As 2025 unfolds, the fight for women’s rights is confronting unprecedented threats. Hard-won rights for women and girls are being rolled back at an alarming pace, from restricted access to abortion care in the United States to Afghanistan’s silencing of women in public life and Iraq’s introduction of a law allowing girls as young as nine to be married. These developments signal a disturbing global trend. Now, more than ever, governments must be held accountable for their human rights commitments, including achieving gender equality.
In mid-March, thousands of women’s rights advocates, policymakers and leaders convened in New York for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the UN’s primary body dedicated to advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women. Established in 1946, CSW has played a crucial role in upholding women’s rights during times of crisis. But how can we effectively track progress and challenge inaction, without data?
Technology can be a powerful tool to drive accountability. We are developing a new digital dashboard which harnesses the power of AI to track the implementation of recommendations made by the CEDAW Committee. By tapping into the data amassed by the Committee since its inception 40 years ago this tool, the CEDAW Index, will provide real-time insights into whether governments are upholding their commitments to international women’s rights.
One of the most innovative aspects of the new CEDAW Index is its ability to assess a recommendation’s implementation status. While expert evaluators – including health and human rights specialists – oversee the process, AI models help identify patterns, flag inconsistencies, and accelerate analyses. This integration of technology with human expertise allows for faster, more comprehensive, and consistent monitoring of human rights implementation, with potential applications beyond women’s rights alone.
Beyond the numbers: harnessing AI to see the big picture
Gender data plays a critical role in identifying inequalities and informing law and policy reform. Traditional gender statistics tell us where disparities exist in health, education, economic opportunities, and public participation. However, they offer little insight into how government action – or inaction – is shaping these disparities over time.
The CEDAW Index systematically tracks whether governments follow through on their obligations, transforming vast amounts of qualitative data into accessible, actionable insights. It extracts information from government, CEDAW Committee, and civil society organisation (CSO) reports, categorising each recommendation based on the government’s response. This allows for a deeper understanding of where progress is being made – and where governments are failing to act.
Crucially, the CEDAW Index enables CSOs to comment on the implementation of each recommendation, ensuring that data reflects the realities faced by women on the ground, rather than government self-reporting alone. This feature will be particularly powerful in exposing failures of implementation while also highlighting best practices that can be replicated or adapted elsewhere.
Our analyses of past recommendations in 117 countries shows that governments implemented almost half of the law-related recommendations the Committee provided for four key groups. Further, some governments have transformed their approach to women’s rights, initially declining to implement CEDAW recommendations which they later enacted. Nepal increased penalties for marital rape from six months to five years, Angola updated its Penal Code to criminalise female genital mutilation, Bolivia legalised abortion in cases of rape and Lesotho introduced a Counter Domestic Violence Bill.
A critical moment for gender data and accountability
The 2025 CSW was a crucial opportunity to push for stronger accountability measures and advocate for more transparent monitoring and reporting of progress towards gender equality. As global pushback intensifies, the need for independent, evidence-based tools has never been greater. Research institutions and CSOs can provide objectivity, transparency and lived experience, offering a crucial check on government actions.
At CSW, we made the case for greater investment in comprehensive and transparent implementation data on women’s health-related human rights commitments. Without systematic tracking of government action, commitments to gender equality risk becoming empty promises.
Unlike the Sustainable Development Goals, CEDAW imposes legal obligations on ratifying countries. Additionally – like the CSW – CEDAW is an institution with enduring influence, ensuring its relevance and impact beyond the 2030 SDG Agenda. Tools like the CEDAW Index, coupled with sustained advocacy, form a powerful mechanism for driving meaningful change. We join scholars and advocates in calling for adequately funded gender data systems, ensuring women’s realities are accurately captured. In doing so, we give ourselves the best opportunity to hold governments accountable, push for stronger protections, and advance women’s rights worldwide.
Authors: Dr. Janani Shanthosh is a health and human rights consultant and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health. She is the lead developer of the CEDAW Implementation Map and CEDAW Index.
Georgia White is a Policy and Advocacy Advisor at The George Institute for Global Health. She supports the Institute’s advocacy and political engagement activities in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Dr. Anna Palagyi is the Program Lead, Ageing & Health Systems, at The George Institute for Global Health. Her research centres on the co-design of effective implementation strategies to strengthen primary health care services in resource-constrained settings of the Asia-Pacific region.
Prof. Jane Hirst is Chair in Global Women’s Health at The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London. She leads The George Institute’s global women’s health programme of research.
(senior author) Emma Feeny is the Global Director of Impact and Engagement at The George Institute for Global Health. She leads the Institute’s global advocacy, policy engagement and thought leadership.
Competing interest: None
Handling Editor: Neha Faruqui