WS #65 Gender Prioritization through Responsible Digital Governance

Summary

This discussion focused on digital gender inclusion and responsible digital governance, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The panel explored barriers to digital inclusion for women and strategies to overcome them. A case study from Pakistan highlighted a structured national strategy to address the digital gender divide through multi-stakeholder collaboration and targeted working groups. Key barriers identified included lack of affordable devices and connectivity, social and cultural norms, digital literacy gaps, and economic constraints.

Panelists emphasized the importance of creating safe online environments, providing digital skills training, and ensuring meaningful connectivity. The role of community networks in empowering women in underserved areas was discussed, along with the need to extend such initiatives to urban settings. The importance of gender-disaggregated data for informed policymaking was stressed. Private sector initiatives, such as Meta’s programs for women’s digital empowerment, were presented as examples of industry efforts.

The discussion highlighted the need for explicit policy frameworks, multi-stakeholder approaches, and financing mechanisms to bridge the digital gender divide. Panelists agreed that closing this gap requires addressing not just access issues, but also quality of connectivity and online safety concerns. The session concluded by emphasizing the urgency of action and the availability of funding opportunities, such as the Women in Digital Economy Fund, to support initiatives aimed at digital gender inclusion.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The digital gender divide and barriers to digital inclusion for women, especially in low and middle income countries

– Pakistan’s Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy as a case study of a national policy approach

– The role of private sector companies like Meta in promoting digital inclusion

– Community networks as a solution for connectivity in underserved areas

– Financing and policy mechanisms needed to support digital inclusion efforts

The overall purpose of the discussion was to examine challenges and solutions for bridging the digital gender divide and promoting responsible digital governance, with a focus on low and middle income countries.

The tone of the discussion was informative and solution-oriented. Speakers shared examples of initiatives and policy approaches in a collaborative manner, with an emphasis on multi-stakeholder efforts. The tone remained consistent throughout, maintaining a focus on practical steps to address the issues raised.

Speakers

– Waqas Hassan: Asia Lead for Policy and Advocacy at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership

– Malahat Obaid: Director of Communications at the Pakistan Telecom Authority, member of the team that developed the PTA Gender Inclusion Strategy, digital gender specialist for the Central Bank of Pakistan’s Initiative of Women’s Financial Inclusion

– Onica Makwakwa: Executive Director at Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, Executive Managing Director for Women in Digital Economy Fund

– Cagatay Pekyorur: META’s Head of Community Engagement and Advocacy for Africa, Middle East and Turkey

– Josephine Miliza: Policy and Regulation Lead on Local Networks Initiative at the Association of Progressive Communications, advocate for digital equality based in Nairobi, Kenya, co-chair of the African Community Networks Summit

Additional speakers:

– Audience member from Colombia: Works with an NGO called Colnodo on community networks

– Audience member asking about PTA’s strategy for rural areas in Pakistan

Digital Gender Inclusion and Responsible Digital Governance: A Comprehensive Discussion

This panel discussion focused on the critical issues of digital gender inclusion and responsible digital governance, with a particular emphasis on low and middle-income countries. The conversation brought together experts from various sectors to explore the barriers to digital inclusion for women and strategies to overcome them.

Introduction

The discussion highlighted the complex and multifaceted nature of the digital gender divide, emphasizing the need for comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approaches to address it. Panelists explored various aspects of digital inclusion, from policy frameworks to community-driven solutions, addressing fundamental barriers such as digital literacy and online safety.

Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. The Digital Gender Divide: Barriers and Challenges

Onica Makwakwa, Executive Director at Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, identified several significant barriers to digital inclusion for women:

– Lack of access to affordable devices and internet connectivity

– Social and cultural norms that limit women’s access to technology

– Digital literacy gaps and lack of foundational digital skills

– Economic constraints, including limited financial resources and time

– Lack of relevant content in local languages

– Online safety concerns and cyber violence

2. Policy Approaches and Strategies

The discussion highlighted the importance of structured policy approaches with clear implementation plans. Malahat Obaid, Director of Communications at the Pakistan Telecom Authority, presented a case study of Pakistan’s Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy, outlining a three-phase approach:

1. Development of strategy pillars

2. Implementation planning

3. Setting targets, goals, and outcomes with a three-year action plan

Obaid detailed the strategy’s six working groups focusing on:

– Access and connectivity

– Affordability

– Digital skills and literacy

– Content and services

– Safety and security

– Research and development

This structured approach was seen as a model for other countries to follow, demonstrating the value of clear, actionable strategies in addressing digital gender inclusion.

The panelists agreed on the critical need for gender-disaggregated data to inform effective policies. Malahat Obaid and Onica Makwakwa both stressed this point, emphasizing its importance in understanding the depth of the problem and identifying areas for intervention.

3. Multi-stakeholder Collaboration and Private Sector Involvement

The discussion emphasized the importance of collaboration between government, industry, and civil society in promoting digital inclusion. Cagatay Pekyorur, META’s Head of Community Engagement and Advocacy for Africa, Middle East and Turkey, highlighted META’s approach to digital inclusion, focusing on:

– Creating a safe online environment

– Supporting access to digital tools

– Maintaining inclusive stakeholder engagement

Pekioror stressed the need for official policy frameworks and action plans to incentivize private sector involvement.

4. Community Networks and Locally-driven Solutions

Josephine Meliza from the Association of Progressive Communications introduced the concept of community networks as a solution for connectivity in underserved areas. She explained how these small-scale, locally owned infrastructure providers can effectively address digital inclusion by providing tailored solutions that understand and address local context and needs.

Meliza highlighted the impact of community networks on women’s empowerment, particularly in underserved areas, noting their potential to provide economic opportunities and enhance digital skills.

An audience member shared an example of a community networks project in Colombia, demonstrating the potential of women-led initiatives in digital inclusion.

5. Online Safety and Security for Women

The panelists agreed on the critical importance of ensuring women’s safety in online spaces. This included discussions on:

– Developing policies and frameworks for online safety

– Creating support groups to address online gender-based violence

– Implementing gender-responsive laws and legal frameworks

6. Capacity Building and Skills Training

The discussion highlighted the importance of digital literacy and skills training programs for women. Onica Makwakwa emphasized how the lack of foundational digital skills puts women at a disadvantage in accessing opportunities in digital technologies.

7. Financing Mechanisms and Funding Opportunities

Waqas Hassan, Asia Lead for Policy and Advocacy at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, discussed the need for financing mechanisms to support digital inclusion initiatives. The Women in Digital Economy Fund (WIDEF) was mentioned as a specific opportunity, with new funding rounds planned for India in 2024 and globally in March 2025.

Challenges and Solutions

While the discussion provided comprehensive insights into digital gender inclusion strategies, several challenges were identified:

1. Engaging women from conservative rural areas where mobile phone use is taboo

2. Balancing the commercial viability of community networks with serving hard-to-reach areas

3. Developing effective methods for collecting comprehensive gender-disaggregated data

4. Changing negative perceptions about women’s use of technology in conservative societies

An audience member raised a question about PTA’s strategy for involving women from rural areas in Pakistan, particularly in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, highlighting the need for targeted approaches in challenging contexts.

Conclusion

The discussion underscored the urgency of action in promoting digital gender inclusion, framing it as both a social and economic imperative. As digital technologies continue to shape global economies and societies, bridging the digital gender divide remains a critical challenge that requires sustained effort, innovation, and collaboration across sectors and stakeholders.

In his closing remarks, Waqas Hassan referenced “The Time Is Now” report, emphasizing the timeliness and importance of addressing digital gender inclusion. The conversation provided a holistic view of the challenges and potential solutions, setting the stage for continued work and innovation in this crucial area.

Waqas Hassan: And I am the Asia Lead for Policy and Advocacy at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. We are a policy advocacy organization working on connectivity and digital inclusion. And one of the consortium members to manage the Women in Digital Economy Fund, which has been launched last year by the White House. Today, our session is about two things. One is, of course, digital gender inclusion, digital gender equality, but we’re going to link it with responsible digital governance. If you see what is digital gender divide, it simply refers to the inequality between resources. When men and women try to access and use the internet, are there equal opportunities for both of them? Or is one gender more disadvantaged than the other? I would include all of the genders in there as well. That is where we see that there is a gender gap. There is a digital gender gap in terms of when we’re speaking about it. Now, when we talk about responsible digital governance, we talk about creating and enforcing policies or frameworks and practices that ensure that we have ethical and inclusive and equitable use of digital technologies. So with that in our mind, and also I would like to remind you that this discussion is mainly focused on the low middle income countries. So that is going to be the focus of our discussion today. What right now, if we see and if we look at a few numbers from, let’s say, from ITU, there are 244 fewer women that are online than men. So gap, this is a huge gap, as you can see. So for example, women are just the 20% women who use internet in LMICs, but as compared to 34% men. And at the same time, because of this digital inequality, there is a huge economic loss which is associated with it. According to estimates by GDIP and others, the countries have almost lost one trillion dollars just by not being able to bridge the digital gender divide. So it is not just a social issue or a social empowerment issue, it is actually now an economical issue as well. So in that sense of the matter, if the countries are to utilize this opportunity, and they must, they can add about half a billion dollars over the next five years. So with this concept in mind, we thought of organizing this session. And we would like to have our fantastic panelists with us who will speak about different areas as per their expertise, I’ll introduce them a bit later on. I’ll just explain the session flow for all of you. What we’re going to do is that first of all, there would be a presentation on a policy best practice, or a good practice, I would say, from Pakistan, which is Pakistan Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy. We have with us Ms. Malahat Vaid, who is the Director of Communications at the Pakistan Telecom Authority, and the member of an all-female team that developed the PTA Gender Inclusion Strategy. And she also serves as a digital gender specialist for the Central Bank of Pakistan’s Initiative of Women’s Financial Inclusion. So once Malahat presents that strategy as a case study, we will then move on towards our rest of the panelists. One of them is Onika, who is the Executive Director at Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, and one of the Executive Managing Directors for Women in Digital Economy Fund. After Anika, we will hear from Kegatay Pekioror, he serves as META’s Head of Community Engagement and Advocacy for Africa, Middle East and Turkey. He has a law background and he has been spearheading META’s policy, public policy and programs prior to this role. And Kegatay prefers to be addressed as they or them. Next up we have Josephine Meliza, who is the Policy and Regulation Lead on Local Networks Initiative at the Association of Progressive Communications. She is a leading advocate of digital equality based out of Nairobi, Kenya and also co-chairs the African Community Networks Summit. So with this context in mind, let’s start with the session and I would request then Malahat to please present and talk about PTH, Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy and what kind of opportunities and challenges were there and how they actually started this process and then made a strategy and is now in the implementation phase of that strategy. So Malahat, I will hand it over to you, if you could please share your screen. You also need to unmute your mic, Malahat.

Malahat Obaid: For the generous introduction, I am grateful to the IGF and the hosts for having this workshop on such a critical subject and considering Pakistan’s Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy as a best practice. So without further delay, I believe I have a very short time to present my strategy. This is the flow of the presentation, I will be giving you some statistics and the gender gaps that exist in Pakistan, the formulation of strategy and the collaborations that we have during the strategy and the methodology we have adopted. Then the consultative… process that we followed, out of which we came out with challenges and barriers, and also the solutions to those barriers to overcome the inclusion issues that we have here in Pakistan. Towards the end, I will be telling you about the three years action plan that has been set out in the gender inclusion strategy, the working groups that we have created, and the impacts they will be creating once the strategy is implemented, and of course, towards the end, the achievements so far while we are implementing. Just to tell you, Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world with over 250 million population, mainly the population has around 50% as female population. Of course, almost 91% of our population has access to telecom services, but of course, the subscriber base stays at 196 million. Of course, the literacy rate, like any other Asian economies, is low, but relatively it’s low for Pakistan, it is around 63%. One of the main reasons why digital gender inclusion is not kicking off really in Pakistan, this female ownership of SIM is quite low, we have out of 196 million, only 47 million SIMs that are on female’s names or CNICs. These are the digital gender gaps that Pakistan is grappling with. If you can see, from 2018 to 2024, we have made a lot of improvement, however, when it comes to absolute terms, yes, we are improving, but in relative terms, Pakistan is one country in Asia which has lowest gender gaps. technology. We have made good progress when it comes to awareness about internet but when it comes to ownership and the use of internet of course the gaps are wider. Even in social media we have around 70 million social media users but the gap is, when we started off it was over 71% today it is 59% as it shows on the graph but this is for YouTube there is a you know a different number when it comes to Instagram and it is very you know forthcoming that the gap in usage of Instagram is less it is around 41% so I believe that the younger generation the younger females are using Instagram more frequently than the other the social media applications. For branchless banking we have reduced the gap to 54% and today there are around 35 million mobile wallet accounts that are being used by women and owned by women. Going to the digital gender inclusion strategy these gaps that I have just mentioned and then the rankings that were coming out for Pakistan like GSMA mobile connectivity index or for that matter inclusive internet index or the digital inclusion index Pakistan is not doing well so the government decided to address the issue with structured approach and in this regard a PTA took the lead and started the initiative of gender inclusion. We set up a committee which started working in the month of February in 2022 and following a structured approach we decided to go for the strategy first. In this regard UNESCO one of the UN’s main organization gave us the technical support, and of course, the Ministry of IT and the GSMA were there to support us in building up the strategy. The former Alliance for Affordable Internet also came forward and pitched in their share while we were developing the strategy. Of course, our operators were there to help us out. So when, you know, all this started off, the objective was to create a government platform based on all of the society approach, with members from all stakeholders identifying the challenges, make policy interventions and implement them across the sector, or rather all the sectors, for bringing the change and growth that is required for filling up all these gaps that we’ve been talking about. This is the methodology that we adapted. Phase one was to identify the problem for which we did a very extensive consultation process across the country. In phase two, we did the problem analysis, the areas where there was a requirement to go further deep and see where the problem is lying and how can we address. We came up with the strategy pillars and how to implement it. In the third phase, we set the targets and the goals and what would be the outcomes. Of course, and we came out with the action plan, which is a very, you know, it is although tough, but it’s a three-year action plan with specific targets and goals, and we are hoping that we will be, inshallah, able to manage it. The consultative process that we followed, as I’ve already explained, was quite an extensive one. We did a public perception survey, an IVR survey, then we had, you know, multi-stakeholder workshops that we conducted across Pakistan, and we did some expert interviews of the gender experts, not only in Pakistan, but internationally. as well to understand how to address the issues that have been coming up while we are going through this consultation process. And of course we did an online survey as well which was for all the sectors, females and even males, to participate and come up with their point of view of addressing the digital gender gap in Pakistan. We tried to, for the perception survey and the IVR survey, we tried, specifically for perception survey, we tried to access those areas in Pakistan which do not have the connectivity so that those people can really tell exactly the females where the problem is. Of course, accessibility is one problem, but then there are social and economic problems that came up as well. And the IVR survey that we ran across Pakistan is one of the largest survey for assessing the digital gaps or the digital inclusion state in Pakistan. It was around 100,000 sample size that we had and then there were multiple questions that we ran through that IVR survey. Of course, this was done with the help of our, the licensees, the mobile operators, they did this to assist PTA in running the survey. Of course, GSMA’s consumer surveys that are carried out regularly for Pakistan to assess the gender inclusion that they do every year, we also had their assistance and their contribution in the consultation process. Just to give you a couple of outcomes that we had from these surveys. In this survey, we mainly asked women and men both, if they have a mobile phone and have a SIM, and if they have, are they using it? And are they using the mobile? the internet or not. So the interesting fact that came out was that more women are using mobile than the ones who are owning it. Which means that there is an urge, there is a requirement by the women but they don’t have the phone so they make use of the phones that the family has and they use it. But the good thing was those females who have the mobile or for that matter the same, are actually making use of it and using the internet. So this was a good thing that they were not only having the phone but they were actually meaningfully using it. The perception survey that was ran in the areas of the country which were not connected we saw and we asked the women why are they using, what do you think would they do if they have internet and they were more inclined towards having better economic opportunities to help their families and to have a good communication with the family members who are out of the area where they are living. So with this consultative process we came out with the barriers and challenges that the females of Pakistan are currently facing. One of the major when we started off and then of course through the consultation process we realised that we do not have the gender desegregated data, whatever we have is not good enough for making a strategy or for building up any case for reducing the gender divide. So this was one of the major challenges or the barrier that we feel Pakistan has of non-availability of desegregation. data. Of course then the digital literacy and the availability of local content was not there and it was for the women who were already on internet also felt the need for having the local content. Affordability came out to be one of the major reasons for this digital gap. Women either do not have the capacity or the economic ability to buy or of course there are family concerns and disapprovals which do not allow them to have either the mobile or the same or for that matter having the package, internet package. Yes, infrastructure and accessibility was also one of the major issues where there are a number of areas in Pakistan where the terrain is difficult for even the operators to, the commercial operators to go there and provide the service. Then people, as I have already told you, people also have negative perception about using internet or having a mobile handset for their females. And then of this perception they thought that safety is one of the major issues while they allow their females or the girls to have mobile in their hand or using the internet. With this in mind, the three years action plan that was rolled out in the strategy was on a bigger platform that we started with the steering committee which is headed by the minister for IT and telecom in Pakistan and the secretarial support is given by PTA. Under this, we have identified these six areas of which we made working groups. One was affordability. Then it was accessibility, which was covering the infrastructure requirements. And then there was safety and security, how we can ensure that women should feel safe while they are online. Then we have to create digital literacy for those who are educated or who are literate, but still do not have digital literacy. So we have identified this as a pillar, as a core working group where we have to address this issue. Inclusion is one area where we need to change the perception of the general public and the masses that internet can be used for better purposes, for the economic and social well-being of a female or a family member. And of course, we have this working group on research and data that is going to be very helpful, of course, while we are doing the policy changes and setting up targets and goals for reducing this gender gap. All these working groups are being led by the top government agencies in the country, of course, according to the specific areas. Between the working group and the steering committee exists a technical advisory committee. These are all organizations out there who are actually helping reduce the gender divide or the digital divide across the globe. So they have the visibility, they have the capacity and the capability to guide not only our working groups, but but also help the steering committee identify and take the areas out where there is a possibility, immediate possibility of improving the situation in the country. With this, working groups and the steering committee, we have kicked off this digital gender inclusion strategy in August 2024, and almost all of the working groups are now live and they have started working, they are revising their TORs, although the TORs are already there in the strategy identified, but we always thought that it is good to give them a chance to reassess the situation and see if they can improve it and then will start implementing in their own areas. So with affordability Pakistan, the affordability working group, the impact that we are expecting is to have 25% more women in Pakistan who can now afford after this implementation and the projects that we are going to go through with these working groups, we will be able to increase this number. Similarly, we are expecting that by end of three years action plan, we will be having 20% more women have access to digital services and SIMS will be on their CNIC. So currently, as I told you, it is around 47 million women who own a SIM on their CNIC. We are expecting it to be 20% more towards the end of the next three years. Safety and Security Group is headed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and we are trying to have… gender-responsive laws and legal frameworks that ensure that women are safe while they are online. So the digital literacy group is headed by the Ministry of Education and we expect that the 60% of adult women population will acquire digital skills with the implementation of this strategy and certainly would want this strategy to play its role while we turn around the negative perception of women use of technology through this strategy. And we are working with the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the federal commission which provides statistics for the country, they are also leading this working group and are in the process of devising the indicators that are required to assess the digital females participation in the digital arena. With this we have, you know, since August and even before while we were devising the strategy we started having the collaboration. So these are the organisations that we have partnered with and they have rolled out the programmes in digital skills, awareness and of course the reports that are going to come up and the awareness spread programmes that we are having. We are committed to the strategy implementation under all of the stakeholders approach and thank you and over to you Vakas.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Sorry for rushing you but we have, as you can see this strategy developed by PTA is why is it presented as a case study because is you can see a structured approach, and you can see a clear plan of implementation. So if you have more questions about the strategy, how it was developed, anything else, you can ask during the Q&A. Or you can reach out to Dr. Khabar, who is the member of Compliance and Enforcement at PTA, and here in the room at the very front. So with this, I will now quickly move to Anika. And Anika, with your extensive experience working with underserved communities and for digital gender equality, what would you say are the key barriers and challenges in low, middle, and income countries?

Onica Makwakwa: Thanks, Warkus. And thank you so much, Malahat, for that presentation. It just really helps us see the picture at the national level when a country really commits to understanding the gender-digital divide, and actually not just adopting policies, but a commitment to implementing for change. So a lot of these that I’m identifying, I think will resonate very much with the presentation that we’ve just had. And I’m going to base this on two particular publications we published this year. One is the Connected Resilience, which looks at gendered experiences of women through meaningful connectivity. And the other one is The Time Is Now, which is a policy impact report that we published through the YDEF initiative to actually really look at policy frameworks that are successful in advancing our efforts to close the gender-digital divide. And I would say that the biggest barriers that we are identifying in most of this report, and a lot of the work that’s been done by many other organizations, is the lack of access to affordable devices and internet connectivity. Having reliable digital information. infrastructure, especially for women in rural areas, is a major barrier that actually keeps them away from being able to enjoy and utilize, you know, digital services as well as be part of a digital economy. So I’m going to go through this very fast, because I know you don’t have a lot of time, but we want to have a little bit more discussion later on. The second one, key one, is social cultural barriers and gender norms. And this really is no surprise for many of us, but we have to continuously work on these on the digital side. They don’t just simply go away simply because we are working on technology. These are issues that exist within our society in terms of restrictions on girls and women’s mobility, also therefore has an impact on their ability to access services such as public Wi-Fi, as an example. The lack of digital literacy and skills, you know, foundational digital skills, really put women at a disadvantage in terms of even being able to acquire the necessary opportunities that exist in digital technologies. And the fourth one is economic barriers, and this one is just not so much a lack of having the financial resources, but it’s also a lack of time as an economic value, right? Because women are predominantly the ones that we expect to fulfill the unpaid care labor in most societies. And so it also means that, yes, they lack the financial resources to buy these devices that are unaffordable, but they also lack the time to be able to dedicate towards the skills and training and developing themselves for utilization of digital technologies. And lastly, maybe not lastly, I’ll just mention two more. One more is the lack of legal and policy frameworks that are very explicit about closing the inequalities. You know, these things are not going to just happen on their own. and we need to be intentional in making so, including safety online for women, having laws and policies that are explicit about giving that protection for them. And lastly, I won’t elaborate on it because that’s something that Malahat spoke a lot about, and that is the lack of gender data gaps. You know, we know what we know now, but we know that it may be quite inadequate because we are not collecting gender-segregated data to be able to really understand how deep the problem is and where the interventions are most needed. So I will pause there for now, and thank you so much for this opportunity.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you, Anika. Thank you for identifying the barriers which are most prevalent in the low-middle-income countries. And I’ll come back to you with a couple of things, but now I’ll move to Kagete. Kagete, first of all, thank you for joining us. And coming from Meta, you know, as a big platform, you know, one of the big techs, what do you think, what are the ideal ways in which the community and the industry and the platforms, you know, can help and overcome these barriers for digital gender inclusion? And how can we influence positive governance practices on this issue? Thank you so much, Vakas.

Speaker 1: I think I can try to answer this question by first talking like in Meta, like it’s Meta, how we are seeing the problem and how we are trying to overcome it. I’m not sure if you can hear me properly, but okay. And then like I may try to come up with a more proper answer to the question itself, maybe, by also including like my take on the issue. But first, I would like to start with by saying that like at Meta, we believe women should have equal access to the economic, educational, and social opportunities that the internet provides. that’s for sure. And we try to take a multifaceted and also multi-stakeholder approach in ensuring that our services are accessible and inclusive for women through all our platforms and products and policies. If I can try to put this in a structure to explain it a bit further, I think for us the first priority here is creating a safe online environment for all genders, but of course like for the women in the context of this panel. And the second pillar would be supporting access to the digital tools and the digital opportunities that our platforms also enable all our users. And the third bucket in a way connected to the first one as well, but also like there’s an independent side of it too that I can explain, that’s maintaining an inclusive stakeholder engagement in relation to our innovation, like when we are innovating a new product, and also our integrity related efforts, like when we are trying to understand the risks. By that what I mean is when we are innovating a new product to make sure that such product is not biased and it reflects the characteristics of all genders, we believe that we should be in consistent engagement with women and group representatives of other genders. And also when it comes to our risk understanding, our risk assessments, again those should be inclusive of the experiences of these user groups. And in doing this, like all three different buckets of work, I would like to say that our approach most of the time requires us to work closely with civil society organizations, like this is what I meant by my multi-stakeholder approach that we have, and also in some instances like we are in partnership with the governments. I will try to keep it as… brief as possible because I know that we want to open it for Q&A, but very briefly, when it comes to creating a safe online environment, it is of course mostly related to our own community standards and our policies which governs which content we allow and which content we don’t allow on our platforms. And we of course do have policies that are specifically designed to protect high-risk users, vulnerable groups including women, such as our hate speech policy, sexual exploitation of adults policy, bullying and harassment policy. They have elements that are specifically designed to protect women, such as from revenge porn or sex torture. And we have a safety center which includes useful information for people who may not feel safe in our platforms or in general online. And there is a specific safety hub that is focused on women’s safety itself too. On creating and supporting access to digital opportunities, especially when we think about low- and medium-income countries, I would like to mention one specific program that we have which is called She Means Business. This program is actually a training program to empower women with the tools that may enable them to benefit the digital economy in a more meaningful way for them. And it goes beyond just like teaching about our own tools, but also it includes information about business resilience, financial literacy and cyber security, because we are seeing that these are actually required to create success there. And in Turkey, we conducted this program in collaboration with the government and also civil society organization. And since it’s launched in 2017, 7,000 women have been trained on this program. Also in Africa, like continents, we focused in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Senegal for this program. And again, thousands of women in these countries have been trained. Another example, like from this country, Saudi Arabia, when we think about metaverses, like more innovative like products that we have. We realized especially for our region, Africa, Middle East and Turkey region, readiness is the key issue regardless of the gender, regardless of the background. Hence like we come up with like some programmatic activities to make sure that the main youth is actually ready with their technical capabilities for these upcoming technologies. And we started Metaverse Academy in this country again in partnership with the government and also the university here. And I am very happy to say that the significant majority of the participants were women in this program and this was one of the goals for us as well. Also for the government. I can definitely articulate more on our stakeholder approach, inclusive but like I also want to be very mindful of the time like for the other panelists. Just before closing I want to say three more things very briefly because like the question is like what are the ideal ways and like it’s of course speculative, it will be speculative of me. But in my experience like when I look at all these projects that I was also involved in, I think we definitely benefit from official policy frameworks and action plans that prioritizes overcoming barriers to digital inclusion of women because they create an incentive for private companies to focus on this area and like come up with programmatic efforts. Again like this is my take. And I think as a second thing there is a huge benefit in facilitating direct engagements with civil society organizations and private again like platforms because like it helps us to as I mentioned like develop a better understanding of the actual situation. But also it allows civil society organizations and their representatives to have a deeper influence on the product development and also the projects that these companies do have. And again in relation to the civil society, I would also like to recognize the value of the advocacy efforts of these groups in keeping both platforms and also governments accountable. When we miss something or like when there’s an area that requires more investment or more government support, it’s always the civil society that puts it under a spotlight and definitely it plays a big role in keeping us accountable and come up with a better governance. Thank you.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Thanks, Kegade, for sharing Meta’s approach towards digital inclusion and online safety. And you mentioned She Means Business. That program was also launched in Pakistan. One of the organizations that was implementing that program has now actually been selected as a winner of Round One of Women in Digital Economy Fund. So they are going to be funded and they’re going to conduct these digital literacy trainings across Pakistan, which is great for the country of course and to bridge the gender digital gap. Josephine, I’m going to come towards you now and your experience building community networks and you know doing policy advocacy for that and being deeply connected with those communities on ground. When you take these kind of innovative solutions like community networks to these areas, what kind of impact do you see on women in those areas and how does this work for gender empowerment in those underserved areas? Thank you, Akash, and also for all

Speaker 2: the great panelists who have gone before me. I think a lot of what they’ve shared really resonates with the work that we are doing. And for those in the room who are not familiar with community networks, it’s just essentially small-scale or locally owned infrastructure providers that traditionally are based in places where commercial operators are not going because of profitability issues. And one of my reflections or learnings or just one of the things I’ve seen around the impact of locally driven solutions is really understanding the local context. And an example being in the sense of how they look at gender empowerment or women empowerment and inclusion is that when it comes to traditional operators, you find that they really do not integrate into issues such as distance. How long does a woman need to walk in terms of getting to maybe a cyber cafe where they can access internet as well as the devices, affordability, the other roles that they play at home. And so, what community networks do is being able to hold spaces, which are women’s circles where you get to demystify first what technologies are, but also just develop a program so that it is capacity building, whether it is the service provisioning, that really understand the different concepts around the women need. So we are seeing a lot of changes and a lot of impact in terms of skill building and addressing some of the issues, not just affordability. Right now, with the online space, there’s gender online based violence or technology facilitated violence, which impacts women. Some, yes, are able to get online, but get scared and now leave online spaces. And so, the essence of having community networks is also having not just online support groups, but also in-person support groups that are able to support these efforts. I’m not getting another chance, so I just also wanted to bring in a reflection on how we can be able to collaborate moving forward. I really appreciate the work that the partners such as GDIP have been doing in terms of highlighting where the gaps are and also bringing strong recommendations, whether it is on promoting digital policies that look at this issue, as well as financing with projects such as the YDEF, because a key gap that we’re seeing is when it comes to access to devices, there’s a lot of initiatives that are going towards capacity building, but very limited efforts in terms of ensuring that devices are affordable, as well as there’s actually affordable access and infrastructure. So, financing is a key aspect and digital policies that address this issue. issues, so that even when we are doing allocations for funds, such as the universal service access funds, we can be able to incorporate some of the aspects around inclusion at community levels. Thank you.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Thank you, Josephine. I mean, we can all agree that it’s not just that you take a brilliant, innovative solution to a community, it has to be a meaningful connectivity that you eventually take there. And having this financing mechanism out there, there was a session earlier in the morning on financing mechanism. I think it was a wonderful session where the panelists also shared about how those kind of financing mechanisms could be there. We are a bit short of time. I would now like to turn towards the audience. If anybody online or in the room would like to share their experience, or ask a question to the panelists, or if you have any insights, any good policy practice that you see and you’d like to share with us, please just raise your hand, or we’ll give you a mic, and take your views on this. I have a question for Josephine, if there’s none on the floor. There’s one on the floor, and then I’ll come back to you, Annika. Sure.

Audience: OK, thank you. Well, thanks for all the ideas and things that you shared today. I just want to tell you that I’m from Colombia, from an NGO called Colnodo, and we also work with community networks in our country. And the last years, these kind of networks has been related with women, because we have a project that is. is financed by Google, in order to implement 10 community networks in different communities in Colombia. But with the participation of women. Then one of the things that we do in our methodology is create a group we call head stories. I don’t know how to say in English. Head stories like managers of the community networks. But the most of them are women. And they receive capacity in technical issues about how to implement, install, and then sustain the infrastructure for the community network. And other group of women receive capacity also in how to create contents for the community network. And also other group in financial and administrative issues for the sustainability of the network. And additionally, another group that have training, for example, in enterprise, beginning an enterprise, or using technology for, yes, for their own interest. This is because we have been working with Meta also in Colombia in bringing to some women that kind of capacity in using the platforms for their own business. Then just to share with you, this kind of initiative is done where we can work with women in different activities and different contexts. And trying to find also what is the interest of the women. Because not all want to participate in all the things. But we can bring to them the opportunity to have capacities in different topics in accordance. of their interests. Thank you.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you, thank you so much. I hope you can hear me from this, okay. So, thank you so much for sharing this example with us from Colombia. I think what we can see is that we also see a structured approach when we see what is happening in Colombia around CNs and how women-led CNs and women-centric CNs can make a huge difference. We have, Kaketay, you wanna say something? Yeah, sure, sure.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing this. I mean, it’s so nice to see that, you know, the community found these efforts useful. I just wanted to note, like, while I also believe the value and necessity of, like, organizing this capacity building efforts, I want to share that, like, we are also, like, benefiting so much from another type of a working group. We have it, like, in our region, like, for SSA Sub-Saharan Africa region, we have, like, women’s working group, what we call. And it brings women rights activists and also digital rights activists together and helps us to better understand the issues that they have in online platforms. And, like, thanks to those engagements that we had in those groups with them, we were able to, like, better understand the issues around, like, online gender-based violence, like, feminist rapid response services, and we were able to support them. And we were also able to go beyond just, like, women cause, but, like, together with them, we were also able to address the issues of the LGBTQI plus communities in online, like, in the issues that they have in the online platforms. So I, like, capacity building, definitely, but on top of that, I think, like, there is, like, when we think about a woman, like, there is a value in also investing in tech feminism and tech law and governance space, too. I just wanted to add that.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Thanks. for the intervention at KKT makes a lot of sense. Anika, I’m gonna take your question and then we have one from the audience.

Onica Makwakwa: Yeah, sure, well, thank you so much. So I actually have a question for Josephine. You know, we have an emerging divide amongst those who are actually already connected, right? So we’ve got the connected and the unconnected, but amongst those who are connected, we’ve got an emerging divide that’s really centered around the quality of the connection. And so it seems, I’ve sort of observed that whenever we talk about community networks as an infrastructure project to bridge some of these gaps, for the Global South communities, we tend to confine them to rural areas only, right? You know, so I mean, I think in Africa, for the most part, the model has been, it’s only in places where it has been deemed commercially not viable for the operators to provide connectivity. However, the very same mobile operators discriminate against users, especially in urban, viper, urban areas, because they tend to focus more on business clients as opposed to the huge prepaid market that pays extensively high rates to connect. My question is why, is there scope and opportunity to consider community networks beyond rural areas? And I’ll just kind of give you an example that New York City public Wi-Fi is the largest community-owned network that I know of, but I just kind of find it very curious that when it comes to Africa, Asia, and maybe even Latin America, we are told that the only way to have a community network is rural areas, so that competition that comes from community-owned networks is not allowed in urban areas, and it’s unfortunate because what it looks like is that yes, we need competition in terms of digital technologies, but we also need competition. in terms of a financial model that can, you know, service the diversity and inequalities that exist within urban sectors as well. And I just would love to hear your thoughts on that and if, you know, this would be a pipe long-term or not.

Speaker 2: It’s not a pipe demand. Thank you, Onika, for bringing that up because in our conversations with many regulators, there’s usually the issue that there’s a lot of pushback from mainstream operators who see community networks as competitors. And because of the power and the finances and the control that they have over most of the state, it sort of becomes a difficult conversation to have, whereas community networks are really small-scale operators that do not have the financial muscle to push back. And so in a way to appease, I will say in a way to appease the big operators, it’s usually that then regulators say, why don’t you go to underserved areas where they are not operational or where there’s no connectivity so that it doesn’t seem like you’re here to compete with the big operators. But then in the same breath, the expectation is that you will go to the hard-to-reach areas but still become commercially viable because whenever community networks are in the room, there’s always the question of, are you sustainable? Are you sustainable? But then even the large commercial operators are not going to these areas because they are not commercially viable. But what we are seeing is that it’s not just an issue of no access, but it’s also quality as you’re saying. A lot of the opportunities now for people who live in urban areas is digital work and that means that it’s very expensive to access. And we are seeing not just for community networks who are non-for-profit but. even the small scale ISPs, really growing and becoming, you know, forced to reckon with in many of the areas in terms of not just affordable, but also good quality service and the ability to provide good customer care service. So it’s definitely a time to really relook our regulatory frameworks, not just for non-for-profit entities and we are saying even for small scale ISPs, because there is room to serve people, they are locally available, but it’s just that regulation is still tight and it’s because other players are competing fairly. Thank you.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you, Anika. It’s a great insight and I’d just like to mention here that the gender inclusion strategy that PTA has, one of the working groups for access, it does talk about community networks and providing support to community networks. So in a way, this is another good example where it is not, I mean community networks may have been discussed by licensing or other departments, but it is part of the gender strategy which gives it more impotence that you know it is going to be women-centric empowerment technology. I’ve been told that we have four minutes, but I’ll take one last question before we close. Please.

Audience: My question is from Mem Malahat, who is representing PTA, that how PTA is working to plan a strategy for involving women from the rural areas in Pakistan, or specifically in the newly emerged district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, even where phones with the women is a taboo. So how will you bring them to the internet, although in Pakistan we have some 49% of the population from women. So how do you see the women inclusion on the internet, specifically in the rural areas, especially in the tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?

Malahat Obaid: Thank you very much for your question. Just to give you a background, when we started off with this strategy development process, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for my audience as well, is one of the provinces of Pakistan in which there are, you know, some social barriers are more as compared to the rest of the country. So yes, we included, while we were doing the consultative process, there was extensive consultation undertaken while we were developing the strategy and we considered the viewpoint of the local communities as well. We had them on board while we were discussing the issue, the females, the organizations that are working in that area were also on board. You can go through the consultation process that is already available, the outcomes of the process that is already available on our website, PTA website. There are organizations that I have just mentioned we are collaborating with and they are working in that specific area which you are talking of, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. They will be working on providing the connectivity as well as, you know, conducting programs for digital literacy. So the strategy has a very holistic approach towards all the locations and the areas that are already connected and that still needs some access issues to be resolved. So with time, of course, the accessibility group which is being led by PTA will be considered, will be considering, you know, taking into account if there are still some areas or issues that are left or for that matter are not covered in our TORs and you are most welcome to follow. the process of implementation of the strategy. Thank you.

Waqas Hassan: Thank you. Thank you so much, Malahat, and thank you for your question. We are like almost out of time. I wanted to have a closing statement from each of the panellists, but I think probably on behalf of the panel, Anika, would you like to just close with the closing statement to just represent the panel?

Onica Makwakwa: Yes, certainly. Thank you so much. So I will just close by saying that there’s a lot of initiatives that are taking place to help close the gender digital divide, and I’m just very pleased to share with you that one such initiative is the Women in the Digital Economy Fund, which was launched earlier this year, an $80 million fund that is strictly focused on supporting and funding the scale-up of solutions that are focused on women-led and women-focused initiatives to close the gender digital divide. We currently have a round that is open for India only, so please go to YDEF, W-I-D-E-F dot global. I will put it in the chat as well for those who are online, and see it will be closing soon. We will have another global round that will open in March of 2025. I really hope to see many exciting applications, including from community networks, especially women-led, women-focused, so that we have an opportunity to help close the gender digital divide in the global majority world. Thank you. Thank you so much. And if you have any questions, Wakas is the regional lead for Asia, so please, if you are in the room, bombard him. And if you of course want to know

Waqas Hassan: more about policy recommendations and how to go about bridging the digital gender divide, there is a report that we have out here which very amply says that the time is now, right, so the time is now that we make all efforts. And it is absolutely possible, and it is absolutely necessary to make a… a meaningful difference in the situation of digital gender divide through inclusive policy making, through stakeholder consultation and by processes which are community centric. So with that note, I thank you all for being here, thank you to my panelists, thank you for people who joined us online and have a safe day. Thank you. Take care. Anika and Malat, would you stay on the screen for a minute so that we can take a picture of the panel. We can probably huddle around the screen. Okay, so can you look at the front, thank you. Thank you so much, Malat, Anika, thank you, take care. Thank you, thanks everyone. Thank you, Vakas, thank you, thank you Anika, bye bye. Bye. As-salamu alaykum. Walaykum as-salam. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .