About Women in Global Health Norway

Established in 2018, WGH Norway was founded with the values of being a movement leading functions and activities that are relevant to the national context.

WGH Norway Launch, 2018 Photo: Øystein Horgmo, UiO

About Us

Women in Global Health Norway (WGH) Norway is initiated by a diverse group of professionals working in global health, from academics to practitioners, with varied global and interdisciplinary backgrounds. This national chapter is committed to gender parity in global health as a priority and committed to increasing the proportion of women in leadership positions in global health. WGH Norway creates a platform for discussion and collaborative space to connect, further strengthen and advocate for gender equality in global health within academia, public and private sectors. It fosters support and commitment from the global community and demands space for Gender Transformative Leadership. The WGH Norway team is composed of a Secretariat, currently hosted by the Centre for Global Health, University of Oslo, an Advisory Group, Special Counselors, and over 300 members.

Meet the WGH Norway Team

Vision To ensure a world that values women as leaders in global health and catalysts for better health for all. Mission To create enabling environments for gender parity and to promote gender-transformative leadership in global health for greater progress in achieving the SDGs and better health for all genders.

What We Want To Do

The overarching aims of WGH Norway include supporting women in global health and mitigating barriers that deter women from leadership roles in global health, nationally and globally. In order to achieve these aims, the initiative will focus on the following objectives:

Connect and network: WGH Norway will connect individuals from all over the country in a network to increase awareness of gender transformative policies and practices.
Mobilize and advocate for change: WGH Norway will be a platform to connect, further strengthen, and advocate for gender equality in global health leadership, and share strategies on how to inform leaders of health institutions about implicit gender bias.
Contribute to capacity development: WGH Norway will partner with a select number of WGH chapters in the Global South, and tailor leadership training and online courses to the members of the Norwegian chapter and its partners.
Contribute to the SDGs: WGH Norway aims to take a leading role in promoting cross-sectorial partnerships, collaboration, and dialogue among key stakeholders by organizing seminars and webinars about capacity development and strengthening gender equity in human resources in global health.

WGH Norway will have a distinct emphasis on the interplay of especially SDG 3 (good health), 4 (good education), and 5 (gender equality), while advancing the agenda of diverse, gender-balanced leadership.

Outcomes

By 2026 with the assistance and support from the WGH Norway Secretariat, Advisory Group and Special Counselors, WGH Norway will have:

Enhanced the national awareness of the need for gender equity in global health leadership
Established a national hub for global health and gender issues
Ensured larger, stronger, and more representative movements advocating for greater gender equity in global health leadership in partner chapters in the Global South
Contributed to the global agenda of diverse, gender-balanced global health leadership
Established itself as a national hub contributing to Agenda 2030 and the SDGs

Strengthening connections within the field of global health in Norway by:

connecting to a global movement that brings together all genders and backgrounds to achieve gender equality in global health leadership;
creating a focal point for opportunities for women in global health in Norway;
supporting selected sister-networks to build capacities for equal opportunities and women in leadership worldwide.

Background

WGH Global is an organization built on a global movement with the largest network of women and allies working to challenge power and privilege for gender equity in health. It is a US 501(c)(3) started in 2015, which has grown to include over 60,000 supporters in 90 countries and has 40 official chapters, with a strong presence in low-and middle-income countries. The global team and its network of chapters drive change by mobilizing a diverse group of emerging women health leaders, by advocating to existing global health leaders to commit to transform their own institutions, and by holding these leaders accountable.

Norway is considered to be one of the most gender equal countries in the world. However, several challenges to gender equality remain and new gender issues continue to surface. Norway has a unique opportunity and obligation to strive for full gender equality and equity, thereby being a model to countries with gross gender inequality. Gender equality is both a goal and a means to contribute to healthy lives for all, which is also key to achieving the SDGs.

Gender equality is furthermore regarded as instrumental for poverty reduction and development by the Norwegian government, and it is one of the four cross-cutting pillars of its development policy (the others being human rights, climate and the environment, and anti-corruption). The international gender composition of global health leadership, as well as the national gender gaps in income and leadership positions, underscore the importance of continued efforts towards greater gender equality. For example, in the field of international global health governance, women fill 25% of senior and 5% of top health organization positions, while making up 75% of the overall global health workforce (1). In Norway, the economic gap between men and women still exists. Looking at mean annual gross income, women in leadership positions earned 23% of men in 2020 (2). Furthermore, 36.8% of the top leaders in Norway are women, with even lower numbers in the private sector (3) , and though women are well represented among PhD and postdoctoral fellows, only 33.5% of the full professors at Norwegian universities are women (32% in 2019) (4).

1) WGH. Accessed 10. September 2020. https://womeningh.org/about/

2) SSB. Accessed 14 December 2021. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/11418/tableViewLayout1/

3) SSB. Accessed 14 December 2021. https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/likestilling/statistikk/indikatorer-for-kjonnslikestilling-i-kommunene

4)Kifinfo. Accessed 14 December 2021. https://kifinfo.no/en/content/statistics

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