Doing gender better: can the UN step up?

Gender inequality and gender norms impede progress on the global goal to achieve health for all. The Lancet‘s 2019 theme issue on advancing women in science, medicine, and global health and now its new Series on gender equality, norms, and health provide updated evidence on the pervasiveness of gender inequities, unequal power dynamics, and other intersecting factors within society that often leave women disempowered, disenfranchised, and vulnerable. In their Series paper, Geeta Rao Gupta and colleagues remind us that the barriers to progress are primarily political, which gives the UN a distinct role to advocate for political commitment, ensure accountability to international instruments, and enable gender transformative implementation with the right tools, resources, and evidence.