Primary Submission Category: Health systems
Investing in more gender equitable global health leadership: evidence of women leaders’ impact
Authors: Rosemary Morgan Anna Kalbarczyk
Presenting Author: Kate Banchoff*
Women in global health face specific and unique challenges to reaching leadership roles, including lack of mentorship, gender biases, and harassment. However, the documented benefits of gender parity in leadership are emerging – women leaders have been shown to positively impact maternal and health care policies, strengthen health facilities, and reduce health inequalities. While the global community supports these concepts of gender parity and women’s leadership in global health, there is still limited research and frameworks guiding actionable steps.
Through a scoping review of academic and grey literature and a mixed methods research study, this project explores the impact of women leaders on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH-N), with the overarching aim of generating evidence for investing in women’s leadership. The literature review is informing the development of primary data collection tools – including a survey, key informant interviews, and country case studies – on women’s leadership in RMNCAH-N in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Primary data collection will occur in May-September 2023.
This presentation will include evidence from the scoping review and primary data collection, outlining key impacts of women’s leadership, including women leader’s perceptions and experiences of their impact and leadership. We will also explore the biases women leaders have faced and, using a social network analysis, the depth and breadth of their networks, to understand their key areas of influence with RMNCAH-N across SSA and globally. Our research will generate a deeper understanding of the systematic and intersectional barriers and facilitators to women’s leadership, including those which uphold the well-documented lack of gender parity and investment in women leaders in global health. Leveling the playing field for women leaders will ultimately improve health and wellbeing and contribute to a more just and equitable world.