International Girls in ICT Day is celebrated worldwide every year on the fourth Thursday of April and this year, it was celebrated globally on 22 April 2021. Girls in ICT Day provides an opportunity for girls and young women to see and be exposed to the benefit of ICT in enabling their career and aspiration. To date, over 377,000 girls and young women have taken part in more than 11,400 celebrations of International Girls in ICT Day in 171 countries worldwide.
As a result of the COVID-19 situation, the reliance on ICT to support the 'new norm' have become evident and widespread. The ICT sector is a growing sector for education in both developed and developing countries. This means that qualified female students in technical fields around the world have significant opportunities available to them. These are excellent opportunities in particular for highly skilled girls and young women who are still a minority when it comes to STEM education and careers. Developing initiatives and activities to promote and encourage girls to take up study in STEM and ICT is hence a requirement.
Unequal access to the internet is a multifaceted issue, it is infrastructural that many communities in Pakistan do not have physical access to the internet. In terms of social factors such as gender and being differently abled can limit one’s access to technologies.
Pakistan has been a key driver of the narrowing gender gap in South Asia in recent years, recording impressive growth in women’s adoption and use of mobile technology. Pakistan has some of the widest mobile gender gaps and mobile phone ownership in is still unequal as only 50 per cent of women own a mobile phone compared with 81 per cent of men. This is equivalent to 22 million fewer women than men owning a mobile phone. Pakistan had one of the strongest rates of growth in mobile internet awareness, especially among women.
This year, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication Pakistan and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are organising the Girls in ICT Day Pakistan in September in conjunction with a series of the training programme in partnership with the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in Pakistan (UNRCO in Pakistan), the UN Women, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), EQUALS Global Partnerships, W4, CodeGirls, CISCO, Telenor, and Academia in Pakistan. The celebration and the digital skills training programme will encourage girls and young woman to pursue studying STEM, enhance their level of digital skill, and raise awareness on meaningful and safe use of ICT.
As part of the continuous steps to implement the ICTs for Girls programme in Pakistan, the Girls in ICT Day Pakistan aims at:
1. To enhance the digital literacy of girls and young woman, particularly in the area of cyber security, ICT application,
and use of digital technology in Pakistan.
2. To encourage girls and young women to utilize ICT meaningfully and strengthen the Girls in ICT day online
community in Pakistan, as well as other countries in Asia and the Pacific.
3. To explore partnerships with various government and UN agencies to continue the support to digital literacy and
digital skills development after the event.
