The cost of side-lining women in standardization

By ITU News

Despite visible progress in recent years, the role of women in the global digital economy still trails that of men by a considerable margin. While fewer women are online globally, the digital gender gap remains widest in the poorest economies.

According to a recent report from the World Wide Web Foundation, failure to ensure equal Internet access can have serious economic consequences, adding to the multiple socio-economic challenges already facing the least developed countries.

A key problem to solve is the inadequate representation for women in highly specialized, technical standardization discussions, suggested experts at an event hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) last week.

“We can’t just think about standards that only respond to 50 per cent of humanity,” said Anne Rachel Inné​, ITU Regional Director for Africa.

“If we do not have women informed and part of setting standards, we leave half of the knowledge on the floor.”

Beyond numbers

ITU has promised to ensure at least 35 per cent of the delegates at its next Plenipotentiary Conference, PP-22, are women, up from 28 per cent 2018. The Government of Australia has pledged to support training and empowerment for women to fill key roles and participate actively as delegates at the upcoming conference, which constitutes ITU’s highest decision-making body.

“Participation goes beyond just numerical representation,” said Amanda Gorely, Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations.

“This is about the extent which women have the skills, confidence, and empowerment to actively engage and influence outcomes. And to take on roles.”

Even now, not enough women are pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers to overcome their continued under-representation in tech-related industries.

According to an Australian government report, women accounted for less than a quarter of students enrolled in STEM at Australian universities in 2019. The government appointed Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith as its first Women in STEM Ambassador in 2018, Gorely added.

The gender digital divide

Worldwide, men are 12 per cent more likely to be online than women according to the latest ITU data on the gender digital divide. Women’s voices are consequently left out of the world’s ongoing digital transformation.

This imbalance hinders sustainable development in countries and organizations around the world, said participants in the Women in Standardization Expert Group (WISE) event held during ITU’s World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA).

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations for 2030 depend on active participation by women in all decision-making spaces – including at the technical bodies responsible for standardization, WISE speakers said.

Policies and standards must ensure safe and equal access for girls with all information and communication technologies (ICTs).

“It comes with practice”

Consensus-based standards development requires collaboration among a wide variety of stakeholders, regardless of language, origin, or gender. ITU’s WISE group brings together professional women with extensive international experience in technical standardization.

Participants in the 8 March panel discussion highlighted how real gender equality could help to build the consensus necessary to create new standards.

“Standardization requires a lot of patience, respect and understanding of different cultures,” said Nevine Tefwik of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, who has worked in standards bodies for more than a decade.

“Being able to communicate and mediate between different players is very important. And it doesn’t come automatically. It comes with practice.”

Bringing more female representatives into ICT policy-making circles should in turn create a “domino effect”, encouraging more women to take on leadership roles, said Cristiana Flutur, International Affairs Director at the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) in Romania, the PP-22 host country.

Like anyone else, women in tech need relatable role models.

“We encourage each other,” Flutur said. “When I see a woman in a leadership position, being self-confident and managing well, I feel encouraged myself to take up a leadership position.”