UN seeks digital opportunities for more women, girls

THE United Nations (UN) has linked huge growth in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) globally to its accessibility by women.

Specifically, the UN, in a new report released at the weekend by the Broadband Commission Working Group on broadband and gender, informed that pervasive technology gap in access to ICTs exists between female and the male folks globally.

The report estimated that there are currently 200 million fewer women online than men globally, and warned that the gap could grow to 350 million within the next three years if action is not taken.

The report, titled: “Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the Inclusion of Women and Girls in the Information Society”, which was an extensive research from UN agencies, Commission members and partners from industry, government and civil society, to create the first comprehensive global snapshot of broadband access by gender, noted that efforts must be made to have an inclusive ICT environment.

In a related development, about 225 foreign delegates are in Nigeria to discuss new developments in the world of technology, especially broadband at the 2013 Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) forum, which Nigeria is hosting.

The CTO forum, which starts Monday and will end on Wednesday, is scheduled for Abuja. According to the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, the event will focus on harnessing broadband to improve access to ICT among Commonwealth countries.

He said: “The event is bringing governments, policy-makers, regulators, service providers, investors, telecom fund administrators, and experts in the field of ICT to highlight regional solutions to broadband infrastructure, revenue management and security issues.”

The UN report, which was officially launched by the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark, showed that around the world, women are coming online later and more slowly than men, saying that out of the world’s 2.8 billion Internet users, 1.3 billion are women, compared with 1.5 billion men. It noted that while the gap between male and female users is relatively small in OECD nations, it widens rapidly in the developing world, where expensive, ‘high status’ ICTs like computers are often reserved for use by men.

Indeed, in sub-Saharan Africa, the report estimated that there are only half the number of women connected as men, stressing that worldwide, women are also on average 21 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone - representing a mobile gender gap of 300 million, equating to $13 billion in potential missed revenues for the mobile sector.