Ministerial Roundtable on "Good practices in Addressing Barriers to Bridge the Gender Digital Divide and Promote Education in the Digital Age for Achieving Gender Equality"
Closing Remarks
Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin
07 March 2023
Thank you Mr Chairman,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for all the good practices you have shared and commitments you have made.
For me they give me great hope, and I think we need a little hope in this world.
If implemented, the commitments you have made can make a difference.
We can close the divide, and we can make sure we close it long before the 300 year prediction.
The practices shared today highlight the importance of:
- Putting in place the right policies.
- The need to close the digital gender access gap (which in LDCs stands at 1 out of 5).
- Tackling social norms.
- Focusing on education, including digital literacy
- Bringing more women into the tech workforce.
- And the need for gender-disaggregated data.
One of the main challenges is in the policy space. Less than 25% of digital policies have a focus on women and girls.
It may not be a surprise that only 18% of ICT ministers are women, and only 16% of ICT regulators are women.
Which means that women are often not at the table in important regulatory or policy-making digital discussions.
Tomorrow, ITU will launch a "Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming in Digital Policies" – an actionable checklist for policymakers in areas including: gathering data, conducting research, allocation of resources, and measuring impact.
Just as important, as member states have noted, is the need to address the barriers to meaningful connectivity for women and girls.
Because if women don't have access to a network, if women can't afford the device or the service, if they don't have the skills to use the device, if they don't find the content online useful, or don't feel safe going online, how can we expect them to be able to leverage and use that technology for healthcare, education, employment?
Initiatives like our Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, which has mobilized over 17 billion US dollars in commitments for digital gender equality, seeks to tackle these barriers to to foster meaningful connectivity and digital transformation globally.
But we need to do more.
The distinguished delegate of Botswana said, lets dare to dream. I would appeal to this assembly, let's dare to do.
Because we have less than seven years to achieve SDG5, and we can't wait hundreds of years before women and girls have the same rights as men.
Thank you.
