Goal 5. Gender

Gender Equality

ICTs can provide great opportunities for gender equality by enabling everyone to have access to the same online resources and opportunities. They enable women to gain a stronger voice in their communities, their government and at the global level. ICTs can also provide new opportunities for women’s economic empowerment by creating business and employment opportunities for women as owners and managers of ICT-accessed projects, as well as employees of new business ventures. Yet, over 250 million fewer women are online than man. The gender gap in access to ICTs needs to be urgently addressed if the benefits of ICTs to gender equality and gender empowerment are to be achieved.

Tweet this!

Case study – Philippines

The Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign, launched by ITU in partnership with the Philippine-based NGO telecentre.org Foundation has trained over one million unskilled women to use computers and modern ICT applications to improve their livelihoods.
The Campaign leveraged the combined reach of telecentre.org Foundation’s global network of 100,000 telecentres worldwide and ITU’s 193 Member States and more than 700 members from the private sector and academia to deliver training in ICT use following a ‘train the trainer’ model.
The Campaign has demonstrated the power of digital literacy training to open the door to other essential skills needed to operate in a broadband environment, including financial literacy skills, as well as ICT-enabled career training. Such training enables women to set up online businesses, or to use broadband services, such as social networking sites, to enhance their ongoing livelihood and economic activity.
Related links:
Women's Digital Literacy Campaign and WSIS Stocktaking

ITU150 Story: Innovating with Alja

How do we close the growing ICT gender gap?
Women are getting online later than men leading to a growing technology gender gap. Alja Isakovic shares her story about working to narrow the gender divide in the world of technology.
Read the story

Sound Bite

"We will accept nothing less than a 50-50 planet."

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Executive Director, UN Women

Blogs
Stats
Goal & Targets SDG-5

90% of countries have more women in parliament in 2015 than they did in 1995. Yet still only one in five members of parliaments are women.¹

¹ Source: Millennium Development Goals Report 2015

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

5.1 End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
5.2 Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.
5.3 Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.
5.4 Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate.
5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.
5.6 Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.
5.a Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.
5.b Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women.
5.c Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.