Roberto Blois, Deputy Secretary-General opened the session, welcomed the participants and the panelists at the late hour and announced that Ingunn Yssen had been appointed ITU Focal Point on Gender Issues.

Ingunn Yssen, BDT Senior Gender Advisor and moderator of the Panel, explained that the all male panel was meant to underline the point that gender is as much a man’s issue as a woman’s. The criteria for the invitation was aimed at high level influential persons in the WSIS process available in Geneva and as a result women in that position were lacking.

Yuri Grin, Chairperson, Council Working Group on WSIS, pointed out that although the status of women in most countries was aggravated by national cultures, religions and traditions, ICTs provide an opportunity for more women to actively participate in society. He stressed the importance of involving women from the beginning of any process within the different social contexts.

Pierre Gagné, Executive Director of WSIS Secretariat, focused on what needs to be done in the WSIS process to advance the gender agenda. He highlighted the important role of the Gender Caucus within the Civil Society Bureau to provide input into the Draft Action Plan to ensure that gender concerns are adequately reflected. Concretely, he suggested that good projects should be developed and announced at the Summit including partners already involved and committed to the implementation as well as taking advantage of side-events, for example, ICT for Development, to promote gender activities.

Roberto Zachmann, ILO’s ICT Focal Point, emphasized that it is wrongly assumed that ICTs benefit all of Society, whereas the majority of beneficiaries are men. In the development process, it is recognized that it is impractical and inefficient to discriminate against women and highly detrimental to social life. ICTs in fact could expand the digital divide unless the WSIS process takes into consideration the fact that the only way to reduce poverty is through better employment. A major push in ICTs could contribute to economic and social development and consequently diminish all the gaps (productively, poverty, competivity and gender)
The moderator, Ingunn Yssen opened the floor to questions. A lively debate followed that touched on several issues brought up by the panelists, including:

• How to ensure that after WSIS, the political statements were followed up by practical implementation of the Action Plan.
• The role of education for women and especially how to motivate girls to go into technical professions
• The importance of using ICTs as tools for development and not as a reason for further divide.
• The need for ITU and its membership to be proactive in finding women leaders
• The belief that the Information Society must master technologies for the good of society.

In conclusion, the challenge of WSIS is to ensure that the Summit has a social and economic impact on empowerment of men and women and sustainable development instead of furthering the digital and gender divide.

See also the ITU/BDT website on gender and WSIS: https://www.itu.int/ITU-D/gender/GenderWSIS/index.html