference coming from them. It's like every time you're being reminded, no, no, no, don't do this. On paper, they're saying that no, we are funding this project or we are funding this assignment, but in reality, it's not like that, it's like you're just there as a rubber stamp, themselves as the people giving you the money theey're the ones controlling in the background. So that is the biggest challenge even when it comes to gender statistics.

Deborah Hardoon: 25:07

Fridah in what way does your organisation engage with data gathering processes and really involve women and girls and their voices in the data lifecycle?

Fridah Githuku: 25:18

Yeah. So traditionally, we engaged as data users, consuming what has been produced and disseminating it and using it for advocacy, then we said, hey, no, it's very difficult also to sell data that you do not understand how it has been produced, or you're not part of it, the ownership becomes very low. That's when we started investing in producing our own data. And of course, the good thing, even though that came up with a lot of backlash, getting into the space of citizen generated data, we started being recognised as important players in the data sector. And that's how GROOTS has ended up as a member of the agency committee on gender statistics, of course, constituted by our national statistical office. So now we sit there, and then we have our space, we have a space to voice our interest, even in the manner in which the survey tools are designed, which areas the agency should be invested in. Recently, well, several months ago, we were able to participate in the development of the title survey, it was very interesting to see us representing human rights organisation, of course, debating with the statisticians, why we should not have a question on whether husbands should help their wives at home, because that question in itself is very patriarchal and very leading, and you see those kinds of insights, they're being able to debate with this decision and make them appreciate why that question in itself is very wrong and should not appeal that to, I don't think that would have happened if we do not have the people bringing this feminist and gender perspective into the, into the agency. So there is evolution, and nowadays, more space and more, you know, more voice by women rights organisation and civil society organisation into how the data and especially gender data is being collected in the country, I do hope that that is not wrong entirely, and that it will last for a long time. Because then these partnerships needs to be long and sustainable for us to be able to effect a change. But we are really committed to that. There is a point that I wanted to raise, I don't want to lose it. At the international level there's a lot of emphasis on comparability, you know, the global comparability of data and their scale, and it is good. But as people who are advocates of gender data, we also need to be very careful. Women are not homogenous. There are a lot of nuances of the experiences of women, there will be no such time when they experiences of Okiek women who live in the Mau forest will be compared globally by any other community. And as much as we want to, of course, invest in data that can be compared at an international level. It's also important to think about decentralisation. Maybe some of the data that we need to understand the women is actually data at small scale. It is data about a single community that we do not necessarily need to compare with another community in Colombia. And that brings me to the idea of also the national agencies decentralising themselves to the local level to the district level, to zoom into those marginalised communities who often get, you know, overlooked, or get lost in the national public averages and their specific experiences can no longer be told, one besides average aggregated at the national level and at the global level, I think it's something that we keep in mind, we should keep in mind so that we do not lose it. As we talk about the international standard. It's still in all the concept, of course, that we advance the global level.

Lauren Harrison: 28:55

I think this is a really, really key point, you know, how we move from national to sub national to global and how that how our understanding of gender dynamics and what that means in terms of how we collect data, and also how we analyse it and compare it, I think it's really key. You know, one of the things that we've we have started doing, I think that is kind of touches on this is we started a project with actually in partnership with UN Women in the Women Count programme in the Maldives a few years ago working on mainstreaming gender and statistical planning, and through that process that really led into their census, and so right now, what we've done is they've brought on someone who's been working in civil society and grassroots on gender equality for quite a while to partner with them on the census process. And so, now there's a programme to work with, you know, women's committees at sort of a very granular level to raise awareness around the census process, mostly, initially at least, to mobilise and improve response rates. But also, there's a plan to have a kind of follow up activity where we bring the results of the census back into the women's committees and have conversations about the results. And so you're working with really grassroots actors then to think about, okay, how do we take advantage of this enormous opportunity that comes with a census process, to really think about the granular information that comes out of it and connect with the right actors at the community level, so that data can actually you know, feed into something meaningful. And I think, you know, those types of projects, I'm, they don't happen unless you kind of have this, I don't think we would have gotten there, if we hadn't spent the time to really kind of invest and socialise with the national statistical office, but they came to us with this idea. I mean, it was, it was after several years of working with them on kind of bringing gender on to their national agenda. So then there were opportunities to kind of recognise where that gender lens could be applied, and where you could build new connections into their existing workstream. So, you know, pieces like that I think have become more common, and I'm hopeful they'll continue to become more common.

Deborah Hardoon: 31:23

I think this conversation is feeling really optimistic. It's feeling like there's a lot of progressive movement in improving the partnerships, the inclusion and the gender lens that's being applied to statistics, and the use of not just official, but unofficial community generated data. This all feels like it's going in a positive direction. But I was wondering what the data tells us about gender equality, and whether it is in fact going in the right direction, or whether the data is telling us that things are, you know, stalled or moving backwards. And, you know, particularly thinking about the recent changes in the US around Roe vs Wade and other issues that are bubbling up around the world, like what is the data telling us about the direction of women's rights and gender equality?

Fridah Githuku: 32:12

Yeah, the SDG gender index that was released by Equal Measures 2030, I think it says that we have less than a quarter of the countries that are making faster progress, and a third of the countries globally are either moving in the wrong direction, or making no progress at all on issues of gender equality. And for me, I think the reason for this is because we are moving in all directions, you will see that maybe in political participation, a lot of countries are making progress in putting women in the decision making, but then we are backtracking on issues of sexual reproductive rights. And you know, where women, women issues, they're tied to each other. And we measure progress by looking at all of them at the same time simultaneously. I think that's where the progress is slow, because we are invested or putting a spotlight on its isolated issues. And probably the easier one of putting women in decision making, but others that are about women, body rights, access to properties, like land, we are not making progress at all. So in that moves us really behind.

Lauren Harrison: 33:18

I think it would be remiss not to mention as well, I mean, so it's a it's it's a two part story, right? I mean, we can we know we're a little better where we are, because the data has improving, which is good. The data hasn't improved enough. I think that, you know, it's like less than 48% of countries can report on the indicators for SDGs or less than 48% coverage on SDG five indicators or something like that coming up coming out of HLPF this year. So there's still a lot of long ways to go in terms of collecting data. But I think, following COVID-19, we pretty quickly, you started to see information around how women were affected in very specific ways in access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, in unpaid care and domestic work and how that was actually affecting other forms of employment. You know, kind of UN Women's work on sort of the shadow pandemic around domestic violence and, you know, that were kind of as a secondary effect of lockdowns and other kind of other measures. So, you know, we're, I don't know if I can say that the outlook right now for gender equality is great. You know, as Fridah was saying, I think that things have really slipped. I also really appreciated your point Fridah about we tend to measure and look at the and work on the things that are relatively easier to solve. You know, one of the things that I noticed when we were comparing results in some of our country assessments in terms of the data that's available, is you saw higher availability in things like health, actually or education, than in some of the really more complex issues like peace and justice or environment and climate change, you know, these kind of harder, more layered intersectional complex problems that have a gender dynamic. You know, really we're still we know that there's a gender issue there. But in terms of what we know, and what we're measuring, we're still still got quite a ways to quite a ways to go on that. But I mean, it's kind of a, like I said, it's a two part story, we know more than we did before. But the news isn't always good.

Deborah Hardoon: 35:37

And that also speaks to what Fridah was saying about women not being homogeneous, right, like different women are moving in different directions in different places based on their intersectional identities as well as just whether or not they're they're a woman. So I think that that point is clear that it's not, it's not a simple story that can be told with a single statistic right about that progress. And women's equality is more multifaceted, as well as women being incredibly diverse.

Fridah Githuku: 36:08

One other area that we need to think about is, when we talk about closing the gender data cap, we always think about closing the data gap in production. But we don't talk about closing the gender gap in use. And there we have a cap, there is a lot more data that we need to produce. But Emma will tell us because she's from the national statistical office, there's so much data that we are not using. GROOTS has made an attempt to visualise the data that is available at the KNBS depository. And we pick it we visualise it in a simple manner. And we upload it in a portal that we call the www.genderdatakenya.org. It's a lot of data. And actually we just put it into use for advocacy and for planning, and we are pushing it out to the planning directors at the county, it would cause so much progress even as we invest in producing more. So use closing also the gap in use is very important.

Deborah Hardoon: 37:08

What would that look like then? So what what would an enabling environment look like the data to have impact and be used in the right way?

Fridah Githuku: 37:17

One I think is the national statistical offices making the data say accessible, and open for all. I think countries have made progress in that access to information. Tow is having intermediaries, people who serve as intermediary between the producers and the strategic consumers or users of this data, whether those users may be planners or they're journalists who are pushing it to the public, who actually closes that gap. Because a lot of planners at the local level, they will not go looking for this data at the bureau, they are more things that are bothering them at the district level. If even journalists they are chasing time. But if there is an intermediary who is packaging this data strategically for their use, and pushing it to them, it makes the work easier. And for us, we've seen that work, we are working with major stations in the country, asking for airtime packaging data in a manner that it interests them. We also convinced directors at county level and package data specific for the areas that they are in charge off. And we go through that data with them and they are able to use it in their planning and budgeting. So I think filling that gap between the producer and strategic users is also quite critical to improving the environment.

Lauren Harrison: 38:37

And I just hop on to that one. I think it's such an important point Fridah and it's one of my favourite things to talk about this. Because I think so often in gender data, you're absolutely right, we get stuck into this gender data gaps conversation, and we fail to kind of articulate what we're what we're really talking about. And there is so much data that just never sees the light of day, or it never reaches the user. And you know, more effort in that regard is is really key. One of the things I think we've worked on, and I think we were really shocked, was we started producing this eLearning course on communicating gender data. And we did that with UN Women a couple years ago. And the response was huge. We originally designed it for journalists, which was great. But we had land use planners using it; we had campaigners using it; we had all kinds of people coming out and telling stories about how they took this course and it changed the way they thought about their work. And that's really, you know, what you're you're talking about institutional norms change, ultimately, when you're talking about gender data use. But I absolutely agree. You know, and I just commend you Fridah I think the role of intermediaries and packaging data in ways that users can quickly pick up and react to is really key. You know, one of the things we've seen is national statistical offices, sometimes gender data is really only disseminated once a year on International Women's Day in a booklet. And these can be really, really important documents. But figuring out how to get that data into the hands of people who can really use it is kind of a next step. I don't know, Emma, if you have reflections on your experience in Zambia, I think you were trying to come in earlier. You know, I'd be really keen to hear kind of how you all are addressing the the use the use question in Zambia.

Emma Phiri: 40:27

Then for for Zambia, we are actually encouraging everyone to make use of statistics, including the member the members of parliament, as they're planning for their respective constituencies. Personally, I keep reminding them of their role that their their role that they have is very, very [inaudible], and that for them to have sustainable planning they need statistics. So each time I'm raising awareness to them out, I always encourage them to visit the regional statistical offices that we have across the country to ask for statistics for their respective constituencies to help them plan. Because sometimes with the constituency development funds that we have, you can come up with thinking the problem is lack of schools, you start building schools, who are the problem is lacking health facilities. So why don't you work with statistics, statistics, to give you strength, statistics, empirical evidence that to give you a proper direction on doing things, then even to our colleagues like the the policymakers, develop national policies, from a an empirical point of view, especially under situation analysis, everyone needs to strengthen the reason as to why they are developing that piece of a document for the country to use. So without it, we do not believe in assumptions or blanket statements. It has to be backed with the empirical evidence. And that is a credible source. Then in this case, in Zambia, our Statistics Act compels everyone to collect official statistics from our office or not any other source if it has to be treated as official. Because these other sources, there are so many challenges, it could be the methodology that one could have used. It's not the in line with the fundamental methodology that we use as a statistical office. And in other parameters might not be in line. But for a statistical office like ourselves, we strictly follow the international standards, because we know because big surveys like DHS, we this needs to compare with other countries. So there is no way we can take the methodology. So it's indeed a journey worth embarking on. But except, I'll keep aping the challenge of not having finances to push this agenda forward. Otherwise ideas, we have a lot of ideas, but those ideas, they've got to be conceptualised. And also you move the agenda forward in order to make it a reality. Otherwise, we are always in contact with the users like Fridah was saying, they can be producers, yes. But then producers got to be very attentive even to current affairs. What are the users saying and in this case, users is everyone it can be an academician, it can be government itself, other line ministries writing the policies, those policies, got to beef up with the official statistics lack of credible source. So that's what I can say.

Deborah Hardoon: 44:08

I think it was great to end this discussion focusing on use because the whole point of data is not that it exists for the sake of existing but that it's useful to inform policies and programmes and as you were saying Emma, you know, the the representative the government representatives are taking and using this data to make decisions about how investments are being spent. So I think it was a really important kind of wrap up for this conversation to focus on the use case of data. The final question I have before before we depart is if you had anything you wanted our listeners to take away or to read or to think about as they digest this podcast on gender and data to leave no one behind. So first, perhaps to youth Fridah, anything you can recommend to

Fridah Githuku: 44:57

I wanted to comment on what Emma has said. our listeners? Because I think there have been now attempts to de risk the concern that Emma is raising, and Kenya is a good of course partner to learn from because it's a part of Paris 21, Kenya has just launched the citizen generated data guidelines. Because then again, it's one of the best shot in closing the gender data gap. But also because we do not want to monopolise the space of data where we live production just for national statistical offices, I understand the concern that Emma is raising of quality, methodology. But I think with that kind of investment with the national statistical office gives guidelines on how to produce citizen generated data, it is good for us to open up that space for other actors also come in. That is important as for me as an advocate of CGD, I had to say that, but in terms of resources that people can read from, there's a lot of publication that has come out from the Women Count programme, so I would encourage people to check the UN Women website, of course, I also invite people to check on our data data dashboard, which is hosted by GROOTS, Equal Measures 2030 is also doing a lot of work on the index. It's an interesting piece of work. And they have compiled a global report that compares countries, of course Paris 21 is doing a lot of amazing, crazy work with the national statistical offices. So those are partners that we can always go to their website, if you want to learn more on this topic.

Deborah Hardoon: 46:40

Thank you Fridah and Lauren.

Lauren Harrison: 46:42

Sure, so a couple comes to mind. One is, I think as we are learning, you know, building more momentum around demand for gender data by learning how to use it and really advocate for kind of evidence informed solutions on gender equality, I think we also need to think about how to invest. And one of the one of the solutions that we're working on in partnership with Open Data Watch. Data 2X and the Gates Foundation and the Bern Network and others is the Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data? It's smartdatafinance.org, I think. And basically, it's a platform that includes a gender channel that kind of creates space to look at how funding for gender statistics works. You know, what this looks like at the country level. And we're hoping it can become a real platform to learn how to make the dollars that we have go further. So that's, that's one resource I commend, I think to listeners. The Women Count platform is a great one. The other one, I would say, is looping back to something Emma said fairly early, and as a member of the Gender Data Network, and we have a platform for the Gender Data Network, which includes resources on and tools on gender data. And so that's also a publicly available resource that people can can access and use. But, I mean, there's so much, there's so many tools and so much insight, I think the most important thing is for people to you know, pick up some of the data, hopefully, or blog posts and you know, educate a little bit on what why gender matters in data for development.

Deborah Hardoon: 48:26

Thanks, Lauren. And, Emma, any recommendations for our listeners?

Emma Phiri: 48:31

Yes, with me, the recommendation is that for us to measure progress, we've got to measure the problem. So as gender statistics statistician, I would say that if you can't measure, then you cannot manage the problem. So we do well to rely on gender statistics, if we're to measure the problem that surrounds us as gender practitioners, to aid everyone, let us continue pushing the agenda forward, leaving no one behind. I know the journey is rough. But we are also strong in terms of advocates of good data, gender data to be specific. And I know one day we'll reach our running our race line in order to to achieve gender equality, leaving one behind.

Deborah Hardoon: 49:38

That was a great note to leave this discussion on. Thank you, Emma. And thank you all for listening. We've been really pleased with the feedback we've had so far. So thanks to everyone who's tuned into other episodes in the series. We really appreciate your support. And we hope you found the discussion here interesting and useful, particularly in efforts to use data to leave no one behind. If you haven't already, I encourage you to tune into our other episodes in this series for more discussion on inequality, on data ecosystems and on risk in the context of the Leave No One Behing Agenda. Good with data is a production of Development Initiatives, an independent organisation that enables action through data driven evidence and insight to end poverty, reduce inequality and increase resilience. This series is produced by Sarah Harries Joshua Flynn, Anna Hope, Tim Molyneux and me Deborah Hardoon.