#WPSIndex
The Women, Peace and Security Index is the first global index bridging both women’s inclusion and access to justice, as well as security. Developed by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, the Index ranks 153 countries covering over 98 percent of the world’s population. Global indices such as this are a way to assess and compare progress against goals, by distilling an array of complex information into a single number and ranking. What is the potential in this new WPS index? Does it provide more than an opportunity to spotlight achievement and failure? Could it help identify routes to transformative change around a shared agenda for women’s inclusion, justice, and security?
About the speakers
Gary L Darmstadt, MD, MS, is Associate Dean for Maternal and Child Health, and Professor of Neonatal and Developmental Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Previously Dr Darmstadt was Senior Fellow in the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he led a cross-foundation initiative on Women, Girls and Gender, assessing how addressing gender inequalities and empowering women and girls leads to improved gender equality as well as improved health and development outcomes. Prior to this role, he served as BMGF Director of Family Health, leading strategy development and implementation across nutrition, family planning and maternal, newborn and child health. Darmstadt was formerly Associate Professor and Founding Director of the International Center for Advancing Neonatal Health in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Jeni Klugman is managing director at the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security, and a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University. She recently became a leading thinker with VicHealth, together with Professor Iris Bohnet, under an initiative that aims to make behavioral insights practical and accessible for the Victorian government, industry, and nonprofit organizations. Previously she served as director of gender and development at the World Bank, and director and lead author of three global Human Development Reports published by the UNDP. Klugman sits on several boards and panels, including for the World Economic Forum and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. She holds a PhD in economics from the Australian National University and postgraduate degrees in both law and development economics from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.
Anita Raj is a Tata Chancellor Professor of Medicine and the Director of UC San Diego's Center on Gender Equity and Health in the Department of Medicine. She is also a Professor of Education Studies in the Division of Social Sciences. Trained as a developmental psychologist, Dr. Raj’s research includes epidemiologic and qualitative assessment of gendered, social, and cultural vulnerabilities for reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health concerns across national settings; assessment of the etiology and public health impact of gender inequities including early and child marriage, intimate partner violence and sexual assault, and son preference; development and evaluation of HIV, unintended pregnancy, and gender-based violence prevention interventions in low resource settings and with socially vulnerable populations including as minorities, people contending with problem substance use, and youth; and application of social and behavioral theories, including gender theories, for measurement development and evaluation research.
Frances Stewart was Director of Oxford Department of International Development from 1993-2003 and Director of the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity at the department between 2003 and 2010. She has a DPhil from the University of Oxford and an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex. Among many publications, she is co author of UNICEF’s influential study, Adjustment with a Human Face (OUP 1987); War and Underdevelopment (OUP 2001); and leading author and editor of Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies (Palgrave, 2008). She has directed a number of major research programmes including several financed by the UK Government’s Department for International Development, and others by the Swedish Development Agency and the Carnegie Corporation. An Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, Frances has acted as consultant for early Human Development Reports; she has been President of the Human Development and Capability Association; President of the British and Irish Development Studies Association; Chair of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy and Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Paul Kirby (chair) is Assistant Professorial Research Fellow in the Centre for Women, Peace and Security.
Event recording
Listen to the recording of this event.
This event is the London launch of the Women, Peace and Security Index, developed by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo. Print copies of the report will be available at the event.