Women are still unable to get into the C-suite in decent numbers, and that’s especially true in global health and development as a whole. A recent Women in Global Health report highlights the gaping disparities for women leaders.

The State of Women and Leadership in Health report reveals that while women hold around 70% of health worker jobs globally, they only account for 25% of senior leadership roles, writes Natalie.

And not all groups of women are equally represented among the few that have managed to shatter the glass ceiling, with women from low- and middle-income countries particularly missing in global health leadership. According to data from 50/50 Global Health, only 5% of leadership roles in health are held by women from LMICs.

When Sekai Chikowero — now vice president of programs at the nonprofit EngenderHealth — was a country director in the early 2000s in her native Zimbabwe and later in Tanzania, she could count the Black country directors heading international NGOs on “one hand and not even finish all the fingers … never mind being a female African country director. It was just so rare.”

While localization efforts are driving change, Dr. Sai Subhasree Raghavan — president of India-based SAATHII, which advances access to health and social services for marginalized communities — questions the concept of global health itself. “We talk about global health but the majority of the leadership positions are not held by women or men from resource-poor settings. And so I question the definition of global health itself.”

Find out how these women got to the top of their game and are helping others do the same.