This day marks International Women's Day 2023.
The United Nations chooses a theme each year for International Women's Day, and for 2023, the theme is "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality."
This year's theme aligns with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67).
The theme highlights the importance of technology and innovation in advancing gender equality and empowering women and girls in all aspects of their lives.
Innovation and technology for gender equality
The United Nations recognizes and celebrates women and girls who champion transformative technology and digital education during the observance of International Women's Day.
According to UN Women, IWD 2023 will focus on the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities. The event will also highlight the need to protect women and girls' rights in digital spaces and address online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence.
Involving women and other marginalized groups in technology leads to more innovative solutions that meet women's needs and promote gender equality.
However, their exclusion from the digital world has caused a loss of $1 trillion from the GDP of low- and middle-income countries in the past decade, according to the UN Women's Gender Snapshot 2022 report.
This loss will increase to $1.5 trillion by 2025 without action. Solving this problem requires addressing online violence, which a study of 51 countries found that 38 percent of women had personally experienced.
The digital gender divide has left women behind in terms of access to technologies and digital skills, resulting in growing inequalities.
The advancement of digital technology presents significant opportunities to address development and humanitarian challenges and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.
Gender equality through technology
AS reported that the UN is urging investment to increase women's participation in STEM fields.
To encourage wealthy governments to allocate funds towards this goal, UN Women has drawn attention to the economic loss from excluding women and girls in the digital space and STEM fields.
Addressing the root issues that perpetuate gender inequality is crucial to resolving this problem.
Women comprise around 70 percent of the global poor and over two-thirds of the world's illiterate population, which are barriers to their integration into the digital economy and STEM occupations.
It is much harder to become an engineer or attend secondary school when living in extreme poverty and lacking access to elementary education.
Focusing resources on building lasting institutions that enhance access to quality education and an economic system that ensures no one is subjected to extreme poverty would have tremendous benefits for innovation.
Additionally, as per CNN, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that progress towards gender equality is disappearing before our eyes, addressing the Commission on the Status of Women.
To achieve gender equality, Guterres urged collective and urgent action, including increasing
employment opportunities for women and girls, education, and income, particularly in developing nations in the Global South, and promoting their participation in science and technology.
