At a time when urgent humanitarian assistance in Gaza was barely reaching one-fifth of all recipients – primarily men who could queue for it – 14,716 women-headed households were given priority food aid thanks in part to data produced by the Women Count Regional Programme for the Arab States.

“Everybody was hungry and food insecure, and, at a time when it was difficult if not impossible to get food into Gaza, it was even more difficult to reach the hard-to-reach, such as women-headed households,” explains Susanne Mikhail Eldhagen, former Regional Director UN Women Arab States.* 

Within weeks of the onset of the war in October 2023, UN Women produced a Rapid Gender Assessment (RGA), providing a preliminary analysis of food insecurity and other risks, finding that an estimated 493,000 women and girls, including 3,000 widows, were internally displaced by the conflict and facing heightened risks of food insecurity.

“Our role was to advocate to ensure that these vulnerable women were accessing that food distribution,” says Mikhail Eldhagen, noting that the data gave rise to a gender-responsive food distribution partnership that began in November 2023 between UN Women and the World Food Programme (WFP) to target these women-headed households.

The data were also used to shape UN Women’s 6-month humanitarian response plan, which has guided life-saving assistance reaching one-third of all women-headed households in Gaza and supporting the distribution of clothing, sanitary products and baby formula.

“What we have seen in Gaza with the chaos and the failure of security and the displacement patterns amid the conflict is a kind of ‘survival-of the-fittest’ where women are really pushed outside of the public sphere even more,” says Marika Guderian, Deputy Country Director for WFP in Gaza.

“We all know that women eat last, and in a situation where food is so scarce that people go days without food, women are even more vulnerable because they will deprioritize themselves to make sure everyone eats, and in a famine situation, that is serious,” she adds. “The partnership with UN Women has really allowed us to have that granular level of data and understanding and specifically, based on that data, target female-headed households.”

Guderian says having this gender-specific data pushed WFP to work with bakeries to open up a dedicated women-only window for bread. “It really does translate into an impact on the ground for the women because we have that analysis and conversation with cooperating partners … Data-driven advocacy helps us to design and focus the response on the data that we have.”

A subsequent Gender Alert developed by UN Women in December 2023 further estimated that 70% of people being killed in Gaza were women and children – two mothers per hour.

These data were widely used in multiple media articles and have been integral in the design of some of the humanitarian response operations on the ground.

A few months later, UN Women produced a second Gender Alert on women’s access to vital water, sanitation and health services, finding that more than 1 million Palestinian women and girls in Gaza are suffering from catastrophic hunger, with almost no access to food, safe drinking water, functioning toilets or running water, creating life-threatening risks.

“In Gaza, we [women] cannot meet our simplest and most basic needs: eating well, drinking safe water, accessing a toilet, having (sanitary) pads, taking a shower, … changing our clothes,” says a Gazan woman cited in that Gender Alert.

This second Gender Alert was also widely cited by the media, with more than 50 news reports published or broadcast and a full infographic by CNN in Arabic.

“In addition to our continuous investment in a strong data team in the regional office, we simultaneously work with the media on communicating that data. For that reason, we have embarked on a number of strategic partnerships with regional media entities in the region,” adds Mikhail Eldhagen.

Gender Alert findings have also been widely used by other UN humanitarian partners, including by WFP and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), to more accurately estimate the need for menstrual pads. The second Gender Alert estimated that 10 million disposable menstrual pads or 4 million reusable sanitary pads would be required each month to cover the needs of the 690,000 women and girls of reproductive age in Gaza.

UN Women also issued a press release in May based on a survey in Rafah, Palestine, where intensified military operations have increased physical and mental despair for 93% of women interviewed. The release has been cited in more than 30 news reports.

And a third Gender Alert in June focused on the conflict’s impacts on women-led organizations – including damage to offices (89%), personnel shortages (40%) and decreased funding (56%) while highlighting their ongoing protagonism within the response.

The UN Women regional data team, working hand-in-hand with the Country Office are currently working on statistics for additional Gender Alerts on health impacts as well as protection issues brought on by the conflict in Gaza.

“It’s about being able to unveil a more multifaceted story of severe humanitarian suffering and trauma at scale,” says Mikhail Eldhagen. “We have contributed to the humanitarian response by highlighting the gender-specific needs of different groups. We continue bringing awareness and evidence, for public awareness, yes, but equally for these data to be used in designing the operational response on the ground.”

Gender inequality isn’t always easy to illustrate, or present in a way that touches, moves and mobilizes people. To make the invisible more visible, 50 youth, women’s civil society representatives, government officials, media professionals, data experts and activists from across North Macedonia took part in a Gender Data Bootcamp held jointly with the School of Data NGO in September 2023 in Izmir, Türkiye.

After learning about data analysis, interpretation, visualization and communication, and with continued mentorship, participants harnessed their collective creative juices by working in teams to create compelling and innovative gender data scripts and stories focused on gender equality and women’s rights. Following a competitive pitch, four videos and two infographics were selected for professional multimedia production and dissemination in 2024, based on their relevance to gender issues, depth of analysis and visual impact. Today, these standout products – showcased below – are helping to embed gender perspectives into national audit frameworks, fuel youth-led campaigns and spark civil society initiatives on social norms, care work and gender-based violence – reaching thousands and inspiring action across the country.

Data Miners Team

Treading the elusive path to justice in North Macedonia

Despite a 61% increase in domestic violence complaints from 2018 to 2022, only 24% of cases went to court, with prison sentences dropping from 3% in 2019 to just 1% in 2022.

In response, the "Data Miners" team, consisting of State Audit Office (SAO) government officials and civil society activists, analysed gender data and produced an infographic to unveil the stark realities of domestic violence and access to justice in North Macedonia.

For Blagoj Angelovski and Nadica Donevski from the SAO, the Bootcamp catalysed a mindset shift.

“I used to think of data purely as a technical tool – now I see how, when presented clearly and visually, it can drive public engagement and institutional change,” says Angelovski. “We’ve started discussing how to look at audit findings not only from a legal or financial perspective but also in terms of how policies impact women and men differently. That’s a big shift for us.”

Donevski adds: “I gained a deeper understanding of how gender data can be used not only for analysis but for advocacy. It helped me learn new ways to present complex data visually and communicate it in a way that’s accessible to broader audiences.”

The infographic gained substantial traction, reaching over 8,100 people after being published on the SAO and UN Women website and social media, being distributed directly to more than 1,200 stakeholders and getting picked up by more than 15 media outlets.

As a result of a long-term partnership with UN Women in North Macedonia and the Women Count Europe and Central Asia Regional Programme, the SAO has begun formalizing the use of gender-disaggregated data in its audit processes. Today, Donevski and Angelovski are not only embedding gender into public audits, they’re helping shape a more inclusive and equitable auditing culture.

After the Bootcamp, the SAO regularly incorporates gender-disaggregated data and data storytelling as powerful tools in their audits to drive public engagement and effectively advocate for gender-responsive public institutions. So far, the SAO has completed two gender-focused audits – on governmental measures for gender equality and empowering rural women in the labour market – with another audit of gender-based violence services underway. SAO has also developed internal guidelines on integrating gender into auditing practices, so it becomes a standard approach.

7 Days Team

How is childcare keeping women out of the workforce in North Macedonia?

Although more than a quarter (27%) of unemployed women say they aren’t looking for a job because they need to take care of children, and more than 6% of women have quit their jobs for this reason, no men report quitting their jobs to care for their children.

These statistics are highlighted in an infographic created by the “7 Days” team of civil society activists and researchers. The infographic, which reached over 8,000 people, sheds light on the impact of childcare responsibilities on women’s labour force participation and offers data-driven solutions to advocate for investing in the daycare, redistributing care and reconfiguring work.

For Svetlana Papachek, Deputy President of the local CSO Women’s Organization of Bitola, the Bootcamp was a turning point. The skills she gained in data analysis and visualization now shape her daily work – from developing projects and engaging decision-makers to supporting resource mobilization for her organization.

One initiative she co-led after the Bootcamp addresses period poverty among high school girls. Drawing on data about access to menstrual products, her team rolled out a project addressing period poverty by raising awareness and increasing access to products. As part of this effort, they installed menstrual product dispensers at the medical high school in Bitola – a city with a high number of students from vulnerable communities.

Looking ahead, Papachek and her team are now preparing a formal proposal to the municipality to ensure a regular supply of menstrual products in all secondary schools, or subsidies for students at social risk. “The Bootcamp didn’t just teach us how to work with data,” she says. “It showed us how to use it to drive real, lasting change.”

Intersectional Feminists Team

#FlipThePage: What do schools teach girls and boys in North Macedonia?

“Women should take care of the home and children.”

“Men should earn more than women.”

“Women should obey men.”

These are just a few of the messages recalled by over 1,000 women surveyed in 2020, reflecting the gender norms they encountered during their formal education.

In response, the “Intersectional Feminists” – a team of gender advocates and journalists – analysed these and other data during the Bootcamp and launched the #FlipThePage campaign to challenge traditional gender roles and stereotypes conveyed through North Macedonia’s education system. Through a series of animated videos, the campaign exposed how traditional narratives around childcare, domestic roles and public life continue to shape the aspirations and life choices of girls and women. With a reach of at least 1,600 people on social media, the videos helped spotlight the urgent need for gender-responsive education systems.

Inspired by the #FlipThePage videos, team member Sara Milenkovska and her fellow collaborators  – now part of the Stella Network – launched the “Be a Wonder Girl” campaign to empower girls to believe in themselves and defy gender stereotypes.

“Using gender statistics and data storytelling skills, we created various campaign assets, including billboards, art exhibitions, comic illustration contests, theatre performances and infographics,” says Milenkovska.

The campaign aimed to advocate for mentorship programmes for approximately 16,000 young girls in all 108 high schools across North Macedonia.

“We’re thrilled that, as a result of the campaign, the Ministry of Education has granted access to schools for our mentorship programme,” she adds. “This initiative will foster personal growth, empowerment and academic success for young women and girls, while raising awareness about the gender stereotypes and inequalities they encounter throughout their academic and professional journeys.”

Fellow team member, Marta Tanevska, a journalist and writer, similarly found a new direction following the Bootcamp. After co-developing the #FlipthePage campaign of animated videos, she wrote a data-rich story for the Platform for Investigative Journalism and Analyses (PINA), a local CSO and media outlet, on how stereotypes impact women’s career choices and an investigative story about women being fired before taking maternity leave, sparking significant public interest.

She shared how the Bootcamp mentorship in 2024 then further helped her develop long-term communications and advocacy skills: “The mentors helped me shape big ideas into something that could actually be done – whether it’s one article or one campaign.”

Waterfall Team

Charting change - how gender data is shaping research and academia

Despite progress in women’s participation in the labour market, the gender employment gap has remained unchanged over the past decade. Women aged 20 to 64 have an employment rate 18 percentage points lower than men. Seven out of 10 inactive individuals aged 15–64 are women, and half of them are outside the labour force due to household responsibilities – a reason no men cited.

Researchers and civil society activists from the “Waterfall” team highlighted these findings while analysing the gender employment gap in North Macedonia. Although their data product was not selected during the pitching phase, the insights generated – and the skills and knowledge gained through the Bootcamp – were later applied in academic settings, enriching both research and curricula with more robust gender data and analysis.

As a teaching assistant at the University American College Skopje, Stefan Tanevski has started using gender data and visualizations in his statistics lectures, research and blogging. One of his recent co-authored policy studies explores how the structural and cultural barriers and gender stereotypes affect women’s labour force participation in North Macedonia. The key findings of the study were presented at a public discussion with civil society organizations, journalists and gender advocates to bridge the gap between research and policy dialogue, with an overarching goal of advancing gender-sensitive labour market reforms in the country.

“The Bootcamp was instrumental in strengthening my understanding of gender-disaggregated data and the broader implications of gender inequality in the labour market,” he reflects. “The Bootcamp equipped me with practical data analysis and presentation skills, which I directly applied… I created visualizations that helped communicate the hidden burden of unpaid work and raise awareness on the issue,” says Tanevski.

His research gained traction after being presented at a public discussion hosted by a leading think tank. Following the event, several journalists picked up the story, publishing articles that sparked public dialogue on unpaid domestic work and its economic implications.

He has also embraced new data visualization tools learned at the Bootcamp, such as Datawrapper, which he now uses to create engaging visuals for both teaching and his blog, The Econ Digest, where he published an article on women’s labour force participation.

“In the two core undergraduate modules I teach – Statistics and Introduction to Finance – I consistently emphasize gender-based heterogeneity in data analysis, such as illustrating the gender gap in financial literacy,” says Tanevski.

All the final products from the Bootcamp were widely disseminated via well-known local media platforms, civil society and academic networks, and actively promoted on social media, reaching at least 41,300 people.

The Gender Data Bootcamp was organized in collaboration with the School of Data NGO under a Gender Equality Facility project by the UN Women Office in North Macedonia, funded by Sweden and the Women Count regional programme in Europe and Central Asia.

The views expressed in the developed products are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of UN Women, the United Nations or any of its affiliated organizations. 

Aisha had escaped poverty in rural Bangladesh through skills training and livelihoods support. However, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns shuttered her husband’s barbershop for extended periods, driving the family into poverty as they were forced to rely on her small livestock business. Although the Government provided some support, medical treatment costs forced the family to drain their savings and sell assets.

Aisha’s story is, unfortunately, far from an exception in many low- and middle-income countries. The COVID-19 pandemic was just one among multiple recent global crises – ranging from food, fuel and financial crises, to climate-related disasters and violent conflict. In 2024, global extreme poverty rate, defined as living on less than USD $2.15 per person per day, was 9.8% for females compared to 9.1% for males. The need for universal, gender-responsive social protection systems is urgent in this context.

To inform UN Women’s report, World Survey on the Role of Women in Development 2024, an nalysis was undertaken to understand the relationship between gender, poverty dynamics and social protection amid crises in rural Bangladesh, Peru and Tanzania. The findings have been published as a discussion paper.

Households escaping poverty remain vulnerable to falling back in

Across all three countries, a significant proportion of households experience ‘transient poverty’ - either moving in and out of poverty regularly, or risk falling back in:

• In rural Bangladesh the share was 16% (against a USD $1.90/day poverty line)

• In Peru 33% of households were in transient poverty (based on a national poverty line of about US$3.47/day)
• In Tanzania, the share rose to 50% (using a relative poverty measure of the bottom two wealth brackets, or ‘quintiles’, covering the poorest 40% of the population).

Significantly, many households considered ‘never poor’ at their national poverty thresholds end up reclassified into transient or chronic poverty, when measured under more stringent global benchmarks. For example, if national poverty thresholds were increased by 50%, around half of the ‘never-poor’ population in rural Bangladesh, Peru and Tanzania would be classified as chronically poor or transient poor. These proportions are even higher when the reference poverty lines are doubled.

These findings point to considerable underlying and often chronic risk and vulnerability across the three countries.

Yet, in spite of this chronic risk and vulnerability, social protection coverage remains low. The COVID-19 pandemic did spur a surge in social protection responses and gender-sensitive measures to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. But low coverage and value meant that few households were able to benefit from them and emerge resilient from such shocks. Perhaps as a result, households more often relied on support from friends and family than government assistance in times of crisis, but these sources of informal support may dry up when entire communities are affected by crises.

Five ways to forge pathways out of poverty

1. Strengthen social protection programmes. International agencies and national actors must step up to improve social protection coverage, adequacy and inclusiveness to help tackle chronic poverty and prevent downward income mobility.
2. Make social services affordable: Pro-poor provision of social services can eliminate the need for households to rely on one form of financial support (such as on Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Tanzania) to offset the costs of an entitlement (e.g. school access, often through paying for ‘user costs’ even when education is free).
3. Increase women’s resources and agency: Broader social and economic support is needed for households in and near poverty, and women within them. In the face of shocks, women’s resources (e.g., education levels, ownership of phones or financial accounts) and agency within and outside of the household (e.g., right to sell land, comfort in speaking up on public needs) are critical to household resilience.
4. Focus on assets and livelihoods support: Supporting these drivers would require measures that increase women’s asset ownership and land tenure rights, alongside efforts to prevent reversals in these rights during crises. Diversified livelihood support and skills-building interventions for women like Aisha could also help (re)build their assets and income before, during and after crises.
5. Increase inclusion and responsiveness: The responsiveness of programmes through such ‘social protection plus’ programming needs to be improved. This requires considering the ways women’s resilience can be built before crises by, for example, improving their access to financial services, facilitating the redistribution of care work and supporting women’s and girls’ empowerment and economic recovery after crises.

Taken together, these measures have the potential to create more equitable and sustained pathways to zero poverty during times of crises.