Progress toward gender equality can sometimes feel like a game of snakes and ladders. Over the past few years we have worked steadily up the ladder to close the disparities faced by women and girls. In the past decade 131 countries passed legal reforms supporting gender equality. Girls’ access to education is at an all-time high, while maternal mortality decreased by 38%. But at the start of 2021, faced with Covid, diminishing donor budgets and global economic recession, we are at risk of losing these gains and slipping back down the board.