Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Warm greetings from New York. I am very grateful to all the organizers, particularly the Government of Sweden, and its representative in Vienna and my dear friend, Ambassador Annika Markovic for inviting me to address you today. I am especially delighted to be speaking alongside other dear 缅北禁地colleagues Ghada and Li Yong, to demonstrate the 缅北禁地system’s firm commitment to these issues.
We live in a time when our physical world is inextricably intertwined with our digital one. Through the COVID 19 experience, we have witnessed how dependent we are on digital technologies – in order to work and learn online, or even to access basic services and information. Estimates suggest that the last year and a half has accelerated global digitalization by as much as 5-7 years. Indeed, all over the world, more or less enthusiastically, societies are rushing towards digital transformation. If done right, digital transformation can play a fundamental role in helping us fully overcome the pandemic, build back better, and attain the Sustainable Development Goals.
But in all of this, we must remain vigilant and aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges of our rapidly digitalizing world. Here, the gender dimension is a critical issue that we must set right from the beginning.
Much has already been said about the gender digital divide – the fact that women lag behind men in using the internet by as much as 20% globally. The World Wide Web has just released a study which estimated that low- and middle-income countries have lost nearly one trillion US dollars in GDP over the past 10 years, due to women’s lack of digital access. That is a startling number, one trillion dollars. Closing the gender divide isn’t just the right thing to do, but also good economics. Connecting women and bringing them online means connecting them to education, employment opportunities, and basic social services that would allow them to contribute to economic development. The same report suggests that closing the digital gender gap in the 32 countries studied would deliver an estimated USD $524 billion increase in economic activity by 2025.
But even as we work to bring women and girls online, we need to create a safe and empowering space for them to flourish. Women and girls are 27 times more likely to be harassed online than men, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In particular, girls are often targeted online just because they are young and female, and studies have also shown that online harassment increases, if women and girls are politically outspoken, disabled or identify as LGBTIQ+.
The challenges that women and girls face do not just end there.
Technologies evolve constantly. However, women and girls, and indeed a gender perspective, are often not “included” in development and design. This has profound consequences.
For instance, UNESCO has reported that the gender divide in digital skills and access leads to gender biases in Artificial Intelligence training data sets, algorithms, and models, which has the potential of further spreading and reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. This can then affect women’s health and lives - the Medical University of Vienna has pointed out, for instance, how an AI model trained on biased health datasets can misdiagnose women’s medical condition.
What can we do to correct this trajectory?
If we are to truly harness the transformative potential of digital technology, while managing their risks and challenges, we must act now to protect and empower women and girls. The determination of the 缅北禁地system to act is captured in the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, which lays out a vision to Connect, Respect and Protect everyone.
Our objective is to build and maintain a more open, free and secure digital future for all; and to do so, we must urgently prioritize the gender digital divide and the situation of women and girls. The Office of the Tech Envoy has indeed done so much, in our work to implement the Roadmap in close cooperation with other 缅北禁地agencies, multistakeholder partners (like civil society groups, research institutions, and major technology companies) in areas such as digital inclusion, trust and security and digital human rights. We will take the same approach in our work to develop principles leading to a Global Digital Compact, as proposed by the Secretary-General in his Common Agenda.
Let me add, before concluding, that the Tech Envoy’s Office is majority-female, something that I am personally proud of. We will never allow anyone to neglect the gender dimension in the digital space!
I look forward to the discussions on this critical issue and pledge my Office’s full support to address and close the gender gap in the digital world.
Thank you.