The clock is ticking.

A recent United Nation’s warning that our failure to prioritise gender equality is putting the entire 2030 agenda for sustainable development at risk contains a particularly strong message for the research community. It is a salutary reminder that the mainstreaming of gender equality and inclusion (GEI) in all research processes is essential to formulating context-specific, sustainable, evidence-based solutions to our development challenges.

A UN analysis of gender equality progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notes that halfway to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development deadline, the “world is failing women and girls”. Globally, no gender equality indicator (SDG 5) is at the “target met or almost met” level.

If current trends continue, the report notes, more than 340 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030 and an estimated 110 million girls will remain out of school. In addition to exclusion from formal schooling, women and girls are disproportionately left out of other chances to build skills. Gender barriers continue to limit women’s roles in science, technology and innovation and the gender gap in research leadership positions remains entrenched.

In short, continued failure to prioritise SDG 5 “will put the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in peril”.

What is to be done?

Reflections and Intersections is an online dialogue series for topical discussions with leading specialists about strategies aimed at strengthening gender equality and inclusivity in research funding in Africa.

Brought to you by the Gender Equality and Inclusivity (GEI) Project of the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI), currently being implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Portia and Jive Media Africa, the series draws on the premise that research that is informed by a gender equality and inclusion lens offers the best chance we have at meeting sustainable development targets.

Research and funding practices are inextricably interlinked. Research funding that adopts a GEI lens – also accounting for the ways in which different forms of inequality intersect – can enhance the rigour, contextual relevance and social benefit of research.

The dialogue series provides fresh and challenging perspectives by drawing on diverse voices spanning funding organisations, researchers and policymakers.

It aims to generate knowledge on applying GEI approaches in research funding; provide a space for information sharing and reflection on experiences of integrating GEI in research funding, and encourage cross-regional and cross-continental conversations on GEI in research and grantee support practices.

View past and upcoming episodes below:

Episode 1: Why gender matters in research funding

Episode 2: Interrupting bias in funding review processes: Strategies for gender-responsive, equitable, and transparent research granting