Page 89 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Box 22: UN Women’s call to address the gender-environmental nexus

Using standards to ensure that frontier technologies address the gender-environmental
nexus

Frontier technologies seldom benefit women and men equally. What is happening behind
the scenes in machine learning (ML), robotics and digitization, to name a few, is incredibly
complex and difficult. We see new tools emerging using algorithms and data sets which are
picking up on historical and societal biases and further propagating them. When developing
and using frontier technologies to protect the environment and tackle climate change, we
need to have standards and systems in place to make sure women and girls have equal
rights and access and are given opportunities to contribute to making real societal change.

Women’s unique insights and perspectives can help shape the technology that impact their
lives and those within their communities to respond appropriately to their needs and realities.
Some 2.5 million new engineers are needed in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve SDG6 (Water
and Sanitation) and there will not be enough people to fill this need. Beyond increasing the
proportion of diverse developers and experts, ensuring meaningful engagement with the
affected communities is also needed to challenge the imposition of top-down technological
solutions. This is not only a matter of justice and equality but is fundamental to ensuring that
frontier technologies are able to deliver on their potential for all and not further enhance
discrimination.

UN Women recommends adopting its newly launched Gender Innovation Principles, which
point to the need to promote women as innovators, stakeholders and end-users throughout
each of the phases of innovation (Global Innovation Coalition for Change, 2018). This is highly
relevant for the world of frontier technology, which is filled with developers, enthusiasts and
experts who are mostly men from developed economies that seem to outnumber not only
women, but also other diverse populations. By adopting the Principles, public and private
sector partners commit to:

• Champion diversity and inclusiveness in their innovation labs and management structures.
• Include women and gender experts at the design stage.
• Integrate women’s needs and carefully select data sets during testing and piloting stages.
• Use sex-disaggregated data and gender impact assessments to monitor the results
achieved using innovative technologies.
• Only scale the utilization of tools that provide gender-responsive and sustainable solutions.

This report noted at the start that the disruptive potential of frontier technologies can lead to certain
downsides arising from inconsistency in affordability and access to these technologies, which can be
particularly stark between developed and developing nations. These downsides can be minimized
through the implementation of policies aimed at limiting the socio-economic costs of adjustment,
at the city level, as well as at the national and regional levels. Effective regulatory environments and
institutional infrastructures are required to promote the strategic innovation, balanced diffusion and
appropriate use of frontier technologies. Fostering international cooperation for the exchange of
technologies and innovation (particularly between developed countries and the rest of the world),
reducing barriers posed by restrictive intellectual property rights mechanisms, and promoting ICT-
related standards globally are some key specific ways in which frontier technologies can be leveraged
for the benefit of all. 260

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