Dr. Joy Kiiru
Since March 2019, the University of Nairobi, led by Dr Joy Kiiru of the School of Economics, in collaboration with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and supported by UN-Women have worked together to build capacity for deeper analysis of gender statistics through support to graduate students’ research. This work is hosted under the “Making Every Woman and Girl Count” (Women Count); which is a flagship project of the UNWomen that seeks to address the urgent need to increase the availability of accurate information on gender equality and women's rights in order to inform policy and decision-making.
Through the project, sixteen Masters students from the Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African studies, African Women Studies Centre, Population Studies Research Institute and the School of Economics, received research grants to analyse gender statistics under three research themes:
- Women’s Sexual Reproductive Health,
- Economic Empowerment, and
- Gender Based Violence.
The pilot project had three critical components:
- Access to gender disaggregated data from KNBS
- Capacity building for gender statistics analysis and reporting
- Dissemination of gender research at national, regional and global levels
The Ultimate aim of the project was to build a pool of researchers in gender statistics by mentoring young scholars through the research grants and expert coaching.
Grantees were exposed to several high level policy and research gatherings either as presenters or as attendees. With support from UN-Women the project organised a high level event at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD+25) in November 2019. The result of that event was a high demand for some of the research to inform advocacy and policy. Several organisations came forward to request for specific write-ups and others offered opportunities to graduate students for more training on gender analysis.
The increased demand for the research output led to the current phase of the project. In 2020 with support from UNwomen the University of Nairobi and the other partners including Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and State Department of Gender will publish the research under the project in a peer reviewed compendium and policy briefs. A policy forum shall also be organised to disseminate the research.
