Many women have mentors, but far fewer have sponsors and that gap often explains why brilliance doesn’t always translate into career advancement. Have you ever used mentorship and sponsorship interchangeably? It is common to confuse the two, but they are different, and women need both to grow in their careers. Mentorship is guidance: someone teaching you, sharing their experience, and helping you find your footing. Sponsorship is advocacy: someone using their influence to speak up for you in rooms you haven’t entered yet. A mentor prepares you for opportunity. A sponsor positions you for opportunity. A mentor will tell you how to get ready; a sponsor will ensure your name comes up when it counts. Take Susan, for example. She works in a tech company and has a mentor who has taught her how to handle tough clients, speak confidently, and manage her time. The mentorship has helped her improve, but growth built only on advice is just half the work. One day, there is an opening for a n...

Equality in global development is non-negotiable but in many conversations, the focus just stops at the gender. Did you know that gender is not enough? A person who lives in a rural area will face different challenges from those who live in the city. This reveals one uncomfortable truth many people haven’t come to terms with: people are more than their gender identities. They will face challenges based on where they live, their ethnicity, their religion, and even their disability. That is why we need to consider intersectionality. Intersectionality helps us understand how these identities, combined affect people’s lives. For example, in many African countries, women in rural areas struggle to access proper health care because gender inequality intersects with poverty, geography, and social exclusion. Add disability to this mix, and a woman is likely to face even steeper barriers to education, employment, and mobility even when development programs are designed “for women.” When develop...

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie When people talk about research, they often think it’s neutral and unbiased. However, anyone who has studied gender issues knows that sometimes that’s not the case. It is the person holding the pen who writes what we read, what is dismissed, and what becomes the accepted truth. The one who writes history is very important, a lesson I began to understand more during my studies and gender advocacy work. Although women’s experiences are mentioned, their stories are often downplayed. This reminds me of Hidden Figures, where Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe brought to life stories that had been overlooked. I didn’t know these women until Margot Lee Shetterly’s book was adapted into a Hollywood movie. It tells the story of NASA’s most intense period of the space race. They ...

I love giving gifts, and when I do, I try to choose something the person will genuinely value. I pay attention. I listen to what they say, what they reach for, what matters to them. That is how thoughtful giving works. You do not guess, you learn. International aid should follow that same principle. Good intentions are not enough. Too often, aid arrives like a guest bearing a beautiful gift but forgetting to ask the host what they actually need. This gap becomes even more obvious in programmes designed for women. Many initiatives truly want to help, yet they sometimes miss the mark because it is impossible to support people whose lived realities you have not taken the time to understand. You cannot solve a problem if you do not know where the pressure sits. Take a simple example: an organisation installs a modern water pump in a rural community. The technology is impressive, but the women who fetch water know the stream dries up every August. No one asked them. So, the pump stops worki...

When national development is brought up, it is often restricted to roads, technology, or new industries. While these things are relevant and necessary for national development, I strongly believe we need to focus a bit more on education. Education empowers people to build, maintain, and improve systems, technology and industries. Without proper education, you can’t achieve these and more on a sustainable level. Nothing affects national development more than innovation and the preservation of knowledge, which is through learning. The people are the heart of a nation. So, if we are serious about development, we need to prioritize education and also make sure it’s inclusive, that is our education includes the boy child and the girl child. Both boys and girls matter, and history has shown that educating girls brings the strongest long-term results for any nation. This is because society already places a lot of responsibility on women and girls, giving them proper education will echo throug...

 ​In the current global ecosystem, the stakes for inclusive development have never been higher. UN Women reports that closing the global gender gap could provide a staggering $342 trillion boost to the global economy by 2050. Yet, at our current pace, the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 123 years to reach full parity. To bridge this gap, we must move beyond "wishful thinking" and accept gender mainstreaming as the primary vehicle for equity. ​Beyond the Surface: Why Mainstreaming Matters ​Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing how any planned action, including legislation, policies, or programs, affects people of all genders. It is ensuring that inclusion is the foundation of every initiative from the outset. ​When we ignore these intricacies, development fails. For example: ​Education: Increasing school enrollment without addressing gender-specific barriers to attendance leads to stagnant results. ​Finance: Loan programs designed without considering pr...

  There is a notion that a scholar’s job is to remain an observer, sitting in libraries collecting data and publishing journals that only experts read and appreciate. What is the point of studying and understanding the world if scholars aren’t using that knowledge to fix it? If the world is really going to be changed, academia and activism must unite and stop being mutually exclusive. What I am saying is that we need to stop leaving activism for others alone; scholars need to hop on. When a scholar gets out there, out of their classrooms, libraries, and research groups, and goes into the streets, they bring evidence and answers to the questions that trouble the average person. I am talking about the how’s and whys. It is almost like hitting a bullseye. Although academia and activism are two different worlds, each with its dos and don’ts, marrying the two is important because activism gives academia a soul. It shows researchers that behind every statistic is a human face. It also ma...