Promoting Gender Equality for the use of ICTs in Disaster Management
ITU Webinar
8 March 2021
Keynote Address
Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everyone.
It is a pleasure to welcome you today, as we celebrate International Women's Day.
This year's theme – Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world, could not be more relevant to our times.
To mark the day, we come together, virtually, to recognize the tremendous efforts made by women and girls around the world to shape a more equal access to digital technologies, as well as a more equal future and recovery from this global pandemic.
We have seen during the past year, that women have been at the centre of COVID-19 care and response efforts.
Making up the majority of frontline caregivers; they are leading nations in formulating public health policy; and they are mobilizing their local communities to develop and implement strategies that keep people safe.
Yet once again, they are also bearing the brunt of the social and economic impact.
Women make up an estimated 70% of front-line responders and the vast majority of health workers, which means they are at increased risk for contracting COVID-19 while triaging healthcare facilities that are often filled to capacity.
Their significant risk of infection is also compounded by the fact that nearly 60% of women work in the informal economy, and are more likely to fall into poverty as new waves of job losses sweep through the world's economies.
And without access to ICTs, many women are unable to transition to sources of online income, which leaves them even farther behind.
The current climate of worldwide crisis very dramatically illustrates the situation in which many women find themselves when localized disasters strike.
In the wake of a catastrophe, women and children are at higher risk than men.
And inequalities in ICT access are often most pronounced in parts of the world that are especially vulnerable to disasters and emergencies arising from natural hazards.
We know that digital technologies are critical tools in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery, but we also know that girls, women and marginalized groups are the least likely to have access to these technologies.
These gender-based asymmetries and their consequences were also highlighted in the report that we launched last year on Women, ICTs and emergency telecommunications and I know that many of the findings of that report remain relevant and can help guide during this health crisis.
With so many functions of daily life having shifted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digital gender gap not shrinking, the digital exclusion of women and girls has reached an alarming level.
Lockdown restrictions have left millions of girls and women exposed to a growing number of vulnerabilities including cyberviolence and physical abuse.
Digital technologies can be a lifesaving tool – whether through instant messaging services with a geolocation function, free calls to domestic abuse hotlines, or early warning alerts for impending hazards that can cause severe devastation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It's quite clear that we need to step up our efforts to increase access to digital technologies for the world's most vulnerable populations.
The incredible growth in ICT networks and services, including radio, satellite, and mobile, shows us that the opportunity is there.
Given the worldwide focus on finding solutions to expand and improve the quality of ICTs in response to the pandemic, 2021 gives us an unprecedented, historic opportunity to connect the unconnected.
We simply cannot let it pass us by, and we must work together.
Effective, cross-sectoral collaboration is absolutely essential to fully leverage the power of these technologies, accelerate change, bring more women and girls online, and combat the digital gender divide.
Today, we will have the great opportunity to listen to a real-life story on the empowering role of ICTs for women in disaster resilience.
We will also hear from our partners – including the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of Trinidad and Tobago; UN Women; the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC); EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA); and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) – on the active steps they are taking towards our common goal, to provide equal access to digital technologies, and help women lead a better, safer, and more prosperous life.
This is the kind of collaboration we need to put women at the centre of a resilient recovery from pandemics and disasters, and save more lives.
Thank you.
