Feminising Data and Nudging Change for Gender Equity

Connecting Citizens to Science

In this episode we are celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD). This year’s theme is #EmbraceEquity and aims to get the world talking about why "equal opportunities are no longer enough" - and can in fact be exclusionary, rather than inclusive.

We will be discussing the differences between the terms equity and equality and why is it important to understand, acknowledge and value this.

Definitions of these terms are provided by IWD campaign, they highlight the differences.

• Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities.

• Equity recognises that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

To explore what this means in reality, we have two guests who will speak about the work they are doing to promote equity. They unearth differences as well as similarities across their respective contexts, but draw the same conclusions,

“... it's a process. It takes time. You do get some gains and you should celebrate those. So don't feel frustrated and its small steps and nudging and knowing who to reach out to. Most importantly, listening to the voice of the community and those that we want to work with, that's the most critical part”.

About our guests:

Dr Lilian Otiso - Executive Director, LVCT Health

Dr. Lilian Otiso is the Executive Director of LVCT Health, a large Kenyan NGO that carries out programs on HIV, sexual & reproductive health, gender-based violence, mental health and community health reaching over 1 million individuals annually.

She is a medical doctor with an MBA in Health Care Management currently pursuing a PhD in Global Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Her PhD topic is on accountability for universal health coverage among pregnant adolescents/teenage mothers. Lilian has over 15 years’ clinical, programming and research experience in government and NGO sectors at senior management level. She has been a Principle Investigator and co-investigator of several research studies. She is passionate about the community and has conducted several studies and projects on community health. She has contributed to Kenyan and global WHO guidelines and policies and published several documents and peer reviewed articles. She is the winner of the Trocaire Oscar Romero Award 2021 for protecting vulnerable communities during COVID 19.

Dr. Renu Khosla - Director, Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE)

Dr. Kholsa is the Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE). Her core values are designed to include, level-up and connect urban low-income communities. She seeks to unthink and reimagine slum development; nudging a change from top-down to bottom-up and state to people-led development. Her work is aimed at strengthening local government capacity for: participative planning, information visualization and analytics using spatial and social media technologies, localizing and de-engineering solutions and strategies and simplifying institutions. Her work has led to deepening of the policy discourse on urban poor and access to services.

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