ITU / UN Women GEM-TECH Awards highlight need to
bridge global gender ‘digital divide’
Awards aim to strengthen empowerment of women and girls through ICTs
Geneva, 8 December
2015 – The second annual
GEM-TECH Awards, which recognize
outstanding work to leverage the potential of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) to
promote the empowerment of women and girls,
highlight the urgent need to bridge the persistent
gender digital divide.
Jointly organized by ITU and
UN Women, the GEM-TECH awards were launched in 2014
in recognition of the tremendous power of ICTs to
transform women’s lives by providing them with
better access to education, information, support
networks, employment opportunities, political
participation, and the devices and apps that can
improve their personal safety. The awards aim to
recognize the diversity and scope of work being done
around the world – and to play an important role in
highlighting – and narrowing – the gender digital
divide.
From a field of almost 150
entries from around the world,
12 GEM-TECH finalists were
announced
last week. The winners will be
announced at a special awards ceremony on 14
December 2015 at Civic Hall in New York, co-hosted
by the New York Mayor’s Office.
New gender data published on
30 November in ITU’s flagship annual
Measuring the Information Society Report
reveals that there are still significantly more men
than women using the Internet globally. With 46% of
men and 41% of women online, the calculated gap in
the Internet user penetration rate between men and
women is around 11%.* This rate has not changed
significantly between 2013 and 2015.
The Internet user gender gap
is lowest in developed countries, at 5.4% per cent
in 2015, significantly higher in developing
countries, at 15.4%, and highest in the 48
UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs), at
28.9%.
The data suggest that the gap
has narrowed in developed countries between 2013 and
2015, while remaining stable in developing countries
and LDCs. Only one ITU administrative region, the
Americas, displays an Internet user penetration rate
that is higher for women than for men. This is
partly attributable to the data from its two largest
countries, the United States and Brazil.
“ICT access is important for
gender equality because it can enable women to
achieve greater independence and autonomy, providing
them with new economic and social opportunities,
including employment and access to financial
services, thereby increasing empowerment,” said ITU
Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “At ITU we are
working hard to ensure that girls and young women
have access to and know how to use ICTs, as well as
encouraging them to take up ICT-related careers –
through activities such as the GEM-TECH awards and
ITU’s International Girls in ICT Day, which takes
place annually in April, and which is now celebrated
in 150 countries around the world.”
“The measurement of ICT users’
gender is a critical factor in understanding
developments in the information society and in
informing policy-makers, analysts and other
stakeholders involved with issues of gender equality
and ICT for development,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin,
head of the ITU’s Gender Task Force. “The importance
of equal access for women to economic resources, and
the value of ICTs for women’s empowerment, have been
recognized in the Sustainable Development Goals, and
we are now encouraging all ITU Member States to
collect gender-disaggregated data, so we can measure
progress towards full gender equality.”
Gap in Internet user penetration rate
between men and women, 2013 and 2015**
|
Gap 2013 (%)
|
Gap 2015 (%)
|
Developed
|
6.3
|
5.4
|
Developing
|
15.6
|
15.4
|
World
|
11.0
|
11.1
|
LDC
|
29.9
|
28.9
|
ITU Regions
|
|
|
Africa
|
20.7
|
20.5
|
Arab States
|
15.5
|
14.4
|
Asia & Pacific
|
17.7
|
17.6
|
CIS
|
7.5
|
7.0
|
Europe
|
9.4
|
8.2
|
Americas
|
-0.4
|
-0.7
|
**Note: The gap represents the
difference between the Internet user penetration
rates for men and women relative to the Internet
user penetration rate for men, expressed as a
percentage. The figure for the world includes
countries and territories that are not ITU Member
States; this explains why the gap has narrowed in
all regions between 2013 and 2015 while the global
gap has widened.
Source: ITU
*Note to editors:
Globally, 45.9% of men are
online, compared to 40.8% of women. 40.8 divided by
45.9 equals 0.889, representing an Internet user
penetration rate which is close to 11% lower for
females than for males (1-0.889 = 0.111 = 11.1%).
An Executive Summary
of ITU’s Measuring the Information Society Report
2015 can be found
here.
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