The post Our Impact Report 2024 first appeared on Equal Measures 2030.

At Equal Measures 2030, we believe that data has the power to expose inequality and motivate change. But data alone isn’t enough. It becomes transformative only when the people closest to the issues can interpret it, humanize it, and use it to demand better. 

Through a series of workshops on the SDG Gender Index, data visualization, storytelling formats, and using evidence to shape policy, our 2025 cohort learned to do exactly that. Over six months, fellows from across Africa, Asia, and Latin America turned global gender data into local advocacy tools crafting blogs, policy briefs videos, comic strips, and infographics. 

“This fellowship showed me that invisibility is political — but it can be challenged. By combining data with storytelling, I gained the confidence and tools to advocate more effectively for women and girls.” 

The results speak for themselves. 

• 100% of fellows said they now feel more confident using gender data in their storytelling and advocacy. 
• 100% said their access to gender data, tools, and analysis improved. 
• Fellows now regularly use the SDG Gender Index, UN datasets, NFHS/DHS surveys, and tools like Flourish and Tableau to bring data to life. 

“The most valuable thing I gained was the ability to transform gender data into compelling stories that drive advocacy and action. It gave me not just technical skills, but the confidence to use evidence as a voice for women and girls.” 

For some, that meant uncovering the hidden inequalities behind national averages; for others, it meant revealing how progress on paper doesn’t always translate into progress in women’s lives. 
Each story — grounded in evidence and told through a feminist lens — reminds us that data is never neutral. It reflects who is counted, who is missing, and whose realities are seen as worth measuring. 

Here’s a look at the stories they created, and how they’re using data to drive action: 

Agnes Angule, Kenya 

Agnes produced a multi-media project to highlight the exclusion and isolation of refugee women and girls who lack access to the internet and digital sphere. As she writes in her article “when you’re disconnected, you’re not just missing out on social media, you’re cut off from school, health information, jobs, and even a voice in your own community.” Agnes supported this article, with a short video documentary, audio snippets and infographics to ensure a broad audience could be reached.  

Amir Muhammad, Nigeria 

Did you know that just women make up just 4% of Nigeria’s 10^th National Assembly? Through analysing data on political representation, Amir makes the case for gender quotas in Nigeria’s Parliament. Through real-life experiences, data-driven narratives and positive case studies from Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa, this project highlights both the barriers and solutions to women’s political representation. “Gender data gave my story the power to move from outrage to advocacy; it turned a shocking number into a call for reform.” 

Frida Alejandra Ibarra Zavaleta, Mexico 

Frida’s article, published in Global Voices, explores the challenges and opportunities for girls’ education and digital inclusion in rural Chiapas, Mexico, where poverty, gender inequality, and limited internet access continue to restrict opportunities. Drawing on personal family experience across three generations, she highlights how initiatives like Tecnolochicas and Indigenous-language STEM programs are empowering girls to gain skills, confidence, and leadership opportunities while preserving their cultural heritage. While this piece focuses on individual stories, the fellow also aimed to write a longer academic essay examining the invisibility of women in Mexican data, tracing its roots to colonialism, the political dimensions of data collection, and the impacts on equality. 

“Representation matters, but without real access to health and rights, it becomes an illusion of progress. Gender data gave me the evidence to expose this paradox in Peru and to call for action that goes beyond appearances.” 

Grecia Alessandra Flores Hinostroza, Peru 

As the founder of WISE (Women for International Studies and Equality), Grecia launched HerStory Unheard—a storytelling initiative that amplifies underrepresented voices in gender equality. Grecia’s project questions whether women’s representation in politics trickles down to improve the lives of the most marginalised women and girls in Peru. She explores this with a powerful article, published in Global Voices, that interrogates the gap between policy and implementation.  This is reinforced with an accompanying open letter to policy makers demanding they take action and ensure policy impacts the lived realities of these women and girls.  

Mahpara Zulqadar, Pakistan  

Why are girls in South Punjab, Pakistan, still being married off before the age of 15, despite laws meant to protect them? In this powerful piece, Mahpara weaves together the story of 14-year-old Zunaira with the voices of parents, teachers, and religious leaders to expose the deep-rooted social, economic, and cultural forces that sustain child marriage. Grounded in gender data and Pakistan’s shifting legal landscape, her article reveals the gap between policy and practice—and the urgent need to pair legal reform with community engagement, education, and economic support. Mahpara supported this piece —  published in Global Voices — with a social media campaign aimed to target younger audiences through social media. 

Shaunei Gerber, South Africa 

Shaunei heads Marketing and Communications at FuturElect – an organisation designed to increase the participation of African women and youth in government. To support this work, Shaunei developed a multi-media project consisting of an article, an infographic one-pager, a social media campaign and a video clip, to target a multitude of audiences. Her project reveals that, despite global commitments to gender parity in politics by 2030, Ghana isn’t on track to reach equal representation in government until 2090. She provides a regional analysis to reveal the barriers and potential solutions open to Ghana.  

Thiripurasundari Thiyagarajan, India 

Thiripurasundari’s uses video format to follow the story of Deepa, a young girl from rural Tamil Nadu, who was forced to drop out of school after puberty due to cultural norms and misconceptions around menstruation. Determined to pursue education, she learned about her body and rights from a health worker, which gave her the confidence to challenge these myths. With courage, she convinced her parents and elders to allow her to continue studying, proving that awareness and education can break barriers for girls. Thiripurasundari paired this human-focused narrative with a policy brief on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), targeting policy-makers with the data and evidence they need to realise SRHR for adolescent girls—particularly those from rural and marginalized communities. 

Yarely Madrid, Honduras 

In her article “Women Who Sustain the Country Without Guarantees,” Yarely spotlights the resilience and leadership of Indigenous women in Honduras who sustain their communities despite systemic neglect. Through the powerful stories of Mercedes, Marta, and Mirna—Lenca, Tolupán, and Miskita women—she exposes how inequality persists across generations in education, health, and security, while weaving in gender data from the SDG Gender Index and national studies to show the stark realities behind the numbers. The piece, accompanied by striking social media infographics, illustrates that while Honduras ranks among the lowest globally on indicators like access to clean water and freedom from violence, it is women—without rights or guarantees—who keep their communities alive. 

We’re incredibly proud of what our fellows have been able to achieve with these stories. Over six months, they learnt to connect data with human stories in ways that link global evidence to local realities, and turn information into compelling insights that can drive change. 

As one fellow shared, “I learned how to tell stories with an intersectional and decolonial lens, making sure that the voices of those most often excluded are respected and centred.” Another reflected that the experience “reaffirmed my belief that data becomes meaningful only when it is connected to lived realities and used to drive change.” 

For many, the fellowship built new confidence and purpose. “It taught me that data can be used not only for analysis, but also for advocacy and social change,” one noted. “Most importantly, it deepened my confidence to use data as a voice for women and girls.” 

Whilst the fellowship has come to a close, the work for a gender-equal future continues. Fellows are already applying the skills they’ve learnt, using gender data to advocate for inclusive leadership in local elections in Nigeria, to advance research on femicide in Pakistan, to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems across programmes, and to shape gender-responsive advocacy through youth-led initiatives. Others are taking their next steps into academia — like one fellow pursuing a Master’s in Data Science through the British Council’s Women in STEM Scholarship, determined to advance gender equality with a decolonial lens. 

Together, they are proving that when data is held by those closest to the fight for equality, it becomes a catalyst for justice and accountability — transforming not only how stories are told, but how change is made. 

The post Storytelling with Gender Data – Highlights from our Fellows first appeared on Equal Measures 2030.

Periods are a universal reality, yet menstrual health remains one of the least understood and least measured aspects of gender equality. Around the world, millions of women and girls still lack the basic means and dignity to manage their periods safely. Without data, the inequalities they face stay hidden. 

Menstrual health shapes whether girls stay in school, whether women can work, whether societies recognise gendered needs and more. Despite this, fewer than half of all countries collect national data on menstruation. This blind spot makes menstrual inequity one of the most persistent and invisible barriers to equality. 

When menstrual health data is missing, the consequences are immediate and far-reaching: policymakers cannot budget for facilities they cannot measure; donors often overlook menstrual health in education and sanitation programmes; and advocates are left without the evidence needed to push for change. Invisibility in data becomes invisibility in policy – and progress stalls before it can begin. 

UNICEF’s 2023 State of the World’s Children report puts these gaps into perspective; one in four women and girls still lack adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene at home. The data that does exist shows how stigma, poverty, and poor infrastructure combine to exclude girls from school or limit women’s participation in work. But in too many countries, similar evidence simply doesn’t exist – leaving policymakers without a full picture of how menstrual inequity holds back gender equality. 

Where Data Exists and Where It Doesn’t 

Where menstrual health data is available, it tells a mixed story. UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) collect information on access to clean products, safe facilities, and privacy at school or work – essential parts of menstrual hygiene management. 

Analyses of these datasets show that only about 37 percent of adolescent girls in Sub-Saharan Africa have a private place at school to change menstrual products. Yet in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, where targeted investment in school WASH facilities has improved access, that figure rises above 80 percent. This demonstrates that progress is possible with targeted investment, however, investment doesn’t happen unless advocates have access to the evidence needed to make the case to donors and policymakers. 

Fewer than 50 countries have ever gathered national-level information on menstrual hygiene, and even fewer break it down by location, income, or disability. Without these intersectional analyses, inequalities stay hidden and resources cannot be targeted effectively. 

Studies that have taken this intersectional approach have revealed that: in households without basic sanitation, girls are 1.7 times more likely to miss school during menstruation; women with disabilities are twice as likely to lack private facilities at home; and in Kenya’s informal settlements, one in three adolescent girls report using unsafe materials like cloth or paper because they cannot afford proper products. This data is key in securing policies and investments that reach the most vulnerable. 

Another issue is that menstruation is often only addressed within water, sanitation, or education plans, which weakens accountability – fewer than 30 countries have stand-alone menstrual health policies according to a global review by WaterAid, the Burnet Institute, and Columbia University. And it is often even forgotten within these issues – despite menstrual health connecting directly to global goals on health, education, and gender equality, it is still missing from official Sustainable Development Goal indicators. This gap mirrors the broader absence of gender data in global reporting and limits the world’s ability to measure real progress. 

Policy in Practice 

Countries around the world are showing that menstrual equity is achievable when political commitment meets public demand. 

In 2020, Scotland became the first country to guarantee free access to period products through the Period Products (Free Provision) Act. The law ensures that schools and local authorities make pads, tampons, and reusable products available to anyone who needs them. It is widely praised as a model for rights-based policy and has inspired similar efforts elsewhere. However, progress is more difficult to measure, because menstrual data is collected on a UK-level, despite health policy being a devolved issue. While the picture may be improving in Scotland, this is harder to measure without disaggregated data, with Plan International only telling us that one in ten girls across the UK still miss school because they cannot afford or access products. Scotland’s experience demonstrates how national leadership, paired with disaggregated data, can help turn progressive laws into sustained progress. 

Kenya has also taken important steps. The Free Sanitary Towels Programme, launched in 2017, aimed to provide pads to schoolgirls nationwide. According to 2019 MICS data, almost half of adolescent girls now have what they need to manage their periods safely. This a significant milestone in a country that has openly recognised menstrual health as a public issue. Yet rural girls, those in informal settlements, and girls with disabilities remain the least served. Supply shortages, funding issues, and stigma in schools have limited the programme’s reach. Kenya’s experience shows how progress builds when policy, community leadership, and data come together, but also how sustained investment is needed to reach every girl. 

Counting What Matters 

Menstrual health continues to be under-measured, under-funded, and undervalued. Global monitoring systems overlook it, and existing data is often outdated or incomplete. The invisibility of menstrual experiences, from girls missing school in rural Kenya to implementation gaps in countries with progressive policies, reflects a deeper inequity in who gets counted. 

To close the gap, governments, donors, and advocates should: 

• Integrate menstrual health indicators into national and global reporting. 
• Fund statistical offices to include menstrual health into existing surveys.
• Recognise and resource grassroots data initiatives. 
• Affirm menstrual health as a matter of dignity, equality, and human rights. 

Menstrual equity is not only about access to pads or products. It is about fairness, visibility, and respect. Gender equality cannot be realised until every woman and girl’s lived reality is visible in data.  

The post Counting Periods, Counting Progress: Why Menstrual Health Belongs in the Global Data Agenda  first appeared on Equal Measures 2030.

UNGA 80, Five Years Left 

As world leaders gather for the 80th UN General Assembly (UNGA 80) this September, the global community marks ten years since adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This should be a moment of celebration, but instead it is a moment of reckoning. With just five years left to deliver on the 2030 Agenda, progress is far off track: less than 20% of SDG targets are projected to be achieved by the deadline. 

Failure to act on gender equality is impeding progress. Our research shows that 74% of SDG targets will not be achieved without gender equality, yet 40% of countries are stagnating or even regressing on women’s rights. 

Progress depends on measurement. Timely, disaggregated, and inclusive gender data is essential to delivering on the SDGs’ core promise to leave no one behind. Encouragingly, recent years show that when investments are made, progress follows. More countries now collect labour force data that better captures women’s participation in paid and unpaid work; time-use surveys are increasingly widespread; and coverage of legal frameworks related to gender equality has expanded. These gains prove that progress is possible, but they remain the exception, not the norm. As we pass the two-thirds mark towards 2030, the lack of comprehensive and timely gender data is still one of the biggest barriers to achieving the SDGs. 

Measuring Inequality: The Case for Disaggregated Data 

There has been progress towards disaggregating data. Since 2019, 61% of countries have made ‘fast progress’ towards producing more disaggregated statistics (measured by SDG indicator 17.18.1). But these gains are uneven. Open Data Watch’s Gender Data Compass shows that national budgets for data remain low, capacity shortfalls persist, and in many cases funding has declined since the pandemic. Crucially, ‘progress’ on this SDG indicator is measured by a country’s capacity to produce disaggregated data across multiple characteristics, yet in practice, most countries only manage the simplest disaggregation, by sex.  

National averages are often misleading. Disaggregated data, broken down by gender, age, disability, geography, and wealth, reveals inequalities that otherwise remain invisible. The SDG Gender Index illustrates this vividly in Uganda. In the overall picture for education in 2019, 68% of young girls participated in pre-primary education, in the year before starting primary school, compared to 75% of boys. However, when the data is disaggregated by household wealth, a different picture emerges: among the poorest families, only 20% of girls attended pre-primary education, compared to 60% of boys. 

Without disaggregated data, these girls remain unseen. Education policies risk being designed for an “average child” who in reality reflects only the least disadvantaged. What appears as progress at the national level masks failure to reach the very children the SDGs pledged to prioritize. 

Disaggregated data is therefore not just technical: it is about power. It determines whose lives are visible, whose struggles are acknowledged, and whose needs shape policy. As Equal Measures 2030 has argued, advancing data feminism means challenging the power imbalances embedded in what is measured, who collects data, and how it is used. Unless we shift this dynamic, the SDGs risk reproducing the very inequalities they were designed to end. 

The Importance of Citizen Data in a Fragile Global System 

According to the UN Women Gender Snapshot 2025, global data availability on SDG 5 indicators has improved to 57.4 percent —a welcome gain, but it still means that 43 percent of the data needed to track gender equality is missing. Across the 2030 Agenda, almost 70 percent of SDG indicators now have good overall coverage. However, the trend coverage for goals such as SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) is still below 30% according to UNSD. These gaps leave critical blind spots for monitoring progress and designing evidence-based policies as 2030 draws near. 

The challenge is not only technical but political. The closure of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program in early 2025 dealt a major blow to global gender data. For nearly four decades DHS was a cornerstone of health and gender statistics, covering more than 90 countries and informing decisions on family planning, maternal health, and HIV prevention. Since 2015, DHS has provided 70 percent of global data points on contraceptive use (SDG 5.6.1) and experiences of sexual violence (SDG 16.2.3), and more than 50 percent on female genital mutilation (SDG 5.3.2). The program’s termination reflects not just funding shortfalls but also a shrinking civic space and growing political unease with independent, credible data that can expose inequality or challenge official narratives. 

However, at the same time, grassroots movements are showing what inclusive, innovative data systems can achieve. In Kenya, GROOTS Kenya, a coalition of more than 2,500 women-led community groups, successfully pushed the Kenya Bureau of Statistics to integrate their citizen-generated data into the Women’s Empowerment Index and County Poverty Profiles. This recognition shifted power dynamics. Women at the grassroots were no longer just data users, but data producers whose evidence reshaped national policy. 

The contrast is stark. While global systems are under threat, citizen-generated data is pushing boundaries, proving that better, more inclusive data is possible. The path forward is not simply more data, but better data: timely, comparable, disaggregated, and rooted in the lived realities of women and girls. 

Call to Action: Closing the Gender Data Gap 

UNGA 80 must mark a turning point on gender data. The priorities are clear: 

• Invest in national and global statistical systems. In India, investment in Time Use Surveys has led to data that sparked debate and reforms around women’s ‘time poverty,’ shaping labour and care policies. 

• Recognize and integrate citizen-generated data into official frameworks, following the success of GROOTS Kenya. 

• Prioritize the most marginalised groups. In Latin America and the Carribean, UN Women’s “Gender Equality Observatory” disaggregates data by age and ethnicity, making visible the situation of Indigenous women who were previously excluded from official policy debates. 
   

• Ensure open, accessible data, such as Kenya’s Open Data Initiative, which makes gender indicators publicly available, enabling civil society to monitor county-level progress and advocate for investments. 
   

• Advance data feminism by rethinking power in data collection. In South Korea, repeated national surveys on unpaid care work highlighted gender imbalances in time use. This informed reforms expanding parental leave and policies to encourage men’s participation in care.  

Where targeted investments are made, results follow. Gender data, when used well, can drive smarter policies and stronger outcomes. 

Conclusion: Counting Everyone Makes Sure That Everyone Counts 

The SDGs cannot succeed without closing the gender data gap. With only five years left until 2030, waiting decades for complete gender data is not only unacceptable, it is a betrayal of the promise to leave no one behind. 

A girl born today should not have to wait until well beyond her lifetime to live in a world of equality. UNGA 80 is a milestone moment: leaders must act now to ensure data systems are inclusive, open, disaggregated, and feminist. Without gender-responsive data, governments and partners will be unable to track real progress and identify who is being left behind.  

The post Counting Women, Counting Progress: Why Gender Data Will Make or Break the SDGs  first appeared on Equal Measures 2030.

A landmark ruling on care 

The conference took place in the wake of a landmark ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which on August 7 recognized the right to care as ‘a basic, unavoidable, and universal need, upon which both the existence of human life and the functioning of life in society depend’. 

This ruling is a victory for the feminist movements in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region that have promoted the recognition of the right to care as a fundamental pillar to achieve gender equality and justice for almost two decades. It also sets the stage for governments and other actors to act as reflected in the Tlatelolco Commitment, a regional and national roadmap for the next 10 years, aimed at creating institutional regulatory frameworks and strengthening the capacity of countries to guarantee the right to care, resource mobilization, cooperation, evaluation, and accountability. 

This shift is particularly important given the current context. Our SDG Gender Index 2024  reveals that from 2015, in the LAC region, the scores for indicators of women’s perceptions on economic well-being, food security and housing affordability all fell by 2022. Amid overlapping crises regarding democracy, resources, safety and security, changes in demographic dynamics and care needs make the creation of comprehensive care systems even more urgent. For these systems to be effective, they must be rooted in feminist, intersectional, intercultural, and territorial perspectives. Transforming the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental spheres in favor of women and girls require firm political commitments, decisive actions, and inclusive participation of feminist and women’s movements. 

The role of data 

Reliable, timely, and accessible gender data will be fundamental to advancing these efforts. That’s why the revival of the Gender Equality Observatory by ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) —announced during the regional conference— is so important. It will help to track progress (or lack thereof) on gender equality and care policies in the region, ensuring accountability for the commitments made 30 years ago that remain binding in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

The EM2030 coalition, together with our three members in the region —CLADEM, ASOGEN, and Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres— was proud to participate in this important event. Prior to the conference, EM2030 hosted a data-driven advocacy workshop with 30 gender advocates from Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala, reflecting on the importance of data to accelerate action towards gender equality and in building care societies. CLADEM also convened a side event “Debts and Challenges of Democracy to Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Parity and Care Policies as Key Mechanisms for Advancing Parity Democracy”, that highlighted the interconnectedness of care policies and strong democracies that ensure women’s political participation, economic and social justice.  

Looking ahead 

Our task ahead is to consolidate the recent gains in the care agenda and push back against the conservative, anti-rights forces seeking to roll them back. This means confronting the financing crisis head-on, ensuring women and girls have a voice at every decision-making table, and building care systems that last. Achieving gender equality cannot wait another 100 years, and the recognition of care as a human right cannot be denied for the next generation. 

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