Engaging in gender rights advocacy through research
The Gender Response is primarily a response to the current backlash targeted at gender equality, equal rights, and budget cuts in women’s health research.
Our think tank aims at leveraging evidence-informed advocacy to drive measurable change when it comes to accessibility, adequacy, and affordability of healthcare services for women and other gender minorities.
“Our aim is to not just close gender gaps, we aim to transform the systems that create them”
The founder Warda Batool is a gender rights advocate for the past decade and is currently a health systems and policy researcher. Her primary research focus is to analyse health interventions and national health policies through a gender lens and produce research outputs to inform policymakers, healthcare practitioners and gender rights activists.
She is currently engaged with the Commonwealth Youth Gender Equality Network as their Research and Policy Lead. In her role, she leads strategic policy development advancing gender equity across sectors, including health systems, nutrition, and policy. The role involves developing equity-oriented and gender-responsive policy recommendations addressing structural barriers and institutional inequalities based on country context
Previously, she worked with United for Global Mental Health and NCD Alliance as a Senior Research Assistant and Senior Research Assistant, respectively. Her research focused on health workforce optimization, addressing systemic barriers related to gender, mental health, and access to care, and integration of mental health and NCD care services.
