DC-Inclusion & DC-PAL: Transformative digital inclusion: Building a gender-responsive and inclusive framework for the underserved

Summary

This session at the 19th IGF focused on transformative digital inclusion and building a gender-responsive framework for underserved communities. Speakers from various organizations and countries discussed the challenges and opportunities in bridging the digital gender divide.

Key points included the importance of meaningful connectivity, which goes beyond basic access to consider factors like device quality, connection speed, and affordability. Speakers highlighted persistent gaps in digital access and skills between urban and rural areas, as well as between men and women. Examples were shared of initiatives to empower women through digital literacy programs, entrepreneurship support, and access to online services.

The discussion emphasized the need for comprehensive policies and partnerships to address digital inclusion. Speakers noted the importance of measuring progress through gender-disaggregated data and using frameworks like UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators. The role of libraries in providing public internet access was highlighted as crucial for underserved communities.

Challenges related to disinformation and the ethical use of AI were also addressed, with speakers calling for increased media literacy and safeguards against manipulation of information. The potential of emerging technologies like AI to both exacerbate and potentially help close digital divides was explored.

Overall, participants stressed the urgency of collaborative action to ensure women and marginalized groups are not left behind in the digital transformation. They called for targeted investments, policy reforms, and education initiatives to create a more inclusive digital future.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of meaningful connectivity and digital inclusion, especially for women and underserved communities

– Challenges in achieving digital inclusion, including infrastructure gaps, affordability issues, and lack of digital skills

– The role of libraries, education initiatives, and targeted policies in promoting digital inclusion

– The need for gender-responsive frameworks and measuring progress on digital inclusion

– Concerns about disinformation and the impacts of AI/emerging technologies on digital divides

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore strategies and share best practices for creating inclusive digital ecosystems that are accessible to all, with a focus on empowering women, girls, and underserved communities.

The tone of the discussion was largely informative and solution-oriented. Speakers shared data, case studies and recommendations with a sense of urgency about addressing digital divides. There was an emphasis on collaboration and comprehensive approaches. The tone became slightly more impassioned towards the end, with calls to action and appeals to work together to tackle these critical issues.

Speakers

– Najib Mokni: Program Specialist for the CI sector at UNESCO Regional Office for Gulf States and Yemen, on-site moderator

– Tawfik Jelassi: Assistant Director General of Communication and Information Sector of UNESCO

– Alexandre Barbosa: Managing Director of CETIC, Head of the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development of the Information Society under the auspice of UNESCO

– Abdullah AI-Hawas: Head of the ITHRA library

– Sarah Birungi Kaddu: Dean and Senior Lecturer, East African School of Library and Information Science, Makerere University, Uganda; Information coordinator of IFLA Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Division Committee; Co-chair of International Steering Committee of UNESCO

– Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy: Professor at Cairo University, expert in ICT sector and digitization strategies and policies

– Xianhong Hu: UNESCO representative, online co-moderator

– Kossi Amessinou: Ministry of Economy and Finance of Benin, Chair of the NGO Women Be Free

– Onica Makwakwa: Executive Director of the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP)

– Viktoriia Romaniuk: Director of the Mohyla School of Journalism, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla in Ukraine; Deputy Chief Editor of StopFake; Chair of the UNESCO IFAP Working Group on Information Ethics

– Mariam Keburia: International Relationship and Development Office Consultant at the Business and Technology University of Georgia

– Dorothy Gordon: Board member of UNESCO Institute for Information Technology and Education, former chair of IFAP

Additional speakers:

– Sun Hong: UNESCO HQ representative, online co-moderator

– Ani Chelishvili: Representative from the University of Georgia in Business and Technology

– Carmen Ferri: Online moderator from GDIP

Expanded Summary of IGF 2023 Session on Digital Inclusion and Gender Equality

This session at the 19th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) focused on transformative digital inclusion and building a gender-responsive framework for underserved communities. Speakers from various organisations and countries discussed the challenges and opportunities in bridging the digital gender divide, emphasising the urgency of collaborative action to ensure women and marginalised groups are not left behind in the digital transformation.

Key Themes and Discussion Points:

1. Meaningful Connectivity and Digital Inclusion

Alexandre Barbosa, Managing Director of CETIC, introduced the crucial concept of meaningful connectivity, arguing that discussions must move beyond the binary notion of being connected or not. He emphasised the need for a more comprehensive approach to fully understand and address the opportunities and challenges of digital inclusion and the realisation of human rights online. Barbosa highlighted the revised Internet Universality Indicators (IOI) and ROAM-X framework from UNESCO, which provide a multidimensional perspective considering factors such as device quality, connection speed, and affordability.

Several speakers highlighted the persistent gaps in digital access and skills between urban and rural areas, as well as between men and women. This underscored the intersectionality of digital exclusion, showing how gender, geography, and education compound inequalities.

2. Role of Libraries and Community Centres

Abdullah AI-Hawas, Head of the ITHRA library, emphasised the crucial role of libraries in providing public internet access for underserved communities. He shared specific initiatives and statistics, stating, “More than 60% which are females that are trying to access books, either physical or digital. Also, we have trained more than 1,000 female undergrad students. They come and use their internship in our library for every semester.” This practical example demonstrated how libraries can serve as hubs for digital inclusion and gender equality.

3. Gender-Responsive Frameworks and Policies

Sarah Birungi Kaddu, Dean at the East African School of Library and Information Science, advocated for the development of gender-responsive frameworks for digital inclusion. This sentiment was echoed by Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy, who discussed digitisation tools for women’s empowerment in Egypt, and Mariam Keburia, who shared local digital inclusion initiatives for refugee women in Georgia.

Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director General of Communication and Information Sector of UNESCO, introduced the IFAP (Information for All Programme) strategic plan, which aims to address digital era challenges including bridging digital divides and promoting inclusion for women, girls, people with disabilities, and rural communities. He also mentioned UNESCO’s work on the United Nations International Decade for Indigenous Languages, running until 2032, which aims to promote local and indigenous languages.

Dorothy Gordon emphasised the need for comprehensive policies, coordinated efforts among government agencies, and clear benchmarks for addressing digital divide issues. She suggested creating national-level platforms that comply with ROAM standards (Rights-based, Open, Accessible, Multi-stakeholder).

4. Challenges of Disinformation and Emerging Technologies

Viktoriia Romaniuk, Director of the Mohyla School of Journalism in Ukraine, brought attention to the critical issue of disinformation campaigns as a barrier to information access. She highlighted the acute problem of AI-generated fakes in Ukraine during the ongoing conflict, stating, “The issue of promoted manipulative narratives and artificial intelligence-generated fakes has become particularly acute for Ukraine during the full-scale invasion.” Romaniuk recommended cooperation between governments, information organizations, and technology companies to combat disinformation.

Xianhong Hu, a UNESCO representative, raised concerns about the lack of women in AI and frontier technology development, noting that only 27% of women are involved in AI development, with an even worse gender gap in quantum technology. This point highlighted both the potential for emerging technologies like AI to exacerbate digital divides and the opportunity to leverage these technologies to help close the gaps.

5. Measuring Digital Inclusion

Speakers agreed on the importance of measuring progress through gender-disaggregated data and using comprehensive frameworks. Kossi Amessinou advocated for the use of UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators to assess digital transformation. Alexandre Barbosa emphasised a multidimensional approach to measure meaningful connectivity, while Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy stressed the importance of gender-disaggregated data on internet access and use.

6. Local Initiatives and Global Strategies

Mariam Keburia provided insight into balancing global strategies with local implementation, stating, “Our solution and the formula is to follow the global strategies, to be in line with the global strategies that have been designed and have been put in place by high quality experts, to follow, to share, to continue to share the passion that you and the colleagues all share but also and also with the participation of local stakeholders, local experts and those who are well aware of the local complexities to design the local solution.”

Several speakers shared specific projects and initiatives, including:

– IFAP projects in India, Georgia, and Iran empowering women with digital skills

– Ithra Library’s initiatives for digital inclusion and gender equality

– A project in Georgia supporting Ukrainian refugee women

Conclusion and Future Directions:

The discussion highlighted several key takeaways and action items:

1. Adopt the Internet Universality Indicators to assess digital transformation progress

2. Implement comprehensive national policies for media and information literacy

3. Create national-level digital platforms complying with rights-based standards

4. Promote STEM education for girls from an early age

5. Increase efforts to involve women in AI and frontier technology development

Unresolved issues included effectively reaching and persuading women who are not currently online to gain digital skills, addressing the significant underrepresentation of women in AI and quantum technology development, and sustainably funding large-scale digital inclusion initiatives in developing countries.

The session concluded with a strong consensus on the urgency of addressing digital divides, particularly those affecting women and marginalised communities. Speakers called for targeted investments, policy reforms, and education initiatives to create a more inclusive digital future, emphasising the need for collaborative, comprehensive approaches that consider the multifaceted nature of digital inclusion. The collaborative spirit of the event was further demonstrated by a call for a group photo at the end of the session.

Najib Mokni: Good morning, everybody. Dear partners, distinguished experts and speakers, welcome to this IFAP event and IFAP session at the 19th IGF in addition on Transformative Digital Inclusion, Building a Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Framework for the Underserved. My name is Najib Mokni, I’m Program Specialist for the CI sector at UNESCO Regional Office for Gulf States and Yemen, and happy to be the on-site moderator of this important workshop. My colleague, Sun Hong, connected from UNESCO HQ, will be the online co-moderator for this meeting. The today 90-minute session will be enabling in-depth discussion. We have a joint meeting of two IGF Dynamic Coalitions, the Dynamic Coalitions Public Access in Libraries, led by IFLA, and the Dynamic Coalition Measuring Digital Inclusion, led by UNESCO, IFAP, and Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. In collaboration with the IGF, we have a joint meeting of two IGF Dynamic Coalitions, the Dynamic Coalitions Public Access in Libraries, led by IFLA, and the Dynamic Coalition Measuring Digital Inclusion Partnership. In collaboration with partners such as CITIC, UNU-IGOV, and the Tech and Global Affairs Innovation Hub. The aim is to engage IGF stakeholders in policy discussions on creating inclusive digital ecosystems accessible to all, especially women, girls, and underserved communities. Panelists will share best practices to inspire policy initiatives addressing connectivity and inclusion challenges. We’ll start our session with the opening remarks by Dr. Tawfik Jelassi, the Assistant Director General of Communication and Information Sector of UNESCO. Dr. Jelassi is responsible for UNESCO’s program on fostering freedom of expression, leading digital transformation, strategizing the role of ICT in education, and building inclusive knowledge society. Mr. Jolassi, the floor is yours.

Tawfik Jelassi: Good morning. Can you hear me? Excellent. Esteemed participants, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to welcome you to the session this morning in the context of the IGF. It’s a session organized by the UNESCO IFAP program, the Information for All program, which is an intergovernmental program of UNESCO running now for more than 23 years. The moderator, Mr. Najib Bokni, has introduced the topic transformative digital inclusion, building a gender-responsive and inclusive framework for the underserved. Let me express our gratitude to our long-term partners, the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, GDIP, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, IFLAW. We are very delighted to be together for this important event. I would like also to acknowledge the contribution of the National Commission of Saudi Arabia to UNESCO and to its Secretary General, His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Belhit. Let me say that the topic is very important for us because it is at the heart of the UNESCO mandate of digital technologies for a better world, for societal inclusion, for bridging divides that exist today, and I would like here to highlight briefly three key points. The first one, IFAP has published last year its strategic plan for the period 2000-2009, and the aim of this strategic plan is to address our digital era. I mentioned some of these challenges bridging the digital divide, which is not only a digital divide, it is also an information divide, it is also an education divide, it is also a knowledge divide. Second, promoting inclusion for women and girls, for also people living with disabilities and for rural communities, and therefore to ensure that individuals can create and access digital and AI-driven content in their local language. So multilingualism, linguistic diversity online are among the top topics that we try to address. In this context, I want to inform you, in case you are not aware of it, UNESCO has been in charge of delivering the United Nations International Decade for Indigenous Languages. This decade started a couple of years ago and will run until 2032. This is one of the efforts of promoting local languages and indigenous languages, many of which have been in danger of extinction. We believe that by addressing inequality communities, both between countries and within countries and communities, IFAP can contribute to building an inclusive, equitable and sustainable knowledge society. The second point I would like to highlight is regarding the role and the contribution that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, generative AI and quantum computing, the role and contribution that these technologies can make, of course, for people, for individuals, for society. And here we want to promote the digital knowledge-based information by harnessing the new capabilities that these new technologies offer us. We are aware also of the risks and the dangers of these new powerful technologies, in particular generative AI, and we are trying to tackle the related risk. In this context, I want to remind you of a landmark contribution of UNESCO, the 2021 UNESCO Global Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. The work for this recommendation started back in 2018, way before the advent of chat GPT and generative AI. The third key point I would like to highlight is the crucial importance of partnerships. We are here with GDIP, we are here with IFLA, but we also recognized the dynamic coalitions that we have, one on public access in libraries, the other dynamic coalition on measuring digital inclusion. So we believe that technology is global, issues are borderless, and therefore to have such dynamic coalitions and such partnership makes a lot of sense in order to have to join forces, to join hands and to collectively tackle these important issues. In this context, I invite governments, academia, research institutions, civil society organizations and the technical community, in addition to private sectors, of course, to join us in advancing digital inclusion worldwide so we can create meaningful impacts that leave no one behind. Let me mention some statistics that many of you are, if not all of you, are aware of. Today we have 2.6 billion people who are still off-line. That is, of course, a huge number, and that’s a big challenge that we need all to tackle through meaningful connectivity, especially in less developed countries worldwide. And let me say also that we have 1.2 billion people with disabilities, and obviously we have to cater to these communities. We need to ensure inclusivity through digital, and we have to address and take into account the specificities of persons with disabilities. A recent survey from the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, a survey conducted with over 6,000 women in India, Mozambique, Nigeria and the Philippines, revealed the significant barriers they face, the significant barriers that women face in achieving inclusion. connectivity, such as the lack of affordable Internet connectivity or the lack of high-speed connection to suitable online services. IFAP also works on these issues, and again, with the collaboration I mentioned, we are trying to come up with solutions. And here let me mention maybe three brief use cases. The first one is in India, where an IFAP project empowered 265 rural women with digital skills through the Swarm Lumban program. In Georgia, 60 women, including many Ukrainian refugees, went through a targeted training to master digital technologies. In Iran, women participants in an IFAP training now proficiently use digital tools offered to them for inclusive role in society. So digital technologies can, of course, transform lives, can also make users more successful in whatever they do through what we offer them. Yet many women and girls in marginalized communities still lack the connectivity, and this, of course, exacerbates inequalities. So I hope this gives you an idea about some of the initiatives that IFAP program at UNESCO has been working on, whether by itself or through partnerships, like the couple of partnerships I mentioned and the dynamic coalitions. I would like to end with a call to continue building together an inclusive, not only information society, but hopefully a knowledge society, where everyone, regardless of nationality, regardless of gender, regardless of circumstances or ability, can thrive in the digital era. Thank you very much.

Najib Mokni: Thank you very much, Dr. Jelassi, for the key messages chaired regarding the response. to today’s challenges and for this call for all parties to continue to empower member states and stakeholders in developing policy for inclusive, equitable and sustainable knowledge societies and also for reiterating this commitment to partnerships. So now let’s hear from our experts. We have nine speakers. We have four on site and five online. I’ll introduce five of them and ask them one by one to share their thoughts and experiences on the strategy, actions, work plans and synergies among these dynamic coalitions and exchange on methodologies, results and good practices for measuring and enhancing digital inclusion and participation of women and girls and their servants and on exploring the multiple implications of frontier digital technologies on women and girls empowerment and building an inclusive digital inclusion framework. Let’s start with our first speaker, Mr. Alexander Barbosa, who is the Managing Director of CETIC. Mr. Alexander Barbosa is the Head of the Regional Centre for Studies on the Development of the Information Society CETIC under the auspice of UNESCO, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is responsible for managing research projects for the production of ICT-related statistics on the access to and use of ICTs in different segments of society. Mr. Barbosa, you have the floor. You have five minutes.

Alexandre Barbosa: Thank you very much, Najib, and good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here and thank UNESCO for inviting me to speak in this interesting dynamic coalition. Well, let me say that to advance human rights, especially the inclusion and digital inclusion and bridging the gap of women’s digital age, it is important to mention that we need to discuss connectivity beyond the binary concept of being or not being connected. We need a broader, a more comprehensive approach to fully understand and address the opportunities and challenges of digital inclusion and the realization of human rights online. And this concept that I want to bring to your attention today is called meaningful connectivity. And I guess that most of you here in this room have probably seen the launch of the revised Internet Universality Indicators, the IOI and the ROMEX framework from UNESCO. And this second generation of IOI has updated to reflect evolving priorities in the digital age, including the critical concept of meaningful connectivity. So I invite all of you to know this new series of IOI. And being connected, as I have said, is no longer sufficient to guarantee that individuals can reap the benefits of the Internet. We need to go to a broader concept that truly means to be represented, truly to be included in the digital age. And meaningful connectivity requires us to adopt a multidimensional perspective that considers not only Internet access, but also the quality, affordability and contextual opportunities for women in the digital age and their engagement in this new environment. And the dimensions that I draw your attention to are at least four key dimensions. The type of device that we are using to connect, the quality of connection, meaning the speed, the availability, the stability. of the connection, the financial affordability, and the availability of digital inclusion to measure the conditions of digital inclusion of the population and for development of effective public policies. And this holistic approach allows us to measure the actual conditions of digital inclusion and in turn design and implement public policies that ensure no one is left behind in the digital transformation process. We in Brazil did build on the work of the A4AI and the ITU to develop an analytical and conceptual framework that refines and expand the concept of meaningful connectivity to better address these pressing challenges, especially the gender gap. And to illustrate the importance of meaningful connectivity, let me share some findings of our last report that we published and that serve as a basis for the G20 recommendation for the G20 countries in terms of meaningful connectivity. When you look at the Brazilian situation, we have almost universal connectivity, being 90% of Brazilians as internet users, but this proportion drops down dramatically to only 22% of the population when we apply this concept of meaningful connectivity. And this finding, this report, exposed the deep inequalities in the country that were hidden or underestimated when measuring connectivity solely through the concept of being connected or not connected. I’m not going into the details, but just to illustrate the… gender inequalities, we have 28% of men having meaningful connectivity and only 17% of women having this full connectivity, highlighting a significant digital gender gap. And when you look at the numbers without this concept, we have 50 and 50. It’s very equal, but when you go deep into more detailed dimensions, there is a big issue. And these extreme inequalities have profound implications for human rights as they exacerbate social, economic and digital divides and this limited meaningful connectivity directly impacts vulnerable population, while also marginalising their voice in the digital age. To conclude, this concept that I brought to you, to your attention, of meaningful connectivity, is a critical tool for advancing human rights and the digital inclusion in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. It provides a clear evidence framework for understanding and addressing the conditions that determine true digital inclusion. By uncovering hidden disparities and guiding the development of target effective policies, meaningful connectivity ensures that all individuals, regardless of gender, age, socio-economic status or geographic location, can fully participate in and benefit from the opportunities brought by the digital transformation. Promote meaningful connectivity is not just a matter of technology, but equity, dignity and human rights. It is a fundamental enabler of social and economic developing, empowering individuals and mainly women to access education, employment, healthcare, and civic participations in meaningful ways. As such, policies and initiatives to bridge the digital gaps must be grounded in principles of meaningful connectivities, ensuring that Internet becomes a tool for advancing human rights, equity, and opportunity for all. And last, just to mention the UNESCO work, by integrating meaningful connectivity alongside themes such as governance of digital platforms, privacy, and children’s rights, the data the UNESCO EUI ensures a more comprehensive assessment of the digital inclusion. So those are my main contributions to this debate. Thank you.

Najib Mokni: Thank you so much, Dr. Barbosa, for those important elements and information shared regarding this very important initiative and the meaningful connectivity. We will have the chance and give the chance to the audience to ask questions and interact with you at the Q&A session. Now I’ll move with our next speaker, who is Dr. Abdallah Al-Hawass, the head of the ITHRA library. During his time at ITHRA, he has managed key components of mega-projects and led multiple cultural programs, both nationally and internationally, all of which aimed to provide cross-cultural engagement aligned with Saudi Arabia’s vision to 2030. Al-Hawass also served as the project manager of ITHRA participation in international book fairs to position ITHRA among global cultural institutions, project manager of ITHRA content initiative, director of the cultural program of the Eastern Book Fair 2023, and Dr. Abdallah Hawass intervention will be on empowering communities through equal access and digital inclusion and how Ithra Library contributes in digital inclusion and gender equality. Dr. Al-Hawass, you have five minutes.

Abdullah AI-Hawas: Thank you for the nice introduction. First, I would like to welcome you all here in our country. We are really pleased to have you all here in Riyadh city, the ambitious and the great city. It’s nice always to interact with people with different cultures. So I hope you are enjoying your staying here in Riyadh. So I have five minutes, so I have to run. So I will share my experience, our experience in Ithra Center and the empowerment communities through equal and digital inclusion. So first of all, let me just give you who are we. We are a cultural center. We have different components that serve the community as per the field of culture. We have a theater, we have archive, museum, cinema, idea labs for innovation and creativity. And of course, we have the library. The center is located in Bahrain, which is almost 400 kilometers from Riyadh city. Here, this is our library, Ithra Library. So I am sharing with you the experience and what we are doing here in the library in terms of the gender equity and inclusivity. So Ithra Library was selected as one of the top four modern library as per IFLA in 2022. We have a vibrant space to attract people, to be a friend with the library. We are not just books on shelves. know we are bigger than this, so we’re trying to have this access and this concept to all of our visitors to like the library. We have different goals. First of all to increase the love of reading and make it a habit and also contribute to improving the community by empowering them to come and use the spaces to share their ideas and make their activities. Also to support the cultural need for community members. Okay, this is our library. We have five different, let’s say, levels. Back of house and we have second level for children and floor and children literacy and multimedia. We have social floor and nonfiction collection and we have the fifth level which is about research and reference floor. This is just a glimpse of our levels. This is the for children literacy and multimedia section and second level. We have this the social floor and fiction books. Here where we are hosting different communities to activate and to meet and to interact with each other. Also we have the level four for nonfiction collection and also for the level five for research and reference floor. So how Ifrah Library contributes in digital inclusion and gender equality and through the vision of Saudi Arabia 2030 and also through UNESCO. So basically our vision is ambitious one and its result you can see it around the city from now. We achieved a lot of targets so far, and yet to achieve the remaining, there are more than 90 targets. But here I put the target that’s related to the library fields, three main pillars, which is developing administrative and operational efficiency, enhancing the community participation, and developing the library sector, planning, developing standard and system, and financing and investment, and developing cadres. So what we are seeing here, this is where we interact or interfacing with 2030 vision. The red one, we are contributing this directly through Ithra Library, improving access to library service, raising information awareness and promoting reader habits, activating libraries as center for education, culture, and community development, and support the digital transformation of library services. Here where we are also interact with the 2030 vision in equity, where the promoting women’s participation in the workforce, offering equal opportunity in labor market, and engaging and empowering women, improving digital literacy and education, policy and legal reforms, public private partnership, and also awareness and advocacy. And here where we are also interfacing with UNESCO and the sustainable development goals, we have four shared goals in quality education and achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, also sustainable cities and communities, and last life and land. So we are trying to contribute and achieve those targets either in 2030 vision of Saudi Arabia or sustainable development in UNESCO. achieving that? This is part of our effort. First, we’re introducing digital library. We have now over 55,000 books and more than 7,000 digital magazines and newspapers. It’s free of access. Anyone has an email can freely see all of these titles in English and Arabic anywhere in the world. If you have an email, then you have this plenty of books you can access. This is where we’re trying to put the culture and digitalize the books among our community. We started in 2019 with low numbers. Once COVID came, we think it will be raised and go down, but that wasn’t the case because every year it’s getting better and increased. Until now, we have more than 3,000 active users with more than 25,000 checkouts, which is exploring the books. This keeps increasing with time. Also, we have access for all. There is free internet access, Wi-Fi. We have also free printing, mobile device charging, developing accessibility. We have the sign language for people with disability. We have more than 3,000 titles for Braille books. We have also our staff can serve the people with disability either with sign language and with the signage with Braille writing. Also, this is kind of our services. We either come back shelving, self-checkout machines, and also smart screen if you don’t need to interact with a human being. Also, we have the computers is disputed among the library with free access. We have smart book return system and also multi-purpose room. If you enter the library, you need to conduct a meeting. If you just enter the library, you can get these services for free. Also, we have the quality education. We have more than 60% which are females that are trying to access books, either physical or digital. Also, we have trained more than 1,000 female undergrad students. They come and use their internship in our library for every semester. All of them are girls and women because we don’t have in the city for college for males. Also, we have here also achieve gender equality and empower all women girls. 65% of our women and we have also many of leaders from girls and women. Also we have representing Ithra Library at local and global cultural event to support this idea and cause and concept leading the library programs by our female staff in different stages through the planning development and also we have the sustainable cities and communication. We always open the doors for any activities that are related to culture. We have more than 30 reading clubs that we host in over the different years. They can come and discuss their books. It’s open for them. They can utilize any space that they like and also 50% of this reading clubs are from females. Also we have the in life and land we have lots an initiative if we call it reading marathon. We conducted every year in January with different libraries on a time in Arab world that if you read come you if you come to the library and read 100 pages Ithra will plant a tree for you. This is part to make our land green and this is part of our crown of initiative to make the Saudi green. So we are contributing in the land and make the life better by reading and reflecting this in the environment. Okay we have also safe space for cultural activities. This type of activities it is free for all ages for all genders reading club, certain book fair. We have reading competition. We have good to be exhibition where we people can exchange their books with other books freely. We have different book signing for global and and also a local author in the picture, which is the Nobel Prize winner, Mrs. Olga. Also we have pottery night all the time. Also this is part of our initiative to make the new generation to like and love the reading. We have something called iRead program, which is designed to be a competition starting from Saudi then from 2022. It’s spread to include all the Arab countries. We have more than 100,000 applicants this year. 10 of them was the finalists to win the title of Reader of the Year. As you see, nine of the finalists were females and one is male. Sometimes the women and girls are better than males in this kind of competitions and especially in reading. So by these all of activities giving the access, we think that Ithra is always trying to bridging the gap in terms of the accessibility and inclusivity and also the gender equality. Thank you. I’m sorry for taking too much time.

Najib Mokni: Thank you so much for this brilliant presentation, Dr. Al-Hawass, and I think this is very important to share the efforts of Ithra Library and it could be very, I mean, inspirational for many of our partners present at Ithra. I will move to our next expert, which is Dr. Sarah Cadu. Mr. Sarah is the Dean and Senior Lecturer, East African School of Library and Information Science, Macquarie. University, Uganda. Dr. Kadu is information coordinator of IFLA Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Division Committee, and she is also the co-chair of International Steering Committee of UNESCO. The title of the presentation of Dr. Kadu is IFLA and Gender-Inclusive Digital Transformation in Uganda, a call for action. You have the floor, madam, with five minutes, if you could,

Sarah Birungi Kaddu: Thank you so much, moderator, colleagues. Good day to you all. My presentation is the Gender-Inclusive Digital Transformation in Uganda, and I will end the presentation by a call to action. So throughout the presentation, I will highlight the importance of digital inclusion. I will also look at the challenges and propose a framework that ensures that no one is left behind, especially the women and the underserved communities. So as we may all be aware, the digital age presents immense opportunities for development. However, not everyone has equal access to these opportunities, and so that is why I bring to a case study from one of the rural communities in Uganda. So the current state of digital inclusion in rural Uganda is that 29% of Ugandans are having access to internet, and the majority of them reside in rural communities, and many of them are underserved. And this comes with a lot of challenges. For instance, there is poor infrastructure. and limited connectivity, high cost of devices and Internet services and of course lack of digital literacy and this also is causing a gender gap as has been earlier on narrated too from our keynote speech. I bring to you, ladies and gentlemen, a case study from one of the rural communities by the name of Nakaseke. Nakaseke is in Nakaseke district where there is a very vibrant public library that started as a community library but later on taken on by the state. It has about 26,000 people and 75% are small scale farmers including women and youth. There are lots of digital inclusion initiatives going on in this village. For instance, it’s a hub for digital inclusion pilot projects. There are also community based digital literacy programs for women in technology, Uganda and also initiatives by the National Library of Uganda and others and also the government through the Rural Communication Development Fund has facilitated ICT access to enable women and youth to connect online their businesses and also tap into the opportunities that online transactions come along with. Now why then do we have to think of a gender responsive framework? Earlier on I’ve just shared that there are a lot of initiatives in one of these rural areas, Nakaseke, but why should we now think of a gender responsive framework? It’s because many of these initiatives are in the rural areas. in existence, but none of them comes with a clear digital inclusion framework. So my proposal for a gender-responsive framework has three main objectives. One, promote the principle of equity, and two, to address gender disparities in access to digital tools and resources, and three, to enhance society development. So the proposal, in the interest of time, has three major components. One, I’m proposing to have a policy and regulation, whereby policies, particularly, I emphasize gender-sensitive policies, and also the second one, the infrastructure, whereby you need to have universal connectivity and affordable technologies, and three, the policy should have a component on education and training to be able to address the digital literacy programs that we’ve just seen a challenge. So my call to action, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I know by now we all agree that there is a need for a gender-responsive and inclusive framework that can bridge the digital divide and empower all citizens, and of course, leaving no one behind. So I’m therefore, in conclusion, asking us to adopt the IC approach to this digital inclusion approach that I’m proposing. One, invest in digital infrastructure, two, encourage collaboration among government, private sector, and mostly IFLA, UNESCO, and all other parties present in the room, and actively involve women and underserved communities in digital initiatives. and finally, to encourage progressive policies such as tax regimes that lower costs of connectivity, adult education and female education. I thank you. Shukran.

Najib Mokni: Shukran. Thank you so much, Dr. Kadu, for the brilliant presentation and thank you for this call of action and this approach suggested to partners coming and based on the experience of Uganda. Thank you so much. Our next guest and speaker is Dr. and Professor Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy. I think I pronounced it right, huh? Okay, so quickly, Professor Ashenewi, she’s a professor at Cairo University. Dr. Negwa has more than 20 years experience in developing strategies and policies related to ICT sector and digitization. She also has experience in conducting studies, setting methodologies, producing statistics and indicators to evaluate and assess the ICT sector performance and its impact on the economic development. An active member in ICT Digital Economy International and Academic Experts Group, she conducted the research policy papers in the areas of ICT and digitalization. Professor Ashenewi, you have five minutes for your presentation.

Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy: Good afternoon. Thank you so much, Monji, and I would like first to take this opportunity to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their hospitality and for their excellent organization for the IGF 2024 and I would also like to thank UNESCO and my dear Alex, my dear friend, for really giving me this opportunity and share with you my experience in the digital inclusion as well as share with you some substance from a recent study I conducted titled Digitization Innovation Tools for Women Empowerment, the Case of Egypt. All of us knew that the gender gap has always been a socioeconomic concern everywhere in the world, even with the emergence of the technologies in the last few decades, but still globally this gender-based digital divide still persists. to present day. And according to the ITU figure, the world is slowly moving toward gender parity in Internet user. The percentage of female using the Internet in the year 2024 reached 65% for the female versus 70% of the of the male. And the gender-based digital gap exists everywhere, but to a different extent. But really the countries that suffered at most are the developing and the underdeveloped nation. Among this country, the Arab and the African region, where the digital gender gap reached from 9 to 10% compared to the other region. And also according to the International Labour Organization, the labor force participation for women on a global scale is approximately 49% almost compared to 75% for men. And this means that 25% gap between both genders. The countries during the last decade started to make a progress either by formulating policies or placing focus on how to digitally transform their economies. And this has allowed their societies, including women, to benefit from the opportunity offered by the digital transformation and digital economy. Among this country, Egypt, and digitization and innovation have significantly contributed to empowering women in Egypt, and offering her opportunity in the education, in the entrepreneurship, as well as in the economic participation. And let me share with you some of this substance and how this development are making a difference. For example, for the education. And I really I was proud and they had a great opportunity to initiate and managing. and Functioning, the first ICT for women platform in Egypt. And this is to fulfill the SDGs number five. And this platform really helped the women and girls to access learning and building their digital capacity, especially in the rural and under-served area. Not only this, but also this platform offer other service to the women and girls, among them, all the studies, the recent study conducted in the area of digital inclusion and in the area of ICT and women, we already succeeded to help them to reach these studies and this report, especially the report of the international organization. In addition to this also, we already, I already succeeded to convince the international companies and the local one working in the area of ICT to offer a percentage of jobs for women in the ICT sector in another also, in addition to other services. So as also in addition in the education, other initiative related to the e-learning established by the government in Egypt, which is decent live initiative, which focus also on equipping the women with some tech and digital literacy skills. For the second area, which is entrepreneurship and fostering the entrepreneurship, we have already the marketplace existing in our country. We have the national and the regional one, which help the women to manage their business from home, overcoming traditional barriers like mobility and social restriction. And also in addition to this, I had also some effort and I’m continuing this effort till now to build the capacity of, especially the women entrepreneur. Women entrepreneur, we have. different region, this region are almost, more of them are rural area. And this women entrepreneur, they lack not only digital skills, but they lack also to test the technology, the digital technology. Use this digital technology in order to develop, for example, their Facebook page, or Instagram page, or web page. So I really, I succeeded with some of my colleague and in collaboration with different NGOs in my country, to go to this entrepreneur in their rural area, in their villages, we offer them this type of workshop to help them really to test the technology, to help them to use the technology in order to building their web page, and then sell their product on this web page. In addition to this, as well for the entrepreneurship, we have mobile banking and FinTech innovation, and this is launched by the banking sector and financial institution, which allow the women to easy access to loan and financial tools to support their business. Supporting the employment, one of the important things that digitization has enabled a flexible and remote work option, allowing more women to join the workforce, especially those managing household responsibility. However, after all of this, yes, digitization opened new door and new opportunities for the women and girl in our country, but still the challenge remain existing to reach the gender equity. And for this, my proposal in this study is to, in order to define again these challenges and to focus on these challenges, the first one is related to the digital divide. Access to meaningful connectivity, reliable internet and affordable devices is still limited in some area in our country. Especially, for example, if we, according to the latest statistics and also published by the ITU in Egypt for the internet user, the individual who use internet. net in Egypt, it’s around 71-72%. When it comes to the gender percentage, for the female, it’s around 65 or 66%, and for the male, it’s around 79%. So the gap is big, still big. And when we go to the urban and rural area, the gap is more and more bigger. The second issue is related to employment in ICT sector and occupation that require intensive use of ICT. Women in Egypt really are at a disadvantaged position compared to the men. So this is also one of the great challenges, and I had the opportunity to participate in a study related to this area previously, and I’m planning now to conduct another study in this, because this is very important area, offering ICT jobs for women, especially jobs which use the ICT to an intensive level. This is very important also, not only for our country, but for all countries, whether developed or developing one. The third challenge is related to the cyber security concern as well. The data privacy issue, all of these are significant issues which can hurdle also the women in our country. Last things, which addressing this challenge through targeted policy and initiative can further amplify the impact of digitization and innovation on women empowerment, not only for our country in Egypt, I believe this is for a major country in the Arab region, in the African region, and in other region worldwide. With this, I submit Monje, thank you so much.

Najib Mokni: Thank you so much, Professor, for sharing these key findings from this important study coming from Egypt. So as I said before, how we will to enter, I mean, for the audience to interact with your presentations. I don’t see, Mr. Kossi, I may see no connected Sanhok, that’s, you can confirm? Yes, I confirm. available for this session. So I thank the speakers here present on the stage and I give the floor to my colleague, Sun Hong, to introduce the next speakers. Thank you. Thank you, Najib.

Xianhong Hu: Thanks to all the previous speakers. I heard so much insights, vision and aspirations from you. Now it’s really my great honor to continue the moderation and introduce our online speakers. We are only having 30 minutes. I will do my best and also want to ensure about 10 minutes to open the floor. So for those participants in the room and online, please feel free to prepare your questions and introduce yourself because of the Dynamic Coalition meeting. So we just want to know you more. So now…

Najib Mokni: Sorry, Sun Hong, sorry to interrupt you. Mr. Kosi was here. He was hiding in the room. So welcome, Mr. Kosi. And maybe before going to the online speakers, Sun Hong, could you give me five minutes? Yes, maximum. Also to the presentation of Mr. Amesinu. So Mr. Kosi Amesinu, from the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Benin, the chair of the NGO Women Be Free. He is a civil servant of the Beninese state since 2008 and he has been working since June 2021 at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He is the current head of the private sector monitoring and support service. He is also the regional director for West Africa at the African ICT Foundation and he is the chair of NGO Women Be Free. Mr. Amesinu, you have the floor. Five minutes for your presentation.

Kossi Amessinou: Thank you for inviting me. Previously, I said to our colleague from UNESCO that I will share only the experience from our process. The statement we do with UNESCO in Benin, according to how to use the Internet Universal Indicators to transform our digital transformation process in our country. For the statement, for example, we put on the table one metric order group, where we have public representatives, private representatives, civil society representatives, and also the research staff, led locally by myself and globally by Professor Alain Kiyendu. And for the collection, data collection locally, I lead the staff with this colleague from different We collect information from all the stakeholders, we analyze the data we collect, we resume, and the government makes validation of each step of the information we collect. After that process, with the government representative, we do a one big validation event, where government provides his input to let the document be very acceptable for him, and also civil society and private sector, all of them provide their input, and we conclude our statement. In this process, we see the gap we have in implementation of digital process for ladies and women. We have more women who don’t have possibility today to attend mathematical study, physical study, and informatics study, technical study globally. They are mostly in literal study. We are working now with government to let them have found support to go through it for technical study now, and for this year, 2024, we have hundreds fellowship in a public university for the people who don’t have money, coming from a family where we don’t have more money to pay for their scholarship in high school. The government pay directly for them. With the support we have some projects, one called SWEDS, is financed by World Bank, but working with government. we finance more of ladies to go to technical high school this year. We will do it next year again and continue to do this process to have more ladies and women in technical area and let them become our champion in how women can be referenced in technical issue area in our country. That is the comment I need to share with you here.

Najib Mokni: Thank you. Thank you so much for this experience shared from Benin based on the IUI and the importance of the assessment based on the IUI indicators of UNESCO to come up with recommendations on gender inclusion. Thank you so much. I give back the floor to my colleague Sun Hong to continue with the next speakers. Thank

Xianhong Hu: you. Yeah, thank you, Najeeb. Thank you, Kosi. Since we only have 25 minutes, I’ll be very fast to introduce our following four wonderful women speakers online. Please forgive me if we don’t have time for open floor. So please do type your comments in the chat. We have online moderator Carmen Ferry from TDIP to moderate online with you as well. So now it’s my great honor to introduce Madam Onika Makwakwa, the Executive Director of the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, TDIP, who is also co-founder of the ITF Dynamic Coalition on the Measuring Digital Inclusion. And Onika, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Onica Makwakwa: Great. Thank you so much and greetings to you all. I will get quickly right to it. It is an honor to join you today for this session. I am going to base my contribution on a summary of a recent report, which Global Digital Inclusion partnership published earlier this year, titled Connected to Resilience, Gendered Experiences of Meaningful Connectivity through a Global Pandemic. This report is a reflection of our shared journey through one of the most transformative global challenges in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digital divide that continues to shape the experiences of billions of people around the world, especially women. The pandemic underscored the essential role of the internet. For many, it became a lifeline, a means of staying connected to family, education, work, and healthcare. Yet, this global crisis also revealed the deep inequalities in internet access, exposing how meaningful connectivity is far from universal. We witnessed firsthand how essential internet access had become, but we also saw how many, especially women, were left behind. The digital divide is not just a matter of access to technology, it’s a matter of equity. Despite the rapid acceleration of digital technologies, too many women, particularly in rural and marginalized communities, continue to face significant barriers to connectivity. Whether it’s lack of infrastructure, high cost of internet access and devices, or societal structures that limit their access and agency, these barriers have been amplified in the wake of the pandemic. In our study, we focused on understanding these gendered experiences by gathering insights from over 6,000 women across countries like Bangladesh, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda, as well as engaging policymakers and digital experts from Africa and Asia, where we explored a new research method, which we called policy ethnography. What we found was eye-opening and deeply concerning. Women living in rural areas were three times more likely to lack internet access than their urban counterparts. And those with lower levels of education were significantly less likely to be meaningfully connected. This is a clear indication of how the digital divide intersects with geography, education, and class, creating new layers of inequality. In underserved communities, whether it’s a remote village in India or an impoverished urban settlement in Nigeria, women face compounded challenges. They often lack the infrastructure needed for reliable internet access, face high costs of device and data services, and in many cases, depend on male family members to access devices. Additionally, the unpaid care work that many women shoulder leaves them with little time to acquire digital skills or engage in online activities. Yet, despite these formidable challenges, we also witnessed incredible resilience. Women continue to find creative ways to access the internet for education, employment, and family connections. This resilience is something we must not overlook. It is a testament to the strength and determination of women everywhere. But it is also a call to action for us to do more to ensure that these barriers are broken down and that women are fully included in the digital economy. Our research also offers a glimpse of hope, a pathway forward. If we are to close the digital divide and make meaningful progress, we must center policies that are people-focused and rooted in community consultation. Solutions should not be imposed from the top down, but co-created with communities that are most affected. This is why we propose four actionable tiers of solutions. One. are deep investments. These are substantial targeted investments that can make significant impact on a specific community or issue, driving meaningful change, examples such as better use of universal service and access funds to close digital gender divides. Two is grand visions, long-term transformative initiatives that require substantial funding and years of efforts to bring about systemic change in the digital landscape, such as national broadband plans and key policy strategy documents that can be very clear about closing the gender gaps. Easy wins as the third recommendation, you know, looking at smaller, more targeted interventions that can deliver tangible benefits quickly and build momentum for larger change. An example of this is collecting gender data and actually using it. Scalable systems is the fourth recommendation, you know, programs that take existing structures and systems and scale them to reach a broader audience, creating a lasting impact. You know, multi-stakeholder approaches and gender targets can provide the foundation for processes to scale progress towards closing the gender digital divide. Importantly, no single solution will work for everyone. Each region, each community, and each person has different needs and priorities. That’s why it’s essential that policy makers engage directly with local communities, listen to their experiences, and design strategies that reflect their specific context. Beyond technological development, the advancement of meaningful connectivity also requires building a supportive social environment. This means ensuring that connectivity is affordable, that digital skills are accessible, and that everyone, regardless of gender or geography, has an equal opportunity to benefit from the digital economy. It also means emerging challenges like data protection, online safety, and consumer protection as millions more people come online. The numbers are stuck. If we do not act, the global economic losses from the digital divide could exceed half a trillion dollars in the next five years. The cost of inaction is far too high and the opportunity for change is now. As we look ahead, let us take this moment to reaffirm our commitment to digital inclusion. Let us ensure that women, especially those in marginalized communities, are not left behind as we move forward into a digital future. Together we can create a world where connectivity is not a privilege but a right, a world where everyone everywhere has the tools and opportunities to thrive. Thank you.

Xianhong Hu: Thank you Onika for sharing so extensive work you’ve done on the ground. And for those who like to follow GDIP and the dynamic coalition work, you could always fill the membership submission form as typed in the chat to join us and we’ll keep you updated on our good work. Now I’m very happy to present Dr. Victoria Romaniuk. She is the director of the Moila School of Journalism, the National University of Kiev, Moila in Ukraine. She is also the deputy chief editor of StopFake, a pioneering fact-checking organization. And most importantly, she is also the chair of the UNESCO IFAP Working Group on Information Ethics. So Dr. Romaniuk, the floor is yours.

Viktoriia Romaniuk: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be here and share our experience. Among the organizations I represented is fact-checking project StopFake. And today I would like to talk about the disinformation as one of the main threats and very big challenge for all of us. So the use of artificial intelligence in disinformation… information campaign and the manipulation of public opinion has become a significant challenge in spreading false narratives and misleading facts. Today, this is becoming a powerful challenge and an obstacle to access to information for all. The UNESCO report published in this year warns that without a decisive step to integrate ethical principles, artificial intelligence could distort historical data about, for example, the Holocaust, as it often generates false information. It has also been documented that AI enables a malicious actor to manipulate historical context, create fabricated testimonies, and even alter historical records. The issue of promoted manipulative narratives and artificial intelligence-generated fakes has become particularly acute for Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, and the use of artificial intelligence in the context of disinformation can be divided into following formats. First of all, it’s creation of fake content, manipulation of photo, video, and audio, audience analysis and contact adaptation to their needs, and dissemination of disinformation through coordinated inauthentic behavior generated by AI. In the spring of this year, OpenAI discovered five international disinformation campaigns that use generative AI to manipulate public opinion and influence The report mentions that the campaign involves governments, agencies, and private companies from Russia, China, Iran, and Israel. The content posed by this organization focused on the wide range of issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and conflict in Gaza, in India election, and politics in Europe and the United States, and, of course, criticism of the Chinese government. And since the start of full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Ukraine Fact-Checking and Analytical Organization have documented various types of AI during disinformation campaigns in Ukraine. These campaigns are associated with content generation and use the deepfakes, of course. And also, these campaigns were likely to undermine trust in the government and military, creating a crisis in society and intimidating the population and causing distortion, as well as inciting social and political conflict and undermining support for Ukraine. So, among the main narratives that we observe and that we analyze that Ukraine is a failed state, Ukraine is a fascist state, and military support Ukraine, and the narratives that are related to it are trying to undermine military support for Ukraine, and so on, and so on. Such technological disinformation campaigns are aimed at influencing a large group of people and are often used in the context of political and military events, as I mentioned before. And they target… And they target… changes in audience’s behavior. And it’s very, very important for us because disinformation campaign really very, very dangerous and change in audience behavior, distortion of factual knowledge and creation of false perception of reality. And such disinformation campaign post a direct threats to preventing access to trustful and often life critical information for all group of people. And this post a significant threats to the information security of society, especially during the crisis, military conflict, war, election and so on and so on. So it’s extremely important, it’s necessary to build information cooperation and coordinate effort between governments, information organization, international organization and technological company to effectively combat disinformation campaign. It’s important to actively cooperate with technology companies to direct and block, to detect and block disinformation, monitor the activity of bots and fake accounts, spreading manipulative contact and strengthen action within the legal framework. Additionally, it’s essential to investigate, to analyze the sources and sponsor of disinformation campaign to ensure transparency and hold all responsibility parties accountability. And of course, finally, it’s necessary to enhance media literacy skills amongst the audience and rise awareness about artificial intelligence, about disinformation, about different technologies that changes our perception. about reality. So I will conclude here. Thank you very much for the attention and we can continue to discuss if we will have some time.

Xianhong Hu: Thank you Dr. Romanilka for unpacking so much complexities of the disinformation and related issues. Also I enjoyed listening to your solutions you have already accumulated in your past experience. I understand your working group has also a LinkedIn group so if you can share in the chat so our participants can also follow with you on the entire work related to these issues. Thank you. Now I’d like to introduce the next speaker, Madame Maria Cabrera. She is the International Relationship and Development Office Consultant at the Business and Technology University of Georgia and I also take this opportunity to recognize the presence of Madame Ani Sharishvili, also from the University of Georgia in Business and Technology and you have been a wonderful implementing partner of the IFA project we support in your country. So Maria, please take the floor and share your good practice.

Mariam Keburia: Thank you. Thank you so much and warm greetings from Georgia and from our side from Business and Technology University. First of all I would like to on behalf of our team and we are together engaged in this great forum and opportunity to exchange with ideas. First of all we would like to thank you most cordially for welcoming us, Business and Technology University, one of the actors from Georgia to share our perspectives and also to feel much more global than before cooperating with IFA program and before cooperating with our global partners. If I could kind of title our intervention it would be the global reach and local impact. This is the stories that we would like to share with you from Business and Technology University, which is a relatively small institution in Georgia and basically focused on delivering value-driven initiatives, projects in and for local communities. But those local initiatives and the projects or initiatives that are designed for the emerging pressing needs for the local societies, they are also reflected and kind of designed from the global strategies, from the global needs and the perspectives that our partner institutions share through different platforms. And our presence today, being the part of this particular forum and also being the part of the coalition, enables us to follow all those general and much needed and already strategized initiatives that are in place. The experiences and knowledge that you have shared right now from different perspectives, from the people in the audience who are in person and also the representatives across the globe who have shared the common need for empowering those who have less access to technologies, enabling those who would otherwise have less possibilities to upskill, to use meaningfully their technologies. So coming back to the local impact and global reach, I would like to bring to your attention one of the initiatives supported by UNESCO-IFAP in Georgia, and that particular initiative was addressing Ukrainian refugee women in Georgia. One of the beneficiaries of the projects or to say one of the participants target group of the project where Georgian as well as Ukrainian refugees women living in Georgia. That was relatively small scale project, but again it had in mind to increase the meaningful use of technology. technologies and many of our colleagues have beautifully highlighted how important it is to have access to fight against fake news, to have access to the AI tools, to have access to the digital skills and especially and colleagues in person mentioned that it’s important to give such access to grant such access to those who would otherwise not be able to underprivileged so to say. So that was a project that we have completed with participation and with support of UNESCO IFAP program and the learnings and the feedback, the knowledge that we gained allowed us to move further in the next keyword in our intervention would be partnership to move farther and engage more partners and currently we have recently completed one of the larger scale initiatives for the targeting Ukrainian empowering tech empowerment of Ukrainian women in Georgia that was the next phase that was supported in this case with larger stakeholders with larger number of partners in Georgia international partners of course and what is more important to highlight is the project the tech empowerment for Ukrainian women has moved to the next phase even expanding our initiative and expanding opportunities and granting even more skills more courses more tangible outcomes more opportunities to those women who temporarily now have to live in Georgia and have to be away from their homes from Ukraine. One of the highlights that I wanted to bring to your attention is how we have improved after IFAP program that we have completed we have engaged more stakeholders we have engaged more partners because we understood it very clearly what it means to have global agenda, just like similar to today, what it means to translate the global strategies, a global agenda into local initiatives and that’s how our university works and that’s how these similar programs have started to work after sharing the experience that it gives us a great pleasure even to do today and in other cases as well to be a part of the international forum and international communities such as coalitions and various opportunities. We have engaged more participants but also more trainers from Ukraine for example. This time our this particular program that we have transformed and enlarged and kind of covered more participants have brought a feedback loop, have brought the feedback and recommendations from participants, have improved our practices based on the engagement of participants and we have invited more experts and more people from Ukraine on board in order to implement the projects for Ukrainian in much more efficient way. So what is our solution? Our solution and the formula is to follow the global strategies, to be in line with the global strategies that have been designed and have been put in place by high quality experts, to follow, to share, to continue to share the passion that you and the colleagues all share but also and also with the participation of local stakeholders, local experts and those who are well aware of the local complexities to design the local solution. So once again from global reach to local impact that is how IFAP and the international part have enabled us, and that is what we have for the coming next year in our agenda. Thank you so much, and we remain in touch for partnership, for exchange, and for enriching each other’s common goals.

Xianhong Hu: Thank you so much, Mariam. I mean, what you have shared in Georgia, just also telling me that even a local project can deliver such a global impact and also such a sustainability in the country. Thank you. So I think we are really on time, that I just want to give floor to the, sorry, I don’t have time to open floor, but I have to ensure that I’m going to introduce our last speaker, Madame Dorothy Borden, to address some final words. Dorothy has been a board member of UNESCO Institute for Information Technology and Education. She has been a global leading expert in the international development and technology. Of course, she has also been a former chair of IFAB. Dorothy, please take the floor and give some of your final remarks. Thank you again, Dorothy, for your participation.

Dorothy Gordon: Thank you. I do hope we’ll be able to collect some questions because this has been such an enriching session. The first thing that I want to note from all the speakers is that our failure to act in such a way as to bridge the digital divide that we are discussing today has created new problems. Particularly, I highlight the increasing inequality because the face of poverty has always been female. It’s always been people with disabilities. And now our failure to get them effectively online further deepens that poverty. And with frontier technologies such as AI that make it so easy to spread misinformation and fake news, the fact that that huge… number of our population does not understand what is happening, makes that our entire social fabric extremely vulnerable, our democracies extremely vulnerable. And so this is the time, and I’m very pleased that this dynamic coalition has brought together so many partners, this is the time when we absolutely have to collaborate. And we have got experience that shows us which kind of tools we can use, like the internet universality indicators. But many of the speakers stress the importance of measuring, of understanding exactly what is happening in terms of access to the internet. It’s not enough to count how many SIM cards. You have to know what proportion of people in rural areas have meaningful access. And I think that that emphasis on meaningful access actually came through in many of the presentations. I know that we don’t have much time, but I want to emphasize that we can’t, we need comprehensive policy. When it comes to media information literacy, we see that many of the efforts are very piecemeal, they are not coordinated among government agencies. When it comes to addressing digital divide issues, we are not seeing national policies that are rolled out consistently with clear benchmarks. So these things do have to happen. And I really want to end by emphasizing that we can, if we work together, and not just as women, but as men, and as policymakers, as people in the not-for-profit sector, and also people in the private sector. And here, let me just make a side remark. that it’s very important that we encourage the creation of national-level platforms that address these concerns for women. And those platforms should, in my view, comply with our Rome standards. They should be rights-based. They should be open. They should be access. They should give ease of access and they should be multi-stakeholder. That means we have to reduce dependency on major platforms and focus on building our national-level platforms. So, let me end by thanking all of the contributors to this session. It’s been very impressive and I hope that we can continue to build on that by using the IFAP strategic plan and many other international instruments that we have available. Thank you so much.

Xianhong Hu: Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. You always give us so much spirit of IFAP and refresh our concept. So, that comprehensive is exactly what we are seeking here. So, may I ask to check with our online moderator, Carmen, if there are any burning questions, comments we are still able to handle. And also ask our on-site moderator, Najeeb, if any participants want to take the floor before we conclude. Thank you.

Najib Mokni: Okay. Thank you, Sun Hong. We think we are out of time and we should close now. But we will maybe collect one reaction quickly, if you want. Oh, yeah. And Carmen, anything from online? No, nothing online. Nothing online. Okay, great.

Dorothy Gordon: Can I comment online? Of course. Let me just say that listening to everyone. I felt that one of the things you see, I think, first of all, let me emphasize that every context is different. But I think that we have to look for the entry points that would make women who are not currently online enthusiastic about getting the skills that they need. So it has to be things that relate to their lives, whether it is helping them to understand better how to use online tools for the education of their children, or in my country, where women drive the market, giving them access to the tools to help them with e-commerce. But we have to assume that they have to be persuaded. They are so busy. We cannot afford to waste their time. From their perspective, they need to see how our programs will impact their lives. Thanks.

Xianhong Hu: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Now I just add one thing, because I think maybe one missing data we didn’t present in this session that we should go beyond the basic data of access connection, and look at really the extent to which women are influencing the development of digital technologies. For example, in the artificial intelligence industry, only 27% of women are involved in AI development. That’s a huge gap. And also not to mention the high level, even near to zero. Then I recently supported new policy research on quantum. Quantum is another new frontier technology, which is going to change everything we’re having here for AI, for internet. Then the gender gap is even worse than anything we’re having now. I think the fundamental question is how we empower women and girls, since they were a child. promote STEM education from the very beginning. It’s really, we need a comprehensive approach. It’s not just to say, in Chinese they say, you cannot cure a headache by just the medicine for the head. You need a systematic solution for that. And that’s exactly where we are here now. Thank you.

Najib Mokni: So thank you so much. We have to close the session. They informed me that we are out of time. So thank you all for your participation. I’m sure that this wonderful discussion will continue among our partners, among the coalition. So let me invite you all for a group photo if you want, please, and I thank you all again and see you very soon.

Xianhong Hu: Thank you so much. Very good idea. I also encourage everybody online, please turn on your camera if you can. And also I’m appealing to our IGF co-host, could you promote everybody to be a co-host so they could turn on their video? And maybe we are already too late to do that. But we are okay to do a screenshot. My colleague Yichen is going to do a screenshot with all the participants online. Then we can do a hybrid picture with those in the room. So that’s the amazing thing of internet. Okay, one, two, three, smile. Very good. Can we leave? Yeah, yes, I think so. And thanks again. Anyway, congratulations on pulling together some excellent speakers. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Stay in touch, have a good holiday. Yeah. Hi. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Digital divide exacerbating inequalities

Tawfik Jelassi

Onica Makwakwa

Dorothy Gordon

Digital divide exacerbating inequalities

Connected resilience: Gendered experiences of connectivity during pandemic

Rural-urban gap in internet access for women

Multiple speakers emphasized how the digital divide is deepening existing inequalities, particularly affecting women and marginalized communities. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these disparities.

Need for comprehensive policies and partnerships

Tawfik Jelassi

Onica Makwakwa

Dorothy Gordon

Comprehensive policies and partnerships needed

People-focused policies rooted in community consultation

National-level platforms complying with rights-based standards

Speakers agreed on the necessity of comprehensive, collaborative approaches to digital inclusion, emphasizing community involvement and rights-based standards.

Importance of measuring digital inclusion beyond basic access

Alexandre Barbosa

Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy

Kossi Amessinou

Multidimensional approach to measure meaningful connectivity

Gender-disaggregated data on internet access and use

Internet Universality Indicators to assess digital transformation

Speakers emphasized the need for more comprehensive metrics to measure digital inclusion, going beyond simple access statistics to include factors like connection quality, affordability, and gender-disaggregated data.

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers highlighted the importance of targeted digital inclusion initiatives for women, emphasizing the need for gender-responsive frameworks and localized approaches.

Sarah Birungi Kaddu

Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy

Mariam Keburia

Gender-responsive framework for digital inclusion

Digitization tools for women’s empowerment in Egypt

Local digital inclusion initiatives for refugee women in Georgia

Both speakers emphasized the importance of education and skill development, particularly for women and girls, to address challenges in the digital sphere.

Viktoriia Romaniuk

Xianhong Hu

Enhancing media literacy skills to combat disinformation

Promoting STEM education for girls from early age

Unexpected Consensus

Libraries as hubs for digital inclusion

Abdullah AI-Hawas

Dorothy Gordon

Libraries as hubs for digital inclusion and gender equality

National-level platforms complying with rights-based standards

While coming from different perspectives, both speakers highlighted the importance of local, accessible platforms for digital inclusion. AI-Hawas focused on libraries, while Gordon advocated for national-level platforms, but both emphasized the need for community-based, rights-compliant spaces for digital access and learning.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agreed on the severity of the digital divide, particularly its impact on women and marginalized communities. There was consensus on the need for comprehensive, gender-responsive policies, improved measurement of digital inclusion, and the importance of local and community-based initiatives.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on core issues, with speakers offering complementary perspectives and solutions. This strong agreement suggests a clear direction for future policy and research in digital inclusion, emphasizing gender-responsive, community-centered approaches and more nuanced measurement of digital access and use.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to measuring digital inclusion

Alexandre Barbosa

Kossi Amessinou

Multidimensional approach to measure meaningful connectivity

Internet Universality Indicators to assess digital transformation

While both speakers advocate for comprehensive measurement frameworks, Barbosa emphasizes a multidimensional approach focusing on factors like connection quality and affordability, while Amessinou promotes the use of Internet Universality Indicators for assessment.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were subtle and primarily focused on different approaches to measuring and addressing digital inclusion, rather than fundamental disagreements on goals or principles.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers was relatively low. Most speakers shared similar overarching goals related to digital inclusion and gender equality, with differences mainly in specific approaches or areas of focus. This low level of disagreement suggests a general consensus on the importance of digital inclusion and the need for targeted efforts to address gender disparities in digital access and skills.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for targeted policies to address digital inclusion for women, but Makwakwa emphasizes community consultation and co-creation of solutions, while Kaddu focuses on a broader gender-responsive framework at the national level.

Onica Makwakwa

Sarah Birungi Kaddu

People-focused policies rooted in community consultation

Gender-responsive framework for digital inclusion

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers highlighted the importance of targeted digital inclusion initiatives for women, emphasizing the need for gender-responsive frameworks and localized approaches.

Sarah Birungi Kaddu

Nagwa Ebrahim Elshenawy

Mariam Keburia

Gender-responsive framework for digital inclusion

Digitization tools for women’s empowerment in Egypt

Local digital inclusion initiatives for refugee women in Georgia

Both speakers emphasized the importance of education and skill development, particularly for women and girls, to address challenges in the digital sphere.

Viktoriia Romaniuk

Xianhong Hu

Enhancing media literacy skills to combat disinformation

Promoting STEM education for girls from early age

Key Takeaways

Digital inclusion requires a comprehensive approach beyond binary access, focusing on meaningful connectivity

Libraries and community centers play an important role in promoting digital inclusion and gender equality

Gender-responsive frameworks and policies are needed to address the digital divide

Disinformation and AI-generated fake content pose significant challenges to information access and digital literacy

Local initiatives tailored to specific community needs can have significant impact on digital inclusion

Measuring digital inclusion requires multidimensional approaches and gender-disaggregated data

Resolutions and Action Items

Adopt the Internet Universality Indicators to assess digital transformation progress

Implement comprehensive national policies for media and information literacy

Create national-level digital platforms complying with rights-based standards

Promote STEM education for girls from an early age

Increase efforts to involve women in AI and frontier technology development

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively reach and persuade women who are not currently online to gain digital skills

Addressing the significant underrepresentation of women in AI and quantum technology development

Balancing the need for global strategies with localized solutions for digital inclusion

How to sustainably fund large-scale digital inclusion initiatives in developing countries

Suggested Compromises

Combining global reach strategies with locally-tailored implementation of digital inclusion programs

Balancing investment in infrastructure with digital skills training and content development

Engaging both public and private sector stakeholders in digital inclusion efforts

To advance human rights, especially the inclusion and digital inclusion and bridging the gap of women’s digital age, it is important to mention that we need to discuss connectivity beyond the binary concept of being or not being connected. We need a broader, a more comprehensive approach to fully understand and address the opportunities and challenges of digital inclusion and the realization of human rights online.

speaker

Alexandre Barbosa

reason

This comment introduces the important concept of ‘meaningful connectivity’ beyond simple binary access, pushing the discussion to consider quality and context of connectivity.

impact

It shifted the conversation from basic access metrics to a more nuanced understanding of digital inclusion, influencing subsequent speakers to address qualitative aspects of connectivity.

We have more than 60% which are females that are trying to access books, either physical or digital. Also, we have trained more than 1,000 female undergrad students. They come and use their internship in our library for every semester.

speaker

Abdullah AI-Hawas

reason

This provides concrete examples of efforts to promote gender equality in digital and information access, offering a practical perspective on implementation.

impact

It grounded the discussion in real-world initiatives, prompting other speakers to share specific examples from their contexts.

Women living in rural areas were three times more likely to lack internet access than their urban counterparts. And those with lower levels of education were significantly less likely to be meaningfully connected.

speaker

Onica Makwakwa

reason

This highlights the intersectionality of digital exclusion, showing how gender, geography, and education compound inequalities.

impact

It deepened the analysis by introducing multiple dimensions of exclusion, leading to more complex discussions about targeted interventions.

The issue of promoted manipulative narratives and artificial intelligence-generated fakes has become particularly acute for Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, and the use of artificial intelligence in the context of disinformation can be divided into following formats.

speaker

Viktoriia Romaniuk

reason

This comment introduces the critical issue of AI-generated disinformation, particularly in conflict situations, adding a new dimension to the digital inclusion discussion.

impact

It broadened the scope of the conversation to include information integrity and security aspects of digital inclusion, especially for vulnerable populations.

Our solution and the formula is to follow the global strategies, to be in line with the global strategies that have been designed and have been put in place by high quality experts, to follow, to share, to continue to share the passion that you and the colleagues all share but also and also with the participation of local stakeholders, local experts and those who are well aware of the local complexities to design the local solution.

speaker

Mariam Keburia

reason

This comment synthesizes a key approach of combining global strategies with local implementation, bridging high-level policy with on-the-ground realities.

impact

It provided a framework for thinking about implementation that resonated with other speakers, encouraging discussion of how to adapt global principles to local contexts.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by expanding the concept of digital inclusion beyond simple access to encompass meaningful connectivity, gender-specific challenges, rural-urban divides, the threat of AI-generated disinformation, and the importance of combining global strategies with local implementation. The discussion evolved from general principles to specific examples and challenges, ultimately presenting a multi-faceted view of digital inclusion that considers access, quality, gender, geography, education, information integrity, and the need for tailored local solutions within a global framework.

How can we better measure and understand meaningful connectivity, especially for women and underserved communities?

speaker

Alexandre Barbosa

explanation

Barbosa emphasized the need to go beyond binary measures of connectivity to understand the quality, affordability, and contextual opportunities for internet access. This is important for developing effective policies to bridge the digital divide.

What strategies can be implemented to increase women’s participation in STEM fields, particularly in emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing?

speaker

Xianhong Hu

explanation

Hu highlighted the significant gender gap in AI and quantum technology development, suggesting a need for comprehensive approaches to empower women in these fields from an early age.

How can we create more gender-responsive and inclusive frameworks for digital inclusion in rural and underserved areas?

speaker

Sarah Birungi Kaddu

explanation

Kaddu presented a case study from rural Uganda and called for action to develop frameworks that address gender disparities in access to digital tools and resources.

What are effective strategies to combat AI-generated disinformation campaigns, particularly those targeting women and vulnerable populations?

speaker

Viktoriia Romaniuk

explanation

Romaniuk discussed the growing threat of AI-generated disinformation and emphasized the need for coordinated efforts to detect, block, and counter such campaigns.

How can we design digital inclusion initiatives that are more relevant and persuasive to women’s daily lives and needs?

speaker

Dorothy Gordon

explanation

Gordon stressed the importance of creating programs that directly relate to women’s lives and demonstrate clear benefits, such as tools for children’s education or e-commerce for market traders.

What are effective ways to scale up successful local digital inclusion projects to have broader impact?

speaker

Mariam Keburia

explanation

Keburia shared experiences from local projects in Georgia and suggested the need to explore how such initiatives can be expanded and replicated in other contexts.