According to the 2020 ITU/ETC report
“Women, ICTs and Emergency Telecommunications: Opportunities and Constraints", women, particularly from vulnerable groups, are generally at disproportionately higher risk than men during emergencies. The reasons behind this are often gender inequalities, a lack of mobility, and because women have caregiving roles and responsibilities, and limited access to resources. This differentially inhibits their wherewithal to mitigate the impacts of, prepare for, respond to, and recover from, disasters. With the COVID-19 pandemic, women are bearing the brunt; not only because they represent an estimated 70 per cent of frontline healthcare workers and undertake most of the care work in the home, but because their over-representation in the informal economy and lower pay rates mean they are significantly harder hit by the economic downturn.
Aligned with this year's International Women's day theme: Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world, ITU organized an online event to highlight the importance of advancing gender equality for the use of ICT in disaster risk management, present real experiences on how women have been using technologies to fight COVID-19 and on how they have been able to contribute to disaster resilience in their communities.
The webinar discussed how to continue enabling more women to have inclusive access to, and use of ICTs for saving lives. It addressed how governments, international and national humanitarian organizations, and ICT private sector entities had incorporated a larger focus on gender and women in policy frameworks and the allocation of resources in the context of ICTs for disaster management.
Agenda
08 March 2021
14:30 to 16:00 CET
| 14:30 – 14:35 | Introduction by Moderator
- Ms. Vanessa Gray, Head of the Environment and Emergency Telecommunications Division (EET), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Biography)
|
| 14:35 – 14:45 | Key note address
- Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Biography)
|
| 14:45 – 14:50 | Poll of questions |
| 14:50 – 15:20 | Women's empowerment and the link to disaster resilience
Presenters:
- Ms. Sylvia Poll, Head of the Digital Society Division, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Biography)
- Ms.Sandra Aceng,Program Manager at WOUGNET (Biography)
- Ms. Diya Nanda, Programme Management Specialist, UN Women (Biography)
|
| 15:20 – 15:50 | Panel discussion: Gender equality, ICTs, and disaster management: challenges and opportunities during the COVID pandemic
Moderator: Dr. Kim Mallalieu,
Senior Lecturer, The University of the West Indies
Deputy Chairman, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, Trinidad and Tobago (Biography)
- Ms Masha Saleh, Services for Communities Officer, Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) (Biography)
- Ms. Aarti Holla-Maini, Secretary General, EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA) (Biography)
- Ms. Branwen Millar, Gender Advisor, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) (Biography)
|
15:50 – 16:00 | Wrap up of the session and closing remarks by the Moderator |
