SDG Roundtable: Innovation for women and equality

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still perpetuate bias inequality and

violence in the lives of women and girls

technological progress is outpacing

progress towards gender equality this is

not programmable

on this International women's day we

make four calls one remove all barriers

to access the digital world 2. educate

and train women and girls in stem 3.

enable women to create Tech that meets

their needs 4. eliminate online

gender-based violence today we power on

to create an equal digital future for

wall

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hello and welcome to the sdg Roundtable

this month gender equality champions

from around the world are gathering here

in New York to attend the 67th session

of the commission on the status of women

coming from governments the U.N the

private sector ngos the media and

Academia this year we're talking about

Innovation and technology for gender

equality

it's been less than a hundred years

since the invention of modern computers

the world has been transformed with the

internet social media and now generative

AI

gender equality on the other hand will

take another 300 years according to you

and women so the question is how can we

ensure that this rapid technological

progress drives sdg5 forward and not

deepen existing inequalities as the

Secretary General has said the math is

simple without the insights and

creativity of half the world

Science and Technology will fulfill just

half their potential the UN is

determined to scale solutions for Global

Gender equality both online and offline

my name is Anne-Marie and I'm the

executive director of un Partnerships

and I'll be your moderator joining me

are four inspiring women leaders Dr

abiola akiyodi afolabi

executive director women Advocate

research and Documentation Center Hoda

Osman executive editor at Arab reporters

for an investigative journalism welcome

on screen we've got Valentina munas

rabanal the UN secretary General's sdg

Advocate and feminist Stan activists and

hilani galpaya chief executive officer

of learn Asia welcome and thank you for

being with us

halani as we're approaching the end of

csw and have learned about the Striking

discrimination and marginalization of

women in technology

37 percent of women do not use the

internet in the least developed

countries only 19 percent of the women

are online what's causing these digital

access gaps and how can we ensure

meaningful access to technology and

digitally Empower women and girls thank

you Anne Murray

Anne-Marie you are absolutely right the

situation has improved with women's

access over time but we have really a

long long way to go now I really wish

there was a really cute answer that I

can say you know let's do X and women

will be online

the reason it's a complex set of reasons

is that because women's digital access

lies in a context of low access to a

whole lot of other factors and those

factors Drive Mobile phone ownership

adoption use and internet access

so as researchers we look at this and we

when we look at nationally

representative data from Africa Asia and

Latin America we see women are women who

are unconnected are less educated less

likely to be working less likely to be

earning a regular income less likely to

earn a high income and less likely to

have a have digital skills and a whole

set of other skills living households

with electricity and so on so these are

these compounding factors and all of

them really have a significant impact on

whether they have mobile access or not

right so the unpalatable answer while

those are the reasons so we actually

need a cocktail of solutions right to

improve women's skills

so we we had this really weird natural

experiment during Kobe 19. for example

in India 81 million people came online

for the first time and majority of them

came because of covid-19 induced uh

reasons and majority were women or women

headed households because they had to

work I needed a phone wanted to start a

business and wanted other income streams

because the husband has been laid off or

children had to study so the idea might

be to find these discontinuities in

women's lives not kovid hopefully but

something like childbirth which many

women go through and build programs

around it that give some meaningful

benefit for women owning a phone and

find the financing mechanism so we

actually solve some of that access and

ownership Gap thank you helani I'm I'm

hearing about context that we have to

look at the context that women are in

find those Milestone moments so that

peop women particularly can engage

meaningfully online and we're going to

turn to them so building our on that let

me turn to you abiola the commission

strongly emphasized the importance of

Education not only to close digital

access gaps but also into sure women's

participation in decision making how can

digital technology and education Empower

and women and girls to gain effective

participation in political economic

social and Civic life it's a lot to ask

for it is it is it's quite a lot to ask

um actually and from what you were

saying education is very critical it's

critical for empowerment and also is

also critical for advancement of digital

and you know technological learning

particularly for women and that's why

the sustainable development goal is also

very clear about the role of Education

you know in terms of being able to

achieve the sdg itself and one thing

that is also very important is

especially when you're talking about

context when you think about social

norms culture and how that affects you

know the ability of women to be able to

use uh technology it's also about this

call you know the climate the score the

issue of safety the issue of security of

the girl child in school you know

because we need the school to be safe

you know for girl child to be able to

have that kind of digital learning you

know that can help them to move from

where they are you know to 5.0 you know

to be able to be very active you know in

the society and where we don't have that

then that becomes a problem and I think

in the global South that's one of the

major challenge that we are having with

the security with insecurity uh with the

conflict you know uh for example in

Israel you know in Nigeria and other

places where girls are now being

discouraged you know from you know going

to school so it's important to deal with

that and I and I and that's why I I

would commend the U.N democracy

foundation for uh the work that they're

doing with respect to ensuring that they

keep you know girls in school and make

the school to be safe you know and are

secure I haven't said that so there's

also you need to link that you know to

the old discussion around the digital

divide uh where you know uh there are

issues of gender equality there are

issues of uh there are new nuances you

know that keep you know women and girls

you know out of that knowledge you know

ability to be able you know to acquire

the necessary knowledge if you look at

politics for example

um recently I was doing some work in

Nigeria I was an election I just

finished and I was talking and training

women who are in into politics and you

find out that some of them don't even

have a space on the internet they don't