PHILANTHROPY
Funders quietly drop the word, and Global 50/50 counts the cost
Only five of the 13 funders tracked in the 2026 Global Health 50/50 Report publish workplace gender equality policies with specific measures, down from seven in 2024, according to Kent Buse and Sarah Hawkes, co-founders and co-CEOs of Global 50/50. They write after President Donald Trump signed an order in January 2025 banning the word gender across the United States federal government.
Buse and Hawkes argue that funders rewriting strategies to avoid the term have not avoided the fight but settled it. Their open letter asks the next United Nations Secretary-General, taking office in January 2027, to keep gender in instruments, data standards and reporting, and to protect the Minimum Set of Gender Indicators agreed by the UN Statistical Commission, rather than let removals pass unrecorded.
Source: Alliance Magazine · September 21, 2026