International Working Group for Health Systems Strengthening

Everyone loses when the opinions of qualified women are not heard and women are not involved in decision making.

BMJ Gender Diversity Group

As emerging leaders in global health, the IWG has asked members to reflect on their experiences as current and aspiring female leaders, and has further asked male members to reflect on their experiences as allies supporting female leadership. While work in public and global health overwhelmingly is represented by women, leadership in public health has a male majority. On this International Women’s day, we wish to reflect on this reality and ask ourselves how we can support and advance female leadership and create decision-making environments that are diverse and truly representative of the public health field.

As an organization, the IWG is committed to supporting female leadership, and in fact 75% of our steering committee leaders are women, and across the IWG, women make up 78% of the total representation. Placing women and minority communities in positions of power and shared decision-making is central to the values of the IWG. We hope that this can act as an inspiration to other organizations, and further hope that our reflections can spur more action to support leadership of women in public health.