Research Rundown — Issue 2 (April 2025)

Published: April 27, 2025 Category: Climate Resilience | Gender Equity | Global Governance | Health Systems

Welcome to Issue 2 of Research Rundown! This edition focuses on gender-responsive climate policy, health equity tools, shifting global power dynamics, and communicating uncertainty in research.

Read the full April 2025 Issue on Substack

1. Gender-Responsive Climate Resilience

A report from the Global Commission on Gender and Climate arguing that climate adaptation plans consistently fail to account for gendered vulnerabilities. Women in low-income countries are disproportionately affected by climate shocks — through food insecurity, displacement, and loss of livelihoods — yet remain largely absent from adaptation decision-making.

Key takeaway: Climate resilience planning that ignores gender isn’t just inequitable — it’s less effective. The report’s GESI-integrated M&E toolkit provides a practical starting point for embedding gender into adaptation programmes.

2. WHO Health Equity Policy Toolkit

A 2024 toolkit from the World Health Organization designed to help policymakers design, implement, and monitor health policies through an equity lens. Includes step-by-step guidance for district-level planning, with indicators for tracking health inequalities across income, geography, gender, and ethnicity.

Key takeaway: Health equity is measurable. This toolkit moves the conversation from aspirational commitments to concrete, monitorable policy actions. Pair it with the WHO Health Inequality Monitor dashboard for data.

3. BRICS+ and Development Governance (CGD)

A Center for Global Development briefing examining how the expansion of BRICS (adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) is reshaping development finance and governance. Analyses the implications for multilateral institutions, aid flows, and the rules-based international order.

Key takeaway: The development landscape is becoming more multipolar. Researchers and practitioners need to understand new funding channels, shifting alliances, and what “de-westernisation” of development finance means in practice.

4. Visualising Uncertainty (ODI)

An ODI guide on how to communicate uncertainty in data visualisations — covering confidence intervals, scenario ranges, probabilistic forecasts, and the psychology of how audiences interpret (or misinterpret) uncertain information.

Key takeaway: Most dashboards and policy briefs present point estimates without uncertainty. This guide provides practical techniques for showing what we don’t know alongside what we do — critical for climate projections, programme evaluations, and any research used for decision-making.

Extended Notes

See THR June Edition Notes for source links and follow-up resources covering several of the same themes.