In 2021, then-Vice President Isatou Touray of Gambia learned via a survey that 46% of women above the age of 15 in her country had experienced physical violence. This was part of the reason that last year, President Adama Barrow announced a 10-year National Gender Policy targeting this and other challenges faced by women in the country.
But as of 2025, the Gambian government has been rendered blind to whether and how their efforts are working.
The survey Touray saw was the 2019-20 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey. For decades, data from the USAID-funded Demographic and Health Surveys, or DHS, has been the main source for tracking gender-based violence in low- and middle-income countries.
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About the author
Pooja Joshi
Pooja Joshi is an MPP/MBA student and George Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. Previously, she worked in management consulting and health care in emerging markets. She holds a Bachelor of Science in public health from UNC Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
