On 15 September 2024, Sally Wentworth spoke as part of a panel session in the Women in IGF session at the IGF 2024 in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia. These are her remarks as prepared.
Hello, I’m Sally Wentworth, the President and CEO of the Internet Society and the Internet Society Foundation, and I am grateful to Thoko for the opportunity to be part of this session. At the Internet Society we have a very simple vision statement – “The Internet is for everyone.”
Unfortunately, we have a long way to go in achieving this vision, especially for women. The gender digital divide remains a persistent challenge across the globe, holding women back from achieving their economic potential but also holding back entire societies. ITU statistics show 244 million more men than women using the Internet in 2023. And the divide is even more persistent in low-income countries and communities. In 2022 only 21 per cent of women used the Internet in low-income countries.
The numbers do not tell the whole story, either. Statistics say that many more men than women are entering the technical fields. A recent study from the EU found that as of 2023, only 19.4% of employed ICT specialists in the EU are women. While that’s an improvement from 16.5% in 2014, there is still a long way to go.
There are also still more men than women in leadership positions. As a woman executive, I have been in too many meetings where I am the only woman at the table. At conferences and events, I have sat on far too many panels where I have been the only woman. This is changing… but slowly.
According to the Women in the Digital Economy Fund, by ensuring that women can fully participate in the global digital economy, entire economies benefit in terms of higher GDP, stronger workforce and higher levels of innovation. The WIDEF report states that the gender digital divide has a direct and negative effect on global development, and inhibits global goals of creating inclusive societies and economies. The gender digital divide significantly hampers global economic growth, with low- and middle- income countries on track to lose an estimated $500 billion USD in the next five years due to women’s digital exclusion. For context, this is double Nigeria’s forecasted annual GDP for 2024.
We need to make changes and close the gender digital divide.
One way we at the Internet Society are working to change this is through expanding our training programs and focusing on including women as students. Let me give you one example.
This year in Mali we offered a 6-week course on designing and deploying community networks. During the course, some of women shared how, despite studying for masters degrees in engineering, networking, IT, energy, or even accounting, they had no exposure to practical learnings. Most of them had never configured a network or spliced cables or had the hands-on training necessary to get a job. This 6-week course, combined with practical hands-on sessions every Saturday, allowed them to learn the needed practical skills to find a job. As a result of this training, several of these women have been offered internships by partners of the Chapter.
We’ve had similar results from other training programs where we have seen that exposure to information and practical training has led to opportunities for women to begin careers in the technology industry. These are just small examples, but they are they kind of activities that need to happen around the world if we are to help close the gender divide.
There is much more we can do. Here at the IGF where we talk about policy recommendations, I would like to point you to a recent report from the Women in the Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF) on policy actions to close the gender digital divide. Their recommendations focus on five core areas:
- Improved access to affordable devices and online experiences.
- Increased availability of relevant products and tools.
- Elevating digital literacy and skills.
- Enhancing safety and security
- Generating data and insights.
These are areas that I believe we can all agree need more attention by us all.
In fact, one of our Internet Society strategic goals for 2030 is that people everywhere have access to affordable, reliable, and resilient Internet. In our plans for the years ahead, we are giving a special focus to connecting women and other populations that are not as visible online.
We need to do so, not just so that women have more opportunities, but so that everyone benefits from the creativity and ideas of all the women out there who are not yet connected, or who don’t yet have all the skills to fully make use of the opportunities online.
One example of where we intend to focus is with women-led social enterprises. These businesses provide a sustainable anchor for community connectivity. Women-led social enterprises are established and sustainable enterprises that can leverage the power of the Internet to enhance their output for the benefit of the entire community. In addition they help address the gender digital divide which is one of the SDGs ( #5) on gender equality. According to the 2024 global social enterprises report, social enterprises created 200 million jobs. In 50 countries that were surveyed, 1 in 2 of the social enterprises are women-led compared to 1 in 5 in conventional enterprise.
Over 1/3 of the world still needs to be connected – that’s around 2.6 billion people. This lack of connectivity doesn’t impact everyone in the same way. Women and girls are the most affected. We have to take into account the gendered impact of this digital divide and act on behalf of and for those who are left behind or at a disadvantage. These inequalities exist as an additional dimension to other divides and are accelerated by the technological innovation and digitalization of essential services like healthcare and education.
We need to acknowledge this and work together to address the issues on various fronts, which also means meaningfully including and empowering women in the Internet governance spaces, to bring this perspective to Internet governance, to push for change and make this change happen
We have much work to do – but working together we can bring about an Internet that truly is for everyone.
Thank you.