​​​​​The EQUALS Global Partnership today committed to a broad set of strategic goals to bridge the digital gender divide, at its annual principals' meeting at the Yale Club in New York City. The meeting brought together influential EQUALS partners representing leading private sector organizations, universities, United Nations organizations and government agencies – who work together to bring more women and girls to tech and tech to more women and girls around the world.

EQUALS Steering Committee Co-Chair Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the International Telecommunication Union – which co-founded EQUALS together with UN Women – set the stage for a review of the previous year's accomplishments and challenges, as well as agreement on the 2019 goals and commitments that will help bring the benefits of tech to millions of girls and women around the world.

“With a successful year completed for the EQUALS Global Partnership, our agenda for 2019 action is clear. We come together today with a common vision, that women and girls can be equals in tech," said Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

EQUALS 2019 Goals

The three EQUALS Coalitions – Access, Skills and Leadership – together with the EQUALS Research Group, established their goals for 2019. These are designed to support worldwide efforts to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) by 2030. The EQUALS 2019 goals are:

• Access Coalition: More girls and women are accessing and using the Internet in select countries.
• Skills Coalition: Policy-makers and practitioners are using resources for educating and training women and girls in digital skills.
• Leadership Coalition: 1) Female tech entrepreneurs are connected with investors and mentors through networking opportunities and advocacy events; and 2) Women-led technology-oriented firms have information, training programmes and tools to successfully create and lead a business.
• Research Group: 1) Stakeholders are actively tracking and publicly sharing internationally comparable gender-disaggregated data, and 2) Policy-makers are using reliable metrics and indicators to create evidence-informed policy.

EQUALS Commitments

While the goals offer a vision of what can be achieved by EQUALS partners working together, each EQUALS partner also used the annual meeting to affirm their own plans for specific, measurable action in the coming year – their EQUALS Commitments. These may be small or large in scale, but they must contribute to the goals set by EQUALS. More than 90 such commitments have already been made.

EQUALS partner The Code to Change, for example, committed to organizing a four-month programme in the Netherlands and Pakistan, which will provide one-on-one mentoring to women and girls by experienced information and communication technology (ICT) professionals. The University of California at Berkeley committed to holding at least two professional development workshops for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars or early-career women in tech fields.

“The EQUALS Commitments are critical to the Partnership, they represent the direct work our partners are doing to address gender equality in a collaborative way. The more we can do together, the more equal opportunity we can create," said Joyce Dogniez of the Internet Society, co-chair of the EQUALS Steering Committee.

EQUALS Deliverables

The EQUALS Coalitions also presented four key products that had been agreed to in the 2018 work plan:

• The Access Coalition, represented by its lead GSMA, presented a progress report, which provides a complete framework for reducing the gender gap in Internet access and use, and offers a case study from Rwanda to demonstrate successful strategies.
  
• The Skills Coalition, led by GIZ and UNESCO, launched the new EQUALS Digital Skills Fund. The fund provides small grants to women-led movements and organizations in developing countries to implement digital skills training. The World Wide Web Foundation will be administering the fund.
• The Leadership Coalition, led by the International Trade Centre and UN Women, presented a summary of work including a framework for crowdsourced e-learning course content to facilitate women's professional and entrepreneurial opportunities in the tech sector.
• The Research Coalition, represented by its lead the United Nations University,  presented its report Taking Stock: Data and Evidence on Gender Equality in Digital Access, Skills and Leadership, a preliminary summary of data and theoretical perspectives on a path to gender equality in the digital age.

Equals Highlights

Partners reviewed EQUALS highlights of the year, including recognition in a G20 Ministerial Declaration (August 2018); operational funding secured by Germany (BMZ and GIZ) and the Internet Society; and important roles in a range of global change efforts including the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos, European Development Days, the World Summit on the Information Society, Transform Africa, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Women in Technology International Summit.

“The work EQUALS is doing is urgently needed to contribute better evidence and policies to ensure that no one, especially women and girls, are left behind in the digital revolution. The trends are worrying, as proven by the OECD and ITU's work for the G20, which shows the many disadvantages women are accumulating in the digital world. If we do not advance meaningful decisions including in the policy field, the analogue divide will pale in comparison to a highly unequal digital future. We can make a difference, but we need all hands on deck to build better digital outcomes for everyone," said meeting moderator Gabriela Ramos, Special Counsellor to the Secretary-General, Chief of Staff and Sherpa of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a member of the EQUALS Research Group.

The EQUALS meeting also aligned with the progress report of the Broadband Commission's Working Group to Bridge the Digital Gender Divide. The report charts the progress of working group members on their commitments against four groups of recommended actions outlined in the March 2017 Recommendations for action repo rt. This report also informs stakeholders addressing the gender gap in Internet access and use.

As the EQUALS Global Partnership enters its third year, it continues to provide a “home base" for organizations, corporations and governments that are ready to drive evidence-based actions to ensure that women and girls have access to digital technology, the skills to succeed in an increasingly online world, and opportunities to shape the digital future.

More information:

To learn more about the EQUALS Global Partnership, or to become an Official Partners, visit www.equals.org

Other resources:

​Access Coalition: EQUALS 2018 Access Coalition Progress Report: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/04bfff_6ff1b0c772f64f33a3c7ebba3b270f2c.pdf

​Access Coalition: Rwanda case study video: https://www.caseforchange.com/case-studies/how-women-are-taking-the-lead-in-rwanda

​Skills Coalition: EQUALS Digital Skills Fund: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/04bfff_8f76b91bb09343e28a12349eb2bf6632.pdf

​Leadership Coalition: EQUALS Leadership Coalition 2017-2018 Overview: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/04bfff_78c1cdde0b7c44588edbf9a8c66b38c5.pdf

Research Group: Taking Stock: Data and Evidence on Gender Equality in Digital Access, Skills and Leadership: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/04bfff_e53606000c594423af291b33e47b7277.pdf

2018 Digital Gender Divide Progress Report: https://broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/DigitalGenderDivideProgressReport2018.pdf

Working Group on the Digital Gender Divide report, Recommendations for action: bridging the gender gap in Internet and broadband access and use: https://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/WorkingGroupDigitalGenderDivide-report2017.pdf

​EQUALS 2018 video:  https://youtu.be/VGTpmzZ9jjs