As we celebrate International Women's Day on 8 March, it is time to reflect on our achievements made in gender equality and on the gaps that still remain.
2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, a historic roadmap signed by 189 governments 20 years ago that sets the agenda for realizing women's rights. The Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action is a visionary blueprint for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
This year's theme - "Empowering Women - Empowering Humanity: Picture It!" is central to the advancement of women's rights and empowerment across the globe.
Over the last year, we've seen women and girls inspiring communities and entire countries. In the BDT we continue our efforts to promote women's empowerment and to inspire women and girls to consider a future in technology. To date, over 111,000 girls and young women have taken part in more than 3,500 Girls in ICT events held in 140 countries around the world. And through the Women's Digital Literacy Campaign, we have empowered more than 1 million women at the bottom of the development pyramid to become digitally literate.
In addition to this, through our m-Health initiative, Be He@lthy, Be Mobile, we will help provide a national SMS based service as a way of encouraging women to get screened for cervical cancer, and for health workers to provide follow-up and scheduling services via mobile phones. The programme, which is expected to be launched in the first half of 2015, is an innovative way of supporting existing efforts undertaken to prevent and control cervical cancer. These are just some of the many programmes that we continue to work on impacting the lives of women and girls globally.
It is my strong belief that as men and women we must all play our role to ensure that women and girls worldwide can reach their full potential for the benefit of all mankind.
To all women of BDT, Happy International Women's Day.
