Despite making up half of the world's population, just 31 countries are led by women. Even worse, only 5% of the world's cities have women leaders.

The state of gender parity at the local level across the world is so unequal that only two countries have reached 50% of women in local government. Women are still locked out of power. This problem permeates our democracy – even new democratic infrastructure being designed today.

Devolution to places in England is the right answer to the problem of our country's deep inequalities, but it must be designed in a way that is different to the status quo of baked-in inequality. Yet as Mayor Steve Rotheram pointed out earlier this month – we have a problem.

In the Liverpool City Region, all seven members of the combined authority board (the leaders of the six constituent authorities, plus the metro mayor) are now male. This means the most powerful people in the room – voting on some of the most important decisions that will affect the city region are all men. Of course, this gender disparity in devolved representation isn't confined to that region alone. Across England, just one metro mayor is a woman.

This is bad news for policy. Evidence shows that where they are empowered, women leaders can have hugely positive impacts on the places they represent, with outcomes that include fairer, greener, more peaceful places. To achieve this better policy-making, we need to acknowledge the whole system matters. Who our mayors and representatives are, who advises them, and whose voices are acted upon are crucial.

How can we ensure devolution does democracy better than before? Here are three initial ideas: first, devolution policy must actively design-in equal representation from that start and can include concrete requirements like gender-balanced boards. Second, political parties could step up and do more to recruit and lift up diverse leaders of the future. And third, combined authorities could improve their understanding, accountability and policy development locally by collecting and publishing gender disaggregated data across their policy areas.

Devolution is an opportunity to design a better democracy – every new and existing combined authority should embrace this.

Rosie Lockwood is the head of media and advocacy for IPPR North

@IPPRNorth