Key Takeaways - Gender Statistics Africa and Arab States Roundtable for International Women's Day 2024

Gender data is driving change but more remains to be done for countries and partners to invest in the use of this data, increase political will, and foster stronger and wider collaboration to make women and girls count. This is one of the key takeaways from the Gender Statistics Africa and Arab States Roundtable held to mark International Women's Day 2024. The roundtable titled Gender Data: A Secure Investment for Accelerated Progress was held under the International Women's Day 2024 theme of Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress.

In this pre-IWD2024 roundtable event, Making Every Woman and Girl Count (Women Count), UN Women’s global gender data and statistics programme, convened sector actors to call for investing in women to accelerate progress through moderated discussions on: investing in gender data as a vehicle for driving change; prioritizing gender-responsive budgeting; shifting to a care society and implementing gender-responsive financing. The UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank (AfDB) provided continental perspectives while global gender data alliance Data 2X provided a global view of the status of investment in gender data and its importance for gender equality and women's empowerment (GEWE).

African award-winning media professionals provided fresh perspectives  on how gender data storytelling is amplifying gender issues on the continent and the prospects and opportunities for this important constituent to invest more in gender data as part of the media awareness and public watchdog role.