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Geena Davis appeals to UN Broadband Commission to harness broadband to
empower girls and women
Academy Award-winning actor and advocate calls on
Commission to set up new working group on Broadband and Gender
New York, 23 September, 2012 – Academy Award-winning actor
and advocate Geena Davis addressed the sixth meeting of the Broadband Commission
for Digital Development in New York today with a call to the Commission’s
60
top-level members to use the power of broadband to bring new opportunities
to women and girls worldwide.
Ms Davis appealed to the Commission to set up a special focus group on gender that
would undertake research on the many ways broadband networks and technologies
could be used to empower girls and women – for example, through access to
education, health care and useful information such as farming advice, climate
monitoring and commodity prices, but also as tools to foster female
entrepreneurship and new business opportunities.
“Broadband is having a transformational impact on the media and entertainment
industry, but its importance reaches much further than that…Broadband will be
key to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, providing women with the means
to educate themselves and their children; improve their own health and the
health of their families and communities; start their own businesses; keep
themselves safe; and innovate to build and shape the future they want. This
Commission can play a powerful advocacy role by speaking out strongly for the
greater engagement of girls and women in the digital revolution taking place all
around us,” said Ms Davis.
Her call to action was enthusiastically received by the Commission which
immediately agreed to establish a special working group on gender and technology
with a specific focus on how to better engage and empower girls. The working
group will be headed by Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations
Development Programme. It received a spontaneous donation of USD 1 million
from Commissioner
Reza Jafari,
with several members of the commission agreeing to prepare a special report on
opportunities and barriers for girls and women, to be presented at the next
meeting of the Commission in Mexico City in March 2013.
“The creation of this new Broadband Commission Working Group is a positive
step forward in extending the benefits of broadband to all, and accelerating
progress in meeting the MDGs – several of which focus on gender-related issues,”
said Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, ITU Secretary-General. “We are grateful for the
support of committed, high-profile ambassadors like Ms Davis, who greatly
increase the impact and reach of our message about the catalytic role ICTs can
play in gender empowerment.”
In June this year, Ms Davis was named ITU’s Special Envoy for Women and Girls
in the field of technology. In this role she is actively promoting ITU’s new
‘Tech Needs Girls’ campaign
through public appearances at high-profile events, where she speaks on the
importance of extending access to technology to women worldwide, reinforces the
importance of positive gender role models, and highlights the many exciting
career opportunities available to young women in the high-tech sector.
The three-year Tech Needs Girls campaign will raise awareness worldwide of
the role technology can play in empowering women. Through online multimedia
content, major advocacy events around the globe and key partnerships with
industry, government, civil society, media and other UN agencies, the campaign
will highlight the potential of technology to transform women’s lives.
Earlier this year ITU launched a multilingual
web portal focused on helping girls and
women access training, job opportunities and career information in the
fast-growing information and communication (ICT) sector.
The Girls in ICT Portal houses some 500 programmes, including over 100
scholarship programmes and some 70 contests and awards, more than 100 training
and internship opportunities, over 100 online networks offering career support
and mentoring, as well as tech camps and other activities.
Full text of Geena Davis’s speech to the Broadband Commission:
http://www.broadbandcommission.org/work/events/6thmeeting.aspx
Photos from the sixth meeting of the Broadband Commission can be downloaded
at:
www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/sets/72157631556083581/
For more information on the Broadband Commission, visit:
www.broadbandcommission.org
For more information on the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media visit:
www.seejane.org.
Follow the Broadband Commission on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/broadbandcommission
Follow the Broadband Commission on Twitter:
www.itu.int/twitter
For more information, please contact:
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In New York: |
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Gary Fowlie
Head, ITU Liaison Office
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Paul Conneally
Head, Communications &
Partnership Promotion
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In Geneva:
Sarah Parkes
Chief, Media Relations
and Public Information
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