UN Women: Here's how to bridge gender digital gap
What you need to know:
- UN member states, including Kenya, discussed ways in which digital education and innovation, as well as technology, can be used to empower women and girls.
- The blueprint begins with a call to countries to develop digital tools and services to address the needs of all women and girls.
UN Women has recommended six points for countries to follow in advancing gender equality through digital and technological transformations.
The action points were a climax of the two-week-long CSW67 dialogue that ended last Friday. The delegates from the UN member states, including Kenya, discussed ways in which digital education and innovation, as well as technology, can be used to empower women and girls.
The blueprint begins with a call to countries to develop digital tools and services to address the needs of all women and girls. This in addition to ensuring women and girls have access to digital literacy and skills.
"Mainstream gender in digital policies to remove barriers to equal access for all women and girls, including those living in poverty, in rural, maritime or remote areas, with disabilities, indigenous women and girls, migrant women and girls, and older women," the second action point reads.
The agency also outlined a plan to tackle online gender-based violence. It says the vice can be dealt with if all public and private stakeholders adopted and implemented a zero tolerance policy.
Also read: Fund war on GBV, UN Women boss urges
On emerging technologies, the agency says only those that don't expose women and girls to new risks,gender stereotypes and negative social norms, should be in circulation.
"Promote policies and programmes to achieve gender parity in emerging scientific and technological fields and create supportive workplaces and education settings," says in its fifth recommendation.
Finally, it recommends creation of gender-responsive innovation that challenges gender stereotypes and negative social norms. Through this transformation, it envisions an empowered population of young men and boys who would then become agents of change for gender equality.
