Women Leading the Digital Future - Shaping Policy Together

The EU Deputy Permanent Representative argued that the cost of inaction on gender digital inequality is enormous, both in terms of lost human potential and economic output. He cited specific figures from UN Women to underscore the scale of the opportunity being missed by not addressing the gender digital divide.

He referenced statistics from UN Women indicating that closing the gender digital divide could benefit 343.5 million women and girls and generate an estimated $1.5 trillion boost to global GDP by 2030 .

He contended that including women in digital policymaking is not merely a matter of fairness but also a pragmatic strategy for achieving better governance outcomes. More diverse decision-making processes produce policies that serve all citizens more effectively and drive faster growth.

He stated that more inclusive digital policymaking leads to better decisions, stronger institutions, and digital transformation that works better for everyone and faster growth .

He described a concrete multilateral initiative launched by the EU together with several member states to address women's underrepresentation in public ICT leadership. The initiative spans multiple world regions and has specific goals around capacity building, gender-responsive policy design, and STEM access for girls and women.

He noted that together with Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, and Spain, the EU launched a joint initiative on women's leadership in the public ICT sector covering the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America . The initiative aims to empower women in the public ICT sector to shape gender-responsive policies, strengthen institutional capacities, and support greater access to STEM pathways for girls and women .

He clarified that the EU AI Act does have global reach insofar as any producer wishing to access the EU market must comply with it. He also highlighted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive as a complementary instrument focused on human rights with similarly broad application, while acknowledging these instruments may not be fully sufficient outside EU-driven contexts.

He explained that if a producer in North America or Asia wants to work in the EU, they must abide by the EU AI Act . He also referenced the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive as focused on human rights with global applications, noting that businesses wishing to work with the EU must apply it .

She argued that women's exclusion from digital policymaking is systemic, spanning a wide range of institutions from national governments to international standard-setting bodies. This underrepresentation means that the perspectives and needs of half the population are routinely absent from decisions that affect everyone.

She noted that around the world, women remain underrepresented in institutions that shape digital policy, ranging from governments to regulators, standard bodies, and AI governance processes .

She emphasised that simply securing a seat at the table is not enough if women are not equipped to use that position effectively. Without investment in leadership skills and the ability to articulate arguments persuasively, women's formal inclusion may not translate into meaningful influence.

She described scenarios where a meeting can last one or two hours and a woman leaves without having spoken, or speaks but is unable to push her agenda positively or draw the attention of the room . She therefore called for investment in leadership, mentorship, and digital skills alongside representation .

She illustrated how women's unique lived experiences can identify policy gaps that others overlook, using her own experience of online abuse as a parliamentarian as the catalyst for legislative reform. This example demonstrates that women's leadership produces qualitatively different and more responsive policy outcomes.

She described how her personal experience of online abuse after becoming a parliamentarian, and gender-related difficulties within her party, led her to investigate whether this was widespread . This ultimately resulted in Tanzania becoming the first country in Africa to recognise gender-based violence in elections as an electoral offence, and requiring all political parties to have a gender desk and gender policies .

She provided a concrete example of how women's leadership at the international level has produced significant governance outcomes in the AI domain. Her role as co-rapporteur of the IPU AI Resolution demonstrates that women's participation in governance processes can have far-reaching global impact.

She described becoming the co-rapporteur of the Interparliamentary Union Artificial Intelligence Resolution, which now mandates over 180 parliaments globally to look at and implement issues of AI . She attributed this to women looking at issues from a different lens that others would not consider .

She argued that the quality of digital policy is directly dependent on the diversity of those who make it. When policymakers do not reflect the full range of societal experiences, the resulting policies tend to entrench rather than remedy existing inequalities.

She noted that digital technologies now influence every aspect of life, from education and healthcare to democracy and economic opportunities, and that if those shaping digital policies do not reflect the diversity of society and experiences, policies will reinforce existing inequalities instead of addressing them . She used the example of women traders facing online abuse as a barrier to participating in the digital economy .

She called on the EU to extend the behavioural standards it enforces within its own market to the global operations of EU-registered companies. She observed that the same technology companies that behave well within the EU disregard those standards when operating in regions such as Africa.

She noted that global technology companies operating outside the EU, for example in Africa, throw aside the standards they apply within the EU and do not behave in the same manner . She asked whether companies registered in the EU could be held to a minimum level of acceptable standards across the world, drawing a parallel with accountability mechanisms in the mining sector .

She offered a personal example to illustrate how digital technologies can create opportunities for women who are primary carers, enabling them to pursue professional or entrepreneurial activities alongside their caring responsibilities. This reframes digital inclusion as a practical tool for addressing the unpaid care burden.

She described how her daughter, who had to pause her ambitions after having a baby, used digital tools to set up a non-profit organisation providing nutrition support to young mothers online . She suggested that if the digital future is used effectively, it can support mothers who are full-time carers to also do some form of work .

She articulated a vision in which the metrics of women's participation in digital governance become obsolete because genuine leadership has been achieved. This aspiration shifts the frame from monitoring a deficit to celebrating an accomplishment.

She stated her hope that by 2030, we will no longer be measuring women's participation in digital governance but will be celebrating women's leadership in shaping the digital future .

She argued that the prevailing model of engaging women in digital policymaking through consultation is inadequate and must be replaced by genuine leadership roles. Women's participation must be embedded in the design and formulation of policy, not treated as an add-on advisory function.

She stated that the key change needed is embedding women's participation, voice, and representation in the design and formulation of digital policy, not merely as consultation but as leadership . She also emphasised ensuring women's equal participation in and benefit from the outcomes of digital policy, including digital public services, online safety frameworks, AI governance, and digital skills programmes .

She identified three interconnected structural barriers that prevent women from participating fully in digital policymaking in Cambodia. These barriers operate at the institutional, educational, and cultural levels, requiring coordinated responses across multiple domains.

She described the three barriers as: women's underrepresentation in core ICT bodies, regulatory agencies, and AI governance structures ; a skills and capacity gap whereby fewer women access advanced digital, data, and AI training ; and persistent social norms that frame technology and high-level policymaking as a male domain .

She outlined Cambodia's comprehensive policy architecture designed to advance women's participation in digital transformation and STEM fields. These frameworks demonstrate that Cambodia is building on a strong policy foundation rather than starting from scratch.

She referenced the Pentagonal Strategy placing human capital development at the centre of national progress , the Cambodia Science, Technology, and Innovation Roadmap 2030 setting a target of at least 40% female graduates in STEM , and the Digital Economy and Society Policy Framework 2024-2035 providing national direction for digital skills inclusion and innovation . She also mentioned the Cambodia Digital Government Policy, which explicitly aims to reduce the gender gap in digital skills , and the Ministry of Women's Affairs' five-year strategic plan (Neri Rotna) prioritising gender mainstreaming and women's economic empowerment .

She expressed a vision in which digital transformation serves as a force for protection and empowerment of the most vulnerable, rather than increasing their exposure to risk. This aspiration frames digital policy as a tool for social protection and equity.

She stated her hope that 2030 would be the year to prove that digital transformation can lift the vulnerable, not expose them .

She highlighted that even when young women from the global south are included in digital policy processes, their role is typically limited to reacting to or validating decisions already made by others. True inclusion requires moving these women from the periphery to the centre of the design and authorship process.

She described how young women from the global south are, in the best of scenarios, just invited to give their feedback about systems or policies that are already in place and already designed by someone else . She called for women to be the authors of those things rather than being asked merely to react or validate .

She argued that securing representation for women in digital governance is only meaningful if accompanied by the technical and policy skills needed to participate effectively. Without prior capacity building, formal inclusion risks being tokenistic.

She described a programme called Semilleros Digitales in the Dominican Republic, through which young people not previously studying or working in AI and software development were trained, with half of the participants being women, many of whom now work for the national ICT office . She also referenced a collaboration with a national AI academy on a programme called Level Up, teaching women to build solutions using AI and generate income from it .

She argued that ad hoc or event-based participation of women in digital governance is insufficient and that structural mechanisms must be created to embed participation permanently within institutions. Without an institutional home, gains made through consultations or one-off events quickly disappear.

She noted that if participation does not have an institutional home, then after the picture ends, everything evaporates after the comments are released . She cited a minister of ICTs who advised simply putting the policy in place .

She contended that open-source AI systems are a structural mechanism for inclusion, as they allow those who have historically been excluded from technology development to participate in building it. Openness by design lowers the barriers to co-creation for women and youth, particularly from the global south.

She described her work building a public AI stack for Latin America using open-source AI systems for governments, arguing that when code is open, those who were historically left behind and excluded can now co-create with the code . She noted that capacity-building programmes must accompany open infrastructure to enable this participation .

She articulated a vision in which young women from the global south are not merely participants but genuine leaders and implementers of technology and innovation policy. This aspiration reflects her broader argument that authorship and leadership, not just inclusion, must be the goal.

She stated her hope that by 2030 she can see more young women from the global south as leaders and implementers of tech and innovation policies .

She argued that a deeply embedded cultural narrative positions technology as a male domain, actively discouraging girls from pursuing digital careers. This narrative is perpetuated not only by broader society but sometimes by educators who should be encouraging girls to engage with technology.

She described visiting a secondary school in London on International Girls in ICT Day, where girls raised concerns about misogyny and the manosphere, leading some to withdraw from technology . She noted that some teachers also discouraged girls from getting involved in technology .

She identified social and cultural barriers as a significant obstacle to women's participation in the digital sector, noting that families often fear the toxic environments their daughters may encounter and doubt whether they will be able to advance their careers. These fears contribute to self-exclusion from the technology field.

She described how families fear the toxic environment in tech and worry that women will never get a position of influence or have a meaningful career in the sector .

She argued that addressing women's exclusion from digital policymaking requires a comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach rather than a single intervention. This includes bringing together women of different generations, ensuring policies are practical enough to be implemented, and maintaining women's engagement throughout the entire policy process.

She stated that an intergenerational female voice should be brought through the entire policy process, so that the experiences of young women and the knowledge of older women can both inform policy design . She emphasised that policy must be simple and implementable, as policy without action has no effect .

She contended that the development of truly human-centred AI depends on women being participants in the governance of data and the design of algorithms. Women's perspectives are essential to ensuring that AI systems serve the full range of human needs rather than reflecting only a narrow set of experiences.

She argued that there will be a huge difference in human-centred AI if women are in the space of governing data, shaping policies, and implementing the algorithms .

She argued that certain AI-powered applications are actively harmful to women and are reversing progress on gender equality. These tools normalise misogyny, sexual exploitation, and abuse, and their existence reflects a failure of accountability in the technology sector.

She cited examples including chatbots that encourage misogyny and male dominance, social media platforms, games like Replika which function as virtual companions that are sexually abusive and derogatory towards women, and AI-powered nude image applications . She questioned why such applications exist and argued they are putting women back in the box and moving DEI backwards .

She highlighted the specific harm caused by deep fake images and online abuse in silencing women who participate in public life, including elected representatives. This form of technology-facilitated harm has a chilling effect on women's political and civic participation.

She argued that women are silenced because of the abuse and shame put on them by deep fake images, specifically mentioning parliamentarians as a group particularly affected .

She advised that organisations working on women's digital leadership should conduct research to map the landscape of existing initiatives and identify partners with aligned missions. This approach can prevent wasteful duplication of effort and enable greater collective impact.

She suggested that UNDP and women's organisations should do research to identify which organisations are aligned with them, drawing on her own experience of always seeking co-funding from aligned partners such as ITU and GIZ . She argued that identifying alignment allows organisations to avoid duplication and have a greater impact .

She presented a practical model for cost-effective digital capacity building that leverages existing community structures and intergenerational relationships. By training mothers and daughters together through self-help groups, knowledge is retained, applied, and shared across generations and households.

She described working with local NGOs and women's self-help groups in rural India, where mothers and daughters were trained together in digital skills . She noted that when they went home, the knowledge was retained and used, and devices were shared among group members and their daughters, creating intergenerational knowledge acceleration even among the poorest communities .

She expressed a hope that by 2030 the case for women's inclusion in digital leadership will have been proven through demonstrated results, shifting the justification from moral fairness to empirical effectiveness. This reframes inclusion as a performance imperative rather than a concession.

She stated her hope that by 2030 it can be seen that when women lead, inclusion is recognised not only because it is fair but because it is effective .

An audience member with over 35 years of policy experience argued that the structural expectation that women will perform unpaid care work is one of the most significant and underacknowledged barriers to women's full participation in digital and professional life. Without societal structures that support parenting and elder care for all, other inclusion objectives will not reach their full potential.

The audience member noted that in almost the entire world, women are providing free labour as caretakers, and that this presumption that the world will function on free labour from women must change . She argued that until structures are in place to support parenting, mothering, and elder care for all, other objectives around women's inclusion will not reach their full potential .

An audience member raised the concern that the cost of digital products and services can be prohibitively high for women and girls in lower-income settings, undermining capacity-building efforts. Ensuring affordable access alongside a safe online environment is essential for meaningful inclusion.

The audience member noted that when designing, developing, and deploying digital products, costs can go so high that women and girls cannot afford to reach the technology they need . She asked how the multi-stakeholder environment can help guarantee affordable digital tools, skilled training, and a robust and safe online environment .

An audience member from UNDP highlighted the problem of fragmentation and duplication in the ecosystem of organisations working on women's digital leadership. She questioned how to connect women leaders across different regions and sectors with the expertise they need, given the proliferation of overlapping initiatives.

She described UNDP's Women's Leadership Academy for the Digital Era, which has grown to 58 countries over four years, and noted the challenge of bringing the right expertise to women across different regions and sectors . She observed that at the WSIS Forum, many organisations are investing in almost the same types of questions and solutions .

She articulated the most ambitious vision for 2030: that progress on gender equality in digital governance will have been so substantial that dedicated advocacy sessions like the one being held will no longer be needed. This aspiration frames the current session as a transitional necessity rather than a permanent fixture.

She stated her hope that we do not have to do these sessions anymore to highlight the issue, and that by 2030 we will be celebrating that we have achieved equality, echoing Neema Lugangira's aspiration to celebrate rather than measure .

She argued that digital transformation requires women to be participants in shaping the rules and governance frameworks of technology, not simply end users who implement decisions made by others. This distinction between using technology and governing it is central to achieving meaningful inclusion in the digital sphere.

She stated that when talking about digital transformation, it is important to understand that women should not be left to just use technology but should also help govern it and help write the rules, so that they are not simply implementing them but are part of the process .

She drew a parallel between the historical exclusion of women from urban planning, which produced public spaces that were unsafe or unsuitable for women and children, and the exclusion of women from digital governance, which risks producing digital spaces that are similarly unsafe or biased. This analogy illustrates the concrete harms that result from non-inclusive design processes.

She compared designing digital policies without women to planning cities uniquely with and for men, noting that roads that endanger people in the dark and play spaces in areas where children do not want to play often result from male engineers not considering the needs of women and children in public spaces . She argued that the same dynamic applies to digital governance, where excluding women from shaping policy may result in digital spaces that are unsafe, particularly for women .

She framed women's leadership not merely as a matter of equality but as a functional requirement for producing high-quality, inclusive policy. Diverse leadership brings broader perspectives to decision-making, resulting in policies that are more responsive to the full range of citizens' needs.

She stated that women's leadership is not only a matter of equality but a prerequisite for better policymaking, and that diverse leadership leads to more balanced decisions, broader perspectives, and policies that respond to the needs of all citizens .

She argued that formal representation alone is insufficient for meaningful participation in digital governance. True inclusion demands that women have equal access to the structural resources that enable effective participation, including decision-making power, leadership pathways, digital skills, and the professional networks through which policy agendas are shaped.

She stated that meaningful participation requires more than only representation, and that it requires equal access to decision-making, leadership opportunities, digital skills, and the networks that shape policy agendas .

She contended that the growing influence of AI and digital technologies makes it increasingly urgent that women participate in defining the governance frameworks, standards, and rules that guide technological development. Being a user of technology is insufficient; women must be involved in shaping the architecture of the digital world.

She argued that as AI and other digital technologies become more influential, it is essential that women are not only the users of technology but its architects, meaning they define the rules, standards, and governance that guide its development .

She argued that inclusive digital governance serves a practical function beyond fairness, as it enables the identification and correction of unintended biases that arise when only a narrow group shapes policy. Inclusion therefore drives better and more universally beneficial innovation.

She stated that inclusive digital governance helps identify unintended biases and promotes innovation that benefits everyone .