Nicholas Kristof, renowned journalist and columnist for the New York Times, is the winner of two Pulitzer prizes and, along with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, coauthor of the best-selling book Half the Sky. The book discusses the economic and social benefits of gender equality and the need to combat oppression of women and girls in developing countries.

On this week’s podcast, Kristof explains how he came to value the “keyboard and notebook” as his greatest tools against injustice, and highlights the importance of empowering local change makers within a society. Changes in attitudes toward traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation, must come from within: “If you have the imam saying ‘This isn’t in the Quran,’” Kristof says, “that has a lot more power than some kind of American saying ‘Oh that’s barbaric.’”

There’s still a lot of work to be done before we can achieve Global Goal #5 – that is, gender equality – but “there has been tremendous progress on gender in the last 15, 20 years,” Kristof says in the clip below. “I think everybody understands that the reasons for addressing gender inequity are not just ones of social justice but also about economic development and international security.”