BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin gave a special address at the unveiling of the Network of Women in ITU-D, a side event of the Regional Preparatory Meeting for Europe for the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2021. Other speakers included women leaders in digital development.
The Network of Women (NoW) aims at building a community to support female delegates, expand their network, and advocate and share experiences and knowledge with other female delegates. It also aims at promoting the active participation of women in ITU activities and the technology sector in general.
''NoW is about the power of community. That's the real game changer'', stated Ms Bogdan-Martin. She expressed optimism that ''this network will help us in our efforts to close not only the gender gap in ITU's Development Sector, but in the digital development arena at large.''
It will provide a platform for exchange, ''helping us better understand the challenges that female delegates face, and identifying potential avenues to overcome these hurdles.'' Encouragingly, she noted that ''The network will enable us to share lessons with each other, and create a supportive community that we can all be an active part of.''
ITU established the first Network of Women within the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) process. NoW in the Development Sector is an adaptation of the same initiative, seeking to build further open the solid foundation laid out the network in WRC.
Ms Bogdan-Martin pointed back to 1994, when ITU held the first World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) that took place after the formal establishment of the Development Sector, and said ''we have come a long, long way but still have more to do to create a truly inclusive WTDC where women and men are represented equally.''
She took note of some good progress that has been made on representation. From the total number of female delegates at 3% in WTDC-02, the number improved greatly to 21% at WTDC-14 and 28% at WTDC-17.
However, Ms Bogdan-Martin underscored that ''it's not just about being on a list of participants… it's about taking the microphone, leaning in and holding positions such as conference Chairs and Vice-Chairs, study group and rapporteur groups positions.''
The new NoW in ITU-D was launched first at the RPM Europe, and she expressed hope that such efforts will be replicated at all future RPMs across the regions over the course of the next few months.
