Published annually by the World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap report benchmarks 149 countries (as of 2018) on their progress towards gender parity. The report’s Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to indicators across four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. The latest report can be accessed here.
The biggest impediment in corrective measures for gender mainstreaming is lack of quality data and evidence. Today SDGs overall, and SDG5 in particular, aim to address this oversight, by seeking data to understand the situation today through 40 indicators overall (14 indicators associated with SDG5). The Global Gender Gap reports are also key references for driving the WGH movement forward on the basis of sound evidence. WGH Pakistan intends to add to that critical body of evidence by mobilizing resources for collaborative research in priority areas, disseminating evidence across regions, incubating learning capsules and research working groups.
WGH Pakistan aims to widen the evidence on barriers and facilitators to gender equity and equality at all levels of health workforce to drive and build the evidence base in favour of women in GH and addressing stigma and discrimination against females.
Particularly, to further the agenda of WHO, ICN and Burdette Trust through NursingNow, WGH Pakistan will encourage research that helps determine areas where nurses can have the greatest impact, and document best nursing practices in the country.
Also, approximately 30 percent of female doctors in Pakistan have left their professions for various reasons, including security issues, as well as due to marriage, family restrictions and ‘other societal barriers’. Even though women outnumber men in the country’s medical schools, more than half never end up practicing. As a priority, WGH Pakistan will initiate research on the following agendas. The desired outputs include co-productions, case studies on WGH leadership in the context of Pakistan. Research summaries and meta-analysis of available evidence on gender parity in health will be utilized to publish and present at national and international forums.
Through these researches, WGH Pakistan hopes to address the female brain drain in health sector by presenting policy and advocacy recommendations on conducive workplace strategies for women in health, in addition to creation of customised mentoring trainings at different tiers and levels within the sector, with the hope that the presence of women leaders in health will guard interests of sub-groups, make interventions and conversations more inclusive and collaborative, and enable systems that pave way for higher female participation closing the economic opportunity gap (SDG8).
WGH Pakistan will also facilitate collaborations for research on gender specific issues in health landscaping and policy analysis, by providing a platform and channel for women in global health in Pakistan, to collaborate on research and policy initiatives to address gender gap. In order to undertake the above-mentioned researches, WGH Pakistan continues to seek active and interested collaborators. To share your interest, please submit an interest of expression here.