Equality Insights

Joanne Crawford has worked at the intersection of research, public policy and advocacy, across government, civil society and universities. She is currently Special Adviser to the Equality Insights Program at International Women's Development Agency (IWDA).

Her commitment to IWDA’s work advancing and protecting the rights of women and girls in all their diversities has taken different forms: as Board member, Vice President, volunteer, employee, consultant, and interim Executive Director. She has also held senior policy roles with the Australian Government’s Office for the Status of Women and the Australian Agency for International Development.

Joanne led the growth of IWDA’s research and policy arm, including its long-term commitment to transform how poverty is measured, to make visible the relationship between gender and poverty. She has made a sustained contribution to the Australian development sector’s efforts to strengthen the focus on gender equality, and on evidence-based policy and practice. 

Global commitments have been made to reduce poverty.  Data is needed by governments, global and local institutions, philanthropy and others that determine policies and allocate funds. However, existing data, captured at the household level, masks the diverse lived realities of individuals and does not reflect how multiple barriers - eg gender, age, disability, ethnicity, geography - interact to deepen disadvantage. 

To end poverty, achieve gender equality and leave no one behind, poverty data about individuals is essential.

  Equality Insights has the methodology. By surveying every adult in a household, and asking questions about their day-to-day lives, Equality Insights’ survey collects primary data to reveal the particular challenges faced by diverse men and women.  It shows where action can make the most impact. Underpinned by twelve years of research and development, it is ready to take to scale.  

Existing global poverty measures are not fit for purpose, obscuring the lived realities of billions of poor women and men, and making it harder to address both poverty and gender inequality.

Global poverty figures currently report the number of people in poverty. They cannot tell national and global decision-makers the answer to two key questions. How many women are poor? Are women poorer than men, overall?  

This is extraordinary. Because data is collected about households, not individuals, it cannot be disaggregated. Obscuring the circumstances of individuals and social groups, including women, makes it more difficult to end poverty, by masking who experiences it, where, to what extent.

Assessing the poverty of households and assuming everyone living in the same household experiences the same circumstances also systematically underestimates the extent of global poverty and inequality; around a third of global inequality is estimated to sit inside households.

Current measures of poverty also focus on money or a narrow range of other factors such as health and education. While important, our research shows that people with lived experience name a much wider range of factors that keep them poor and which need to change to move out of poverty. 

To better understand poverty and inequality and to focus action where it can make most difference, Equality insights provides a new, individual level, gender-sensitive measure of poverty,

Underpinned by a twelve year, multi-stage multi-partner research and development program, Equality Insights is now tested and ready for global use.

We’re ready to move towards scale by:

• Engagement: shifting expectations about what constitutes adequate measurement of poverty
• Demonstrating Impact:  developing and launching our prototype technology platform, to make it easy to use existing data; and build demand
• Innovation: accelerating data collection by reducing the logistic, cost and time demands. This will be through iterating two new survey variants; a shorter set and a self-complete version

There is an emerging international consensus about the need for individual disaggregated poverty data, in order to target scarce resources. COVID-19 has only made this more pressing. One reason household-level poverty measurement has persisted is lack of a feasible alternative.

Equality Insights has resolved this. At a cost comparable with other multi-topic poverty-measurement surveys, it offers more accurate, granular and inclusive individual-level data about 15 social, economic and environmental dimensions. The resulting insights support targeted, transformative action on poverty and inequality. Now, to scale.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed by 193 countries, includes goals to end poverty (SDG1), achieve gender equality (SDG5) and reduce inequalities (SDG10), plus an overarching commitment to leave no one behind. Realizing these commitments requires the individual-level, gender-sensitive, multidimensional poverty data Equality Insights provides.

Ultimately, Equality Insights serves the hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. We know EI measures what matters to poor women and men because it is grounded in their views.  Making their circumstances visible in data makes targeted, transformative action possible. 

Further beneficiaries are those with commitment to these goals: advocates and decision makers in organisations of all kinds. Equality insights data provides the evidence to demand, and focus efforts for greater impact.  In countries where data is available, it is being used to inform COVID_19 planning.

Our Solomon Islands video example shows how we work, engaging with civil society, multilateral and government stakeholders in planning and implementation. As we develop our technology platform for partner access to upload data and public access to results and visualization, they will increasingly have access to tools for transformative change.

Addressing poverty and inequality are global priorities. Dominant approaches to poverty measurement hide the circumstances of individuals experiencing it, and how this varies.

Household-level measures continue to be used because there hasn’t been an alternative. But the flaws in this data hinder genuine efforts to transform poverty and inequality.  

We’ve developed and tested an alternative. Now our focus is increasing awareness by energizing the momentum for change and driving action by making available the tools for change.

If what is needed to transform a problem doesn’t exist, the first step is to build it.

In 2007 I was approached about IWDA joining an international research collaboration to develop a new measure of poverty, because existing approaches made it impossible to know about the circumstances of women.

As an economist and gender advocate I knew this mattered. I secured support for IWDA to make its largest ever commitment of community raised funds and collaborated on the first stage of the project in partnership with the Australian National University (ANU), the Philippines Health Social Science Association, University of Colorado at Boulder, Oxfam Great Britain (Southern Africa), Oxfam America and Oslo University, the Australian Research Council and other partners. We named it the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM).

I then secured Australian Government support for a first study using the measure, with the Fiji Bureau of Statistics. Advocacy of the measure’s potential secured further Australian Government investment in a partnership between IWDA and the ANU, to ready the measure for global use. This was completed in June 2020. Now re-branded as Equality Insights and ready to move to scale, I remain hugely excited about the work and realising its potential.

Growing up in a family building a new Australian TV industry, I saw the impact of focusing on wider public benefit, not just business success. I learned that change requires demonstrating what is possible, creating an enabling policy environment, making the case, addressing barriers and building capacity to sustain.

At University, I combined studies in economics, politics and international relations with leadership in the peace movement, bringing analysis and action together. I am motivated, not daunted, by public policy problems. I have seen that change is possible when you combine research, evidence, advocacy and action and embed innovation in policy and practice.

In the Federal Office for the Status of Women, working on Australia’s Report to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, I understood that sex-disaggregated data was vital to understand the circumstances of women’s lives. In 2003, at IWDA, I convened academic-practitioner dialogue on opportunities and challenges of gender mainstreaming. In 2006, an international symposium on the challenges of measuring progress towards gender equality.

In 2007, this work and personal networks led to an opportunity to create an alternative poverty measurement as the foundation for wider change. I’m still energized by this challenge.

I’ve sat inside government and seen the challenges of addressing a problem without data showing its scope and scale.

Motivating and focusing action is more difficult. Data is essential. But it is also not sufficient.

With training in economics and politics, experience across government, academia and civil society, a working life focused on progressing gender equality through policy and practice change, and sustained involvement in building sector architecture to support improved policy and practice, I know change takes commitment, collaboration, persistence, innovation and iteration.

I have been involved with Equality Insights/IDM since its inception. The team built a new measure of poverty from the ground up, combining the views of women and men with lived experience of poverty, with gender and development and poverty measurement expertise.

I believe in Equality Insights. I know it intimately. I have chased both dollar and pro bono support multiple times.  I’ve made it through many setbacks with my focus intact.  I have seen the excitement of policy makers and advocates at what the data reveals. And I work within a unique organisation that has partnership and collaboration as its modality of work towards systemic change.

Developing something from scratch involves constant problem-solving, collaborating with others to think through and resolve each new challenge. The challenges expand as the work develops and your knowledge and experience deepens.

When the budget for the foundational research to develop the IDM was exhausted I mobilized volunteer resources to edit and design the final research report, and collaborated with the Australian NGO sector, and then the Australian Government, to resource its launch in Australia in 2014 and at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2015 respectively.

I secured the financial backing of IWDA to continue mobilizing resources to move the IDM into use, drawing on individual and institutional relationships with gender advocates inside government and IWDA’s reputation in Fiji to secure funding for a first use study in Fiji.

When differences in style, approach, rhythms and risk appetite across partners created challenges, I worked with colleagues to enable shifts in my role to align strengths with evolving priorities. When a changing political environment in one country meant we were at risk of not delivering, I problem-solved with colleagues to pause and pivot, bringing forward pipeline work which we could deliver. Focus on key goals not specific pathways.

Leadership demands different things at different times. In the social space, real leadership often starts with working collaboratively to name a problem that is invisible to others and invest in solutions to problems others haven't yet decided to tackle. Then persisting over time, seeing opportunities, taking them, convincing others to come with you. It is rarely a single moment, more a way of being.

Equality Insights/IDM has been a 12-year journey of personal and organisational leadership, which has sometimes had me leading work, enabled by a committed organisation, at other times, stepping back to enable others when different skills and expertise are needed.

Sometimes leadership is best illustrated by the actions of others. A phone call just before Christmas 2015 when a bureaucrat called for an update on the IDM. After outlining with excitement what was emerging from first use of the IDM in Fiji, she said simply: we buy your vision and want to be part of it. What do you need?

Wicked problems do not have single, simple solutions. They demand sustained vision, integrity, expertise, hard graft and persistence, building the trust that enables others to take risks. 

Innovation might be described as ‘the work of knowing rather than doing’. But it is ‘doing’ work that typically provides the knowledge that ‘there must be a better way’. Sometimes “change that create a new dimension of performance” first requires developing a new approach. This is the Equality Insights story.  

• It is the first measure of poverty to be grounded in the views of people with lived experience of poverty. It started by actually asking people who are poor how they would define and measure poverty - what kept them poor, what needed to change to be not-poor
• It is the first multidimensional poverty measure that measures at the individual level, so it can be disaggregated to show differences between individuals and social groups, including inside households, where a third of global inequality lives. In 2016, the 7th Global Forum on Gender Statistics recognized it as one of three emerging innovations in the field
• It is now trialed and rigorously tested and ready for use 

 Our future plans focus on innovations to survey delivery models to reduce logistical and cost barriers to use, and innovations in access, through a technology platform, to build usability and demand.

Equality Insights believes that what sustains poverty is not individuals but systems. As such, our work is not focused on addressing the symptomatic experience of unjust systems, which is felt by individuals, but rather, to shift the foundations on which unjust and unequal systems are able to be perpetuated.

Measuring poverty at individual level does not translate neatly to an immediate, positive impact for individuals. Instead, it provides the data that decision-makers and change-agents need to see poverty’s impact on different social groups. By making this visible it is possible to see how current resource allocations, policy and programming may be exacerbating rather than abating these circumstances. And it means there is evidence from which to better allocate resources, policy and programs for meaningful improvement.

At the point of uptake and use of Equality Insights data, our initiative has the potential to create meaningful change for entire populations (Fiji: ~883,000; Solomon Islands ~653,000). Our vision to use at scale is informed by the diffusion of innovation theory - view here: tinyurl.com/yd4ros88

Next year we anticipate work with the 2.5% of the market (in this case lower income and middle income countries (total 77) that fall into the ‘innovators’ category (~2). Within 5 years we anticipate work with the 13.5% that fit the category of ‘early adopters’ (up to 10). Where readiness exists will influence the number of people directly impacted by our project.

1 Year Goals:

1. Equality Insights data is informing policy, programming and resource allocations in Fiji and Solomon Islands
2. Two ‘innovator’ countries are actioning their commitment to gender-sensitive poverty measurement with data collections with Equality Insights underway
3. Equality Insights data is resourcing women’s rights organisations in Fiji and Solomon Islands with evidence to act on gendered barriers to poverty eradication

Goals 1 and 2 will be achieved by a continuation of activity already underway and drawing on partnerships and networks that already exist. We will focus on activities in the update, use and impact end of the data value chain. See tinyurl.com/yat5oj7z  

Goal C will be about servicing existing, unmet demand for our work.

5 Year Goals:

1. An integrated technology system underpins wide spread use and access of available Equality Insights data
2. It is widely accepted at the global level that poverty measurement that is gender-unaware is not sufficient and that Equality Insights is a tested and robust alternative
3. The Equality Insights survey has been adapted for use in different contexts (self-complete, shorter, fragile settings) to expand the reach and use of the data by a wider set of actors –reaching into the ‘early majority’ users in the diffusion of innovation theory
4. There is evidence of significant uptake and use by both decision-makers and change agents in all countries where it has been implemented
5. Equality Insights operates with a sustainable business model

Financial: for the past 12 years we have been a grant-receiving initiative and we need to identify a multi-faceted business model to resource core costs and ongoing activities.

Technical 1: As it stands our tool is a multi-topic survey where data is collected by enumeration. This is an expensive, and in the COVID context, increasingly difficult and slow, way to collect data.

Technical 2: Data that is not available for people to access and explore via the internet provides little value for stakeholders who cannot use it to address their own needs or answer their own questions. Political: Existing data enables the ability to compare over time and across countries which is a powerful incentive to continue collecting data using existing systems rather than innovate to overcome limitations. 

Political: Existing data enables the ability to compare over time and across countries which is a powerful incentive to continue collecting data using existing systems rather than innovate to overcome limitations. 

Financial: Support with developing our business model is part of our motivation for applying. We need a business model that supports a blended finance arrangement. Grants will continue to be part of our approach (currently one application with the Australian Government for $2mill/18 months) coupled with a fee-for-service approach to being contracted as technical advisors or support for data collection and analysis.

Technical 1: We want to develop a variant of the tool that can complement enumerated data by enabling self-completion via internet or mobile phone. We are in the process of seeking specific resources (both financial and in-kind skills) to progress this.

Technical 2: We have developed a prototype of a data visualisation platform. We have also developed an internal, analysis support tool using open source software “R” and “Shiny.” We are in the later stages of negotiating with a significant technology provider for probono support to develop a technology platform that makes Equality Insights data and analysis accessible while addressing privacy and security.

Political: We intend to build a market for gender sensitive poverty data and to position Equality Insights as a standard within that market. This is a motivation for applying for the Elevate Prize. We envision a globally significant network of champions who can speak to the limitations of existing approaches and to use evidence of alternatives to build the case for why innovations are needed to ensure no one is left behind. 

• UN World Food Programme 
•  Dignity Pasifik
• Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
• The Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Our DFAT program concludes on 31 July 2020 with an application for further program work under review. Regardless of a further funding relationship, the Equality Insights survey is underpinned by 12 years of research and development funded by the Australian Government, and their focus on gender equality and gender data will continue to be an overlapping ambition that brings us into policy contact.

Equality Insights’ business model is in transition. This is a key area where we feel the suite of support offered by the Elevate Prize can assist us to go to the next level. Initial underpinning research was a commitment of publicly raised funds by IWDA.  This then generated interest from the Australian Government who have supported development of the tool to ready for global use through grant funding until 2020.  Smaller continuing contributions still likely. IWDA’s publicly fund-raised commitment has continued alongside that of partners along the journey including ANU. More recently we’ve partnered with UN Agency World Food Programme for data collection and analysis in the Solomon Islands.  So to date, largely institutional funding. 

As we move into the next phase under our new brand, a business model which provides value is a key priority. Our beneficiaries are people who are poor, who are currently made invisible by prevailing poverty measurement systems.  So for income, our business model needs to engage those who have made a global commitment to leave no-one behind. The rationale is compelling and widely supported; there is momentum for change.  This places our viable and tested methodology and suite of survey options and analytical tools right where it needs to be. Our social impact is clear and as we move towards a market-business model we see profits will be reinvested towards that goal.

At present we continue to pursue the grant/award funding opportunities which have enabled Equality Insights development to date. There is potential for further Australian government support, and potential for Low/Middle income countries to pay for Equality Insights survey and analytical work in their countries, usually through bilateral and multilateral funding arrangements. There is now also potential from large philanthropy; those who support the Sustainable Development Goals, gender equality and intersecting rights.  This is mostly US or Europe-based and we face some disadvantage with access, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In all these cases, negotiations are lengthy and require a baseline of operational capacity to sustain. Whilst we anticipate revenue will continue to come from governments and multilateral institutions, including our current partner the World Food Programme, our viability will be enhanced by developing a social business model for our work, which encompasses both the organisational structure of Equality Insights within the nfp structure of IWDA, and the resource strategy to do our work.  

1. Source: Goverment / Amount: $802,646.21 / Type: Grant, year 4 of 4

2. Source: Multilateral / Amount: $170,000 / Type: Contract for services

3. Source: University / Amount: $20,700 / Type: Contract for services

4. Source: IWDA / Amount: $36,570 / Type: Organizational Contribution

As outlined above, the Equality insights project is at a pivot point in terms of business model, and so there are a range of sustainability/business pathways.

Current funds will support the development of a shorter survey variant, and pending probono support will enable the development of our technology platform to allow input of data and public visibility and use.

From 2021, the project needs include:

• A baseline of operational revenue, ideally around USD 315k.  This will allow us to retain the management, policy, advocacy, data analysis, communications, digital platform management capacity, and the structures and processes of quality implementation and continuous improvement
• Funds to develop our business model and processes and structures to support scale
• We seek somewhere in the range of USD 350k to develop a self-complete survey version, which will reduce barriers of cost and logistics of survey work, particularly in the pandemic environment
• Resources to undertake data collection and analysis in additional countries: USD 310K and upwards
• Resources to develop and undertake training, to build team capacity to conduct and analyse data in line with growing data collection
• Resources to build the capacity of Women’s Rights Organisations to use Equality Insights data for advocacy: USD 135k
• Resources for a network of champions, to grow momentum and support political will: USD 320k
• Resources for an advisory group, to extend the expertise available to the program and support ongoing engagement with relevant institutions and initiatives: USD 30k

2020 budget (USD)

Data collection and analysis:  $385,532

Technology platform:  $122,616

Strategic engagement and communications:  $215,733

Project management and oversight:  $99,985

Personnel and consultants: $773,320

Monitoring, evaluation and learning (final year of a 4 year program): $82,628

Management fee: $233,868

I am applying for The Elevate Prize because I believe in Equality Insights, its importance, the significance of the problem it is overcoming, and the potential to extend the public value that has been created through its development to date.

We have a ground-breaking, and tested methodology and the vision and commitment to carry it forward to accelerate action on poverty and gender inequality. I have seen the excitement about this data, and the new insights it provides. With the tool ready for global use, and support from the World Food Programme and IWDA for work to December 2020, we are at a tipping point. We need to pivot to a market-facing, expansive orientation, and move towards scale.

Breakthrough ideas can wither on the vine for lack of support at the right time. Not this one, if I can help it!

The Elevate Prize is the right opportunity at the right time will enable the project to:

• Develop a multi-faceted business model that supports a blended financing approach
• Map markets for our survey variants, so when a self -complete version is resourced we can promote it effectively.
• Expand our visibility: as we build a market for gender sensitive poverty data and position Equality Insights
• Assist in aim to build a globally significant network of champions who can speak to the value of Equality Insights to ensure no one is left behind.  

And for myself, to be challenged by new mentors and ideas. I am always ready for that.

We have significant organisational partnership experience and from that we know we want to work with partners that are aligned, who share our commitment to change, with capacity to be adaptive, flexible and iterative. We have seen the value of this in some partnerships, and experienced the drag when it is absent.

We seek partners to complement our areas of skill and knowledge.  Sometimes this will be in a mentorship framework, to extend our capacity; sometimes this is to access new areas of skill and knowledge. Development of a new business model will require changes in approach and business systems; here we seek partners who can help us confidently reframe our thinking and ways of working alongside those business changes.

We want to partner with

• Business, university or consulting organisations that have experience in taking initiatives to scale. This is new territory for IWDA, and the Elevate Prize presents an important opportunity for new connections. 
• Large philanthropics, because we see the potential of Equality Insights to provide a baseline and a tool for monitoring the impact of their initiatives on the wider community.
• Aid donors that are gender equality advocates – Sweden, Australia, Canada, France – to use Equality Insights as a baseline tool to inform country strategies and assess the impact of these over time.
• Large consulting firms, who understand the market potential of understanding and meeting the needs of the bottom billion
• Technical data specialists, data governance knowledge holders such as GovLab, and data for good advocates such as Open Data Watch, DataKind, Data2X, and EqualMeasure 2030
• Regional and global multilateral entities, that can facilitate integration of the Equality Insights into existing frameworks, as we have seen with the Pacific Roadmap for Gender Statistics  Organisations that are ready to use or ready to advocate.