The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> BARATANG MIYA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Women in IGF session. We only have like 25 minutes. Is it 25 minutes? Oh, 10:30. So, again, welcome, everyone. My name is Baratang Miya. I am from Girlhype Women Who Code. And we're organizing Women in IGF for the second year now. We had one in Addis. And following that up, it's this particular one. So, I will start the session.
We have three speakers, one presentation about what's happening with women in the ecosystem, and then we'll have Mr. Mactar Seck to tell us about what has he done in the past year about what we aimed for. Last year, the focus was on contributing towards the Global Digital Compact. And we have done that very well. So, I will touch on that.
But in the interim, I just want to say that there is a real low women in IGF; is that even though women are a huge part of the IGF community and make up half of the population globally, women's voices have been historically low and entirely absent in the political and digital spaces. So, this imbalance ultimately deny leadership opportunities to women in spaces, especially in the spaces that they would have to impact the technology, build it, and create it in their local environment, especially women who face additional forms of discrimination. So, IGF's Women Summit focuses on leadership mind‑set and spotlight the women who can harness the power in this pivotal moment on the Internet and to shape the digital platform.
We want to contribute a new way forward and come up with actionable solutions to drive meaningful progress in Internet governance. So, the final output of this particular summit would be a resource produced by a community of participants at the summit. One other thing is making sure that the planning for next year, which we want to take this and, hopefully, turn it into an NIR where women's issues and gender issues could be discussed in a formal setting. At the moment, it's being driven by one organization and few of us that were there last year, but I think now we want to make it bigger and try to approach the Internet governance Secretariat and say, "Please give us an opportunity to become an NRI at global level, that women across the world, across the globe, can contribute towards the IGF and contribute at the leadership level and make sure that the impact of what women and gender issues should be covered at that level.
So, based on that, whatever we come up with, Margaret will do a presentation, and what the presentation she will do is publish it as part of the final outcome of this and take some of the points on what we do with what came out of that presentation. So, it's more of an open forum. Everyone who is here is allowed to contribute to how can we make gender be taken as an entity that could contribute towards IGF? Because at the moment, there isn't one entity that is really focusing on gender issues. And we take Women's Summit as part of that.
And with that in mind, I will give an opportunity to Mr. Mactar Seck, who will talk to us. But I just want to say that gender disparity's very huge. In Africa, I know that women are working very hard. I'm looking at Lilly here, who's driving so much about Internet governance from the basic, on the ground. But at the same time, because of the literacy level, and because of the misunderstanding of where AI is going and what technology's bringing to the communities, the uptake is very slow. The people are still not understanding what is technology doing for them and why is it beneficial? And if you come and talk about the rights and digital rights and human rights of people in the technology space to people who do not have technology, it's as if you are taking away something from them. So, we have to find the balance of making sure that even if we're talking about the rights of women online and we talk about service neutrality and gender and all of these issues that come up at IGF, we also have to talk about how do we make sure that the same people that we're talking about on the ground have access to Internet. Because at the moment, I think it's only 15% of Africans who have proper Internet access.
That means, when we talk about the rights that we're talking about at IGF, 85% of Africans don't know what the hell you're talking about, because it's not implemented yet. So, how do you talk about something they don't have? So, that balance is something that I think we would have to address, especially women, because they are the ones who are literally not online. And with that said, I'll hand over to Mr. Mactar.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much, Mrs. Baratang. And good morning, everyone to attend this important event to discuss women in IGF. As you know, the woman is playing an important role in the Africa ecosystem, but we have a lot of concern about their participation.
When we look at the African culture, women are the ones who educate the children. They wake up early, very early, to go to try to get something done, some work, to give food to their kids. Women also leave their country's rural area to come in the urban city; try to get some work to support their family inside their respective country. Women also suffer a lot in Africa due to the lack of health/hospital. When you look at the number of women who died due to lack of hospital, there are too many in Africa. At school, also, a lot of women don't have a chance to go to school for several reasons. Sometimes it's the culture. Yeah. In some culture, women are not allowed to go to school. And as a culture, they put priority for women to work at home to support their mother.
Another problem also in several African countries, woman doesn't have any legal form of identity, because for the culture, you can't get ID without getting married. Means in some culture, women doesn't exist.
And Internet provides this opportunity for everybody to be part of this ecosystem, using this digital technology. Now we have digital technology, we have seen a lot of progress in several countries in the activity of women. A lot of women are working now in this eCommerce. They're developing a lot of applications on eCommerce. They are selling goods through the network.
Also, several women working in the food system have developed a lot of applications focused on their activity. And with the development of this technology, the role of women becomes more and more important, and we have seen since COVID an increasing number of women in the digital sector. And I think now everybody agrees, the woman is part of this digital ecosystem.
When you look at the room, I think we have more women than men. It is the case also in the population. We have more women than men. But we have several challenges for that, to access to this digital technology. Still, we have more men connected than women in Africa. We have 45 men connected compared to 34 women.
Access also of the tech work is very low for women. Generally, it's around 12% compared to 40%. Another issue also, it is women harassment online. In a lot of country, this number is very high, and this number goes to 40% of women on the Internet have been harassed.
Also, when you talk about this African population, we have 500 million people on the continent without any legal identity. And most of them are women. Why it is important today to discuss, despite progress made by several countries for women in the digital ecosystem, what future do we want for women? What role do we want for women in this digital ecosystem? And we can link this to this Global Digital Compact, the role of women in this digital compact.
Now, first, let's start by key solution. We have to provide access, equitable access to women and youth to this digital technology. How we can do? We were 34% access to Internet, less than 10% in the rural area. We have to put the right efforts in the city, in the urban city, as well as in the rural area. It is something very important. The government should do, put in place the right efforts to provide equitable and affordable access to the women. This can be done through several ways. We can provide a lot of facility for women to access to this service. Also, we can develop public infrastructure to provide more access to women to this digital technology.
Also, we need to build the capacity of women. It is very important. When we look at the COVID period, in Africa, we identify around 5,000 innovation application, innovation focused on the linkage to the COVID, and more of these applications have been developed by women. We need, we have a ground in the continent. We need to build this capacity. And why we should have a lot of programs to build the capacity of women, not at the university or high school, but at the primary school, like Kenya decided last year.
Third, we provide access, build the capacity of the woman, but we need also to evolve the woman in the tech sector. It is very important. When you have the capacity, the government should promote access to the woman, for women to this sector. And through access to the market, through also support, funding support to this woman entrepreneur to access to this market is something very important. It is something some country did very successfully, like Tunisia and Morocco. They have an incentive fund to support women tech in the sector.
Another one, it is we need awareness about this cybersecurity child online. It is not only child, but I think all women are affected by this cybercrime issue. We need to secure the cyberspace for women by organizing several information working groups, awareness campaign, to explain to the woman the opportunity and the risk to be online. I think it is something very important we have to highlight for all women, especially those in Africa.
And in the Global Digital Compact, also, we have highlighted the important role of women as gender cross‑cutting issue, in all the key ten priority areas. How to involve this woman to be part of this Global Digital Compact, one, on the digital public infrastructure; how this woman can access the digital public infrastructure, like this ecommerce platform, eCommerce digital platform and we have local accommodation for government. How women can have affordable access to this digital technology. This goes through building infrastructure and also an appropriate regulation to make sure everybody has access to this digital technology. Of course, capacity‑building is very important through the Global Digital Compact, and focused more on the emerging technology; how we build the capacity of women in the emerging technology to make sure women are part of this evolution.
As you know, by 2030, 90% of the new jobs will be on digital or will need a digital component. We need also to build the capacity on this artificial intelligence, because artificial intelligence is very easy. It does not require a lot of infrastructure. Just, say if you are smart, we need some infrastructure to develop application. And we have seen also this development during this COVID period.
What is important also for women in this Global Digital Compact, it is the issue of public good. We need to put in place infrastructure policy to provide opportunity of women to access these public goods. It is very important for the continent.
Internet fragmentation. Because when you talk about Internet fragmentation, we can talk about on one Internet. But you have Africa several Internet. You have people who don't have access, people who don't have the technology, people who don't have the capacity. We need to avoid this Internet fragmentation to make it open and access to everybody, yeah. Everybody should have equal right for access to the internet. Women and men should have equal right to access to the Internet, something very important we have to take into consideration.
And also, we have to consider access Internet is a human right. If we consider access to Internet is a human right, I think we can sort out the issue of access for women in the continent. And it is something we discussed last year. Several progress have been made. We organized a lot of forums to discuss about this key challenge, and we have allotted several progress across the continent to improve access of women to this digital technology, to harness also their productivity through using digital technology. And I can highlight some initiatives where we have at this level.
We talk about this capacity‑building. We have one program, call it African Connected Coding Camp, focused on girls and women aged between 12 and 25 years old. This program provides skills to people during training for two weeks. The objective is to show, without any skills on digital technology, within two‑week training, we can get enough skill to be part of the digital era. And the women are trained in several areas, like artificial intelligence, web gaming, we have also several applications on climate change, 3D printing, and other areas. And since we launched this program, now we launched this program in seven countries and we have 35,000 girls trained, and they have developed around 300 projects. It is very amazing to look at the projects developed by these young girls. Just go to the application, to climate change, early marriage ‑‑ it is something we have in Africa; people will get a husband very early, and they face a lot of problems and they develop a website to show the problem faced by the young girls.
We also have an application related to the girl living in the city, coming from the rural area, and they get a lot of problems during their staying in this city. It is the people you meet to work at home in several families, and they develop a lot of applications on that.
Also, on health sector, we have also several applications developed by this girl.
Another project that is important, we call it Tech African Woman, focused on the woman entrepreneurship. And we support the woman to improve their capacity to access to the market. It is a program that we organized last year. We organized this in four countries, and several women have been selected, and they get a prize and improve their business through digital and technology. And the objective is, by 2025, to have this program in all African countries.
Another important project for women, it is a capacity‑building on fintech. When we look at Kenya, Kenya is a good example, where the fintech sector is leading by women, and we have designed a program with Alibaba to build the capacity or to improve the capacity of women in the fintech sector. It is something very important I think we can take as an example in several other countries, to see how we can duplicate what's happened in Kenya in other African countries. This shows the importance of this session, and I would like to congratulate Baratang and her team to have this session, this second edition of the Women in IGF, and to last year the support of ECA on this activity, because it is very important to support women. Why? We are all coming from women. Without women, you don't have anyone in this world, and we need to support them, to make them happy, to make them equal in all sector and they become leading this industrial revolution. And I'm sure with the capacity we have now for the young generation, when you discuss with them, when you look at the projects they develop, we are confident Africa is on the right way to be part such as a woman community in this fourth industrial revolution. I am going to stop there, and thank you very much.
>> BARATANG MIYA: Thank you very much, Mactar. I would like to ask everyone to join us on the table because it looks very empty. But on the other side, yeah. If we can all just join up here to make the room a little bit warmer. Thank you very much, Mactar. I just want to thank you very much.
When you started, you said that women are the ones who educate children. Maybe I'm lost. Can we just join on the table as we walk in? Yeah. As we mentioned, women are the ones who educate children. And one other thing that you mentioned is that since COVID, there has been an increased number of women in the ICT sector. And I think it's one of the realities that the COVID has really given women an opportunity to work from home, participate on the Internet in a way we wouldn't before. You mentioned that access is around 12% to women compared to men. Africa has 500 million people in the continent. And in the next coming five years, 70% of those were to be youth, which is one of those big things that really the continent has to battle with.
But the highlight for me was that UNECA is focused on building the capacity of women to participate meaningfully in the tech ecosystem. And you highlighted all the initiatives that UNECA is doing. I won't repeat them. To make sure that women participate freely, safely, and equally on the Internet. And they do participate on the eCommerce, which is like building technology, and they're not just consumers. And thank you very much as we take that forward.
I'm going to give Ms. Margaret to speak about Women in IGF Summit 2022 a little bit and what we've done in 2023 and what she's been working on. The research. Thank you.
>> MARGARET NYAMBURA: Thank you, Baratang. Can I kindly request for the presentation? So, thank you very much. My name is Margaret Nyambura, working at the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, where we are doing a gendered analysis of issues of connectivity usage and digital development outcomes in this digital ecosystem.
And as Dr. Mactar has said, women have a central place in the development and adoption of the emerging technologies. And I think we can all attest to that. However, they are greatly missing in the tech spaces. We have seen the statistics. And we must ensure they are included at all levels, if emerging technology is to be responsible to women's needs, wants, and more. We want to actively participate in these digital spaces, and we can only do that if what is there meets our needs.
And probably, to go deeper on this digital ecosystem that is much informed or driven by the STEM area. But existing data reveals that globally, there is a leaky pipeline leading to few women and lack of retention in STEM careers. As we start the Internet age, we probably had the same opportunities, men and women. But as we continue as young children, do we get the same opportunities? There are cultural issues. There are biases. Are there issues at the household level that keeps on pushing women to more arts and men to more STEM subjects? What can we do to ensure that from that particular age, from young age, we are having women focused on STEM subjects so that when we come to their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, we are not saying that we do not have women in the STEM area or in artificial intelligence or emerging technologies.
And yet ‑‑ and I think statistics have been given, that in the African context, most people are in the rural areas. And statistics have shown that 22% of primary schools in Africa have ‑‑ only 22% have reliable Internet connectivity. And we are talking about e‑learning. We are talking about e‑health. How do we ensure that our children that are in rural areas, they have the same opportunities as those who are in other places? So, if connectivity is a start, then research shows that we are not where we need to be. We need to connect people in the rural areas. Majority of us in Africa, we are in rural areas, and that's where we don't have connectivity.
Again, statistics show that meaningful connectivity is still a wild dream for most of the women in the global majority. And as GDIP, we are looking deeper and learning how we can address the inequality. And the research we are doing highlights the gaps, the cost of exclusion, and the urgency to change the course. Because again, we don't want every year, every decade to be talking about lack of women in this space.
And what do we mean by meaningful connectivity? We start with the speed we want. At least 4G. And in this, then we are saying someone can be able to do something; you can be able to do your e‑learning; you can be able to download your content; you cannot just be a user or a consumer of content, but you can also create. Again, we are talking of appropriate devices, that if you have a smartphone, then you're probably able to do more than a basic phone. Again, we are talking of unlimited broadband connectivity, that you can always get that connectivity, whenever you want it and wherever you want it. And not only do you have that connectivity, but then you are able to use it on a daily basis. And it is due to that, then you can continuously keep on being innovative, keep on seeing how best to have a productive life in the digital space. And with that, you are able to improve your livelihood.
So, I know statistics have been given, but using GSMA data of 2023, we are seeing that women are 19% less likely than men to use mobile Internet. And again, across the continent, all of us, we are using mobile Internet. So, you see, again, there is a gap. 440 million women still do not own a mobile phone. That is a huge number. And again, as it has been said, in our culture ‑‑ at least in the African context ‑‑ women spend most of the time with their children. And these children are getting exposed to the digital technologies. How do these women then help them to navigate in the safety of the digital space? So, we must ensure women are connected; they have these smart devices to be able to be connected.
And we are seeing that around 900 million women are still not using mobile Internet. They have basic phones. Really have to do that. And the opportunity cost for that is that we are losing billions of money, and we need to do an analysis of that so that even as we are talking about inequalities in the digital space, then we are able to quantify that.
So, meaningful connectivity of women in the global majority is a prerequisite for them to assume a central role as skilled citizens and active participants in the digital economy. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Internet of Things are the engines of the future economies. And we must be in that space as creators, not as consumers. And our social economic lives are still and will continue to depend on these emerging technologies.
How do we position women in this digital economy? The development outcome of digital exclusion can only be addressed if we can quantify the cost of digital inclusion, that every time try to see, what are women losing if they are not connected? And not just in terms of monetary value; in terms of shipping our future generation so that we contextualize that. And the aim is to continue the narrative and link it to livelihoods and socioeconomic development, that in the digital ecosystem, there is something for everybody. Everybody can make a niche of themselves, but you need to be aware; you need to have the skills for you to be able to do that.
And data on women's experiences of digital economy and cost of exclusion is vital to reflect women's worldviews in artificial intelligence decision‑making, based on gender data in public domain. That we are going to the world of artificial intelligence. Do we have enough data about women and them presenting that data? Has it been collected? And if we don't do that, then we end up with biased decisions/outcomes, which can lead to diverse development outcomes.
Artificial intelligence currently replicates biases and discrimination in decision‑making algorithms due to lack of digital women's global health. So, inequalities are perpetuated and making decisions on those resources. This is an area where we need women to actively participate. So, contextualization of the opportunities for women in the digital space was meaningfully connected and this will lead to digital educated livelihoods.
And we have seen that as long as you give people the tools they need to navigate, then they are able to make their own livelihoods. And the ripple effect of empowering women through digital inclusion, skills development, and cyber hygiene ‑‑ which, again, we money emphasize ‑‑ to ensure, again, we are bringing wholly human beings, the younger generation ‑‑ we should not let them be influenced by these new digital technologies. They must use it to develop their socioeconomic to shape their lives, and again still not forget our culture, so that we are moving with our culture in a safe environment, digital environment.
And ultimately, giving meaning to artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and other emerging technologies, in the eyes of the women in the global majority. That as long as these technologies are making sense to us, as long as they can make us change our livelihoods, as long as we can see a change, a positive change after the usage of these technologies, then we can move forward and we can actively participate in shaping the future of the emerging technologies.
If you are not thinking about holistic inclusion that is from early childhood, from what they can do with these technologies, from the very beginning, meaningful integration and active participation of women in emerging technologies will remain a mirage and we risk excluding them from the many opportunities in the digital space. So, again, we need to start from early childhood, try to see what are the opportunities, how can we be safe in the digital space, and as we move that way, then everybody has a space in the digital ecosystem. Thank you and back to you, Baratang.
(Applause)
>> BARATANG MIYA: Thank you, Margaret. That was a brilliant presentation, in fact. Thanks for covering all the elements of Internet governance and AI, which is the theme of this meeting.
If 70% of Africa is going to be youth in the next coming five years, I think it's just fair that a youth member of Africa speak on behalf of African issues, and I would like to give the opportunity to Lilly to speak.
>> Lilly: Hi, everyone! And to the audience online, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where in the world you are joining from. So, if there is a reason why I'm in this session, I think I found the why. And for everyone here, I'm hoping that you found just something that helps us to see the reason why women participation at the IGF and women engagement generally in technology and in this space is important.
My why this morning is the issue of opportunity cost of when women are not included. That is huge. I've always been saying that we add more to it that is more inclusiveness, more visibility, and just the essence of bringing to the forefront issues that affect women the most to the IGF. But I'm seeing that there's actually a glaring evidence of things that don't happen when women aren't present. Who can speak as women do? Who can talk about things that affect women from the way it affects us the most? And if we're looking for diversity in perspectives and what we can bring to the table to make the IGF as a knowledge‑sharing platform, place where recommendations are made, then every one of us has to be present. And that is my why for today, and that is the reason why I'm excited that the presentations that have gone before have mentioned that.
So, for me, that sets as I wear the hat as a woman and a youth, and also as an Africa. For people who are essentially growing to become the next leaders in the space, I see that for us, this is really the platform for us to also amplify the voices of what we have been doing as young people. And just like we said about the Global Digital Compact, especially with a focus on capacity‑building on the African continent, I just want to highlight some of the things you're doing for the Youth IGFs that have focused on, I mean, brought light to issues; but essentially, to make sure we are not leaving anyone behind, by due to the fact that there is that diversity in even knowledge‑sharing in local languages, also expertise where we bring people from areas where there are issues that are happening, they can give grassroots ideas to the platforms to contribute, and to see what is the demand. All of those are things that looking to the future projection, making sure that we are building solutions that do not just, as we know there is a need, but hear what the real need is and hear from the people affected by them. For women like us and also as a youth, it is the reason why the work we're doing on the African continent is very important, that we get to the grassroots, no other issues, and are able to bring it to the forefront for authorities to see what it says that we feel and to demand it. That's what I'll add on this session.
I'm also going to drag another youth into this conversation, who will be here soon, so thank you.
>> BARATANG MIYA: Thank you very much, Lilly. I just want to add one last element to this session. Yesterday, I attended a session where we held Feminist Principles for Including Gender in the Global Digital Compact. I think that's a very ‑‑ the copy is here for those who couldn't make it yesterday. I would like to read these eight principles. They're very important because this is the outcome of the work done by APC, the UN Women and their partners, which is World Wide Web Equality Now. And we are all organizations focusing on gender equality came yesterday together and to endorse these principles. Those who want to still participate, there's a sign‑in support. If you Google it, you can go in and support these principles. In fact, there's ten of them.
And I think these are principles that organizations that work with participation of women online, and the safety in the global space to be included in the Global Digital Compact. They were called the Feminist Global Digital Compact Principles. So, if you want to look at them, please go look at them. I will just browse through them.
The first one is, ensure concrete commitments to protect the digital rights of women and girls in marginalized groups. The second one, guarantee freedom from technology, facilitated gender‑based violence. The third one, promote universal rights to freedom of expression, privacy, peaceful assembly, and participation of women and girls in their diversity in all aspects of life. Ensure universal affordability, accessible and safe Internet access for all.
Fifth, demand strict action against harmful surveillance application in high‑risk AI system. Six, expand women's participation and leadership in the technology sector and digital policy‑making. The seventh one is prioritize strategies that reduce the environmental impact of new technologies. Eighth, implement measures for States and transnational cooperation to ensure data privacy governance and content. Nine, adopt equality by design principles and a human rights‑based approach throughout all phases of digital technology development.
As a software engineer and a coder in my life, this was one of the principles I thought it's critical to be included at the moment, because 90% of the time, women are consumers. If we don't include them in the design phase, if we don't get them to speak when the product is still at the initial stage, we're going to miss their voice from the onset. So, I felt this was one of the highlights for me, to make sure that the human rights‑based approach and equality by design principle is included. Transparency and human rights and gender rights, impact assessments and are incorporated into the development of any algorithmic decision‑making systems or digital technologies prior to deployment and are not tested without these principles to prevent discrimination and harmful biases being amplified and perpetrated.
The last one is set AI safeguard and standards to prevent discriminatory biases.
In closing of this session, I would like to ask if there's anyone who has comments or questions for the speakers.
>> AUDIENCE: Okay. Thank you so much for this amazing discussion. But also, looking at the contributions that have been shared in the room, in regards to women in IGF, I have two reflections as far as the participation of women and girls is concerned, on the matters of digital economy. And I'll speak on the context of Africa, but also, I was also actually wondering why we do not have a representation from the global majority? Does it mean that the women in global majority are more advanced when it comes to issues of technology? Or do we think there is need for us to have a shared equilibrium so we are also able to learn? This is just a reflection from the panel presentation.
This is what I want to say, I think for me, looking at the contribution, but also the progress of women in tech, of course there is a lot of biases, challenges, and barriers that women face, but when it comes to documentation of statistics and reports, we majorly focus on the women and girls in the urban areas, when you're looking at the content of connectivity, the content of access, affordability, and issues of safety.
And for me, part of the learning from yesterday's presentation on the Feminist Principles included in the GDC is how can we be able to also reach those who have not been reached when it comes to issues of digital connectivity? How can we be able to look at getting access to the rural communities, working with women and young people in the informal settlement so that we do not assume that the fact that there is a discussion on Internet connectivity and digital governance, we also ensure that we are reaching them as early as now so that we do not wait when we've made a lot of progress for us to remember that there is someone we have not reached. That is one.
Two, we cannot speak about digital connectivity without the question of electricity. What happens to the region that, for them, electricity, it's like a prophecy yet to be fulfilled? What are we doing about that as we push for the Global Digital Compact, which is, how are we collaborating with countries and Member States to ensure that electricity does not become a question that we are still seeking answers to?
Another thing is, I think we have had change and stories of progress for women in tech, and specifically for Africa, but where are the success stories that we are able to document and showcase? I've heard about the innovations that have been made. How are we able to document the milestones we have made so far to inform the learning and inspiration to those young women who may want to get into the tech space, but also to be motivated that there is something that we can do and we can progress with?
There is the fear that AI is going to take away the jobs of young people and young women in Africa. How can we be able to remove the stereotype around artificial intelligence and the connection of employment opportunities for the very many young Africans who are struggling with the struggle of employment? I think those are some of the discussions we need to start having as early as now.
And my last reflection is, from the presentation we've heard, is how is Internet governance, how is Global Digital Compact going to benefit women and young people? And this is a mistake that probably some legal frameworks at the global level have done that we may not want to repeat, looking at women as beneficiaries of frameworks being developed at the global level, and not as stakeholders, influencers, and key decision‑makers. The moments we take women as beneficiaries of this process, that is the beginning of failure, because we will miss their input, we will miss their shaping of ideas, and we will also miss the ideology that they will have to contribute to this process. Thank you so much.
>> BARATANG MIYA: Thank you very much. The issue of electricity's a very big one. I'm from South Africa. Every two hours, electricity shuts down. Like, what is that? It's just such disempowering exercise. For me, electricity and Internet are like this. Any other comment?
There is a concern in the room that we haven't heard any Global South voice. If we can have one comment. Is it? Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Good morning. I'm going to try to speak in English. My name is Martha Lucia Micher Camarena, from Mexico. I am a Senator in Mexico. I am very glad to be here. I will try to talk about our country in Latin America. I'm very glad to be here and to hear the problems you have are the same as we have in Mexico.
In Mexico, we are about 120 million in Mexico, and we have the same gap that you have. We have discrimination. We are not the first population that can talk about Internet. We have very deep problems with the access to these kinds of services.
I want to tell you that in Mexico, 78.1% of the total of women in our country and we don't ‑‑ we have the problems to use Internet. And to the text that you mentioned, we have that problem, and the problem is the age you have. If you have my age, you have problems with the Internet. But I see that our youth, they have no problems to use these kinds of services. But my worry is that we are very behind men in these issues. We have to empower women. We have to make them to use this kind of tools to govern, to access not only the Internet, to access the right to be informed, to the right to be in the text and the right to be in the development, because we have this problem now. We have to know about this, but our countries are not interested in these kinds of issues.
So, I'm glad you're discussing this issue because in Mexico, we are worried about this, because only the youth people and women are in these issues, but I don't know, about 50 years old, they don't know these kinds of tools. Thank you.
(Applause)
>> BARATANG MIYA: Thank you very much. If we can just get one minute – half-a-minute closing from all the speakers.
>> MARGARET NYAMBURA: Thank you, Baratang. I'll probably just comment on her comment, that I think you have to be innovative in this space so that we can include even those who are in the rural areas. And for me, I look at the use of art, drama, so that the youth, they make up the majority of the African population, and we can use them to go back to their villages. They have access to the technologies, but every person must have their routes, and if we do that, then we are able to create awareness, we are able to educate women, and they are the young people in the village using various innovative technologies so that they use the digital space as a tool to move to where they need to be. And if we do that, then we are able, even as we solve the issues of connectivity in the rural areas, then we are using other ways to ensure that these people are getting the right information. Thank you, and we thank all of you for coming.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. Let me focus on the issue of electricity. If you look at the statistics, there is no way for African people to get access. When we have around the world 733 million people without access to electricity in the world. In Africa, you have 600 million. It means that 53% of the population doesn't have access to electricity. And there is a lot of disparity. It is a country ‑‑ look at South Sudan. 7.7% of the population only has access to electricity. With that, how we can expand this digital access to all? We need to use it as a source of technology. We have it here. We can use the technology, but assistive technology doesn't cost a lot of energy. Also, we have the infrastructure. We don't use efficiencies or infrastructure in the continent. We have to leave ‑‑ okay, thank you. Well, we can discuss in bilateral on the issue.
>> BARATANG MIYA: I just want to thank everyone for coming here. And in closing, I would like to quote what Dr. Seck had said, which is, "Women are the ones who educate children." The meaning of that is women are the ones who educate the future, because children are the future. And if the future is educated by people who don't have opportunities and are illiterate in terms of technology, then we are building a wrong future. Authenticity, we need to ‑‑ Lilly said, what are the costs of not having women empowered? The cost is, we will be talking about the same thing in the next coming 50 years if we do not give women opportunities, if we don't change this dynamic of understanding that women are educating the future, we won't change.
So, for me, this is not an African issue, this is not a Mexican issue, this is a global issue. If Africa is not empowered, if Mexico is not empowered, if, okay, Japan is a different story. If we're not empowered, then nobody's empowered, because future, technology and AI doesn't care about where you live. You can do anything you want on the Internet. You can harass anyone from anywhere, any woman from anywhere, and we need to get that stopped.
Now, there are two things that I wanted to highlight. One was that education. The second one that came from the other speakers to say how do you take Women in IGF and make it a global issue, not just an African issue? Now, it was formed ‑‑ I started this in the African IGF and focusing on women in Africa. So, obviously, the legacy came to the IGF in Japan. The speakers are also from Africa. And now we need to grow it. And I hope that next year we'll get speakers from across the world, and it will be about global issues and not just issues that are reflective of Africa.
And I would like to encourage everyone to really look at the Feminist Principles for Including Gender in the GDC. This was discussed yesterday by all organizations that are focusing on gender issues, and we've endorsed it. I'm hoping that people are going to join. There's a sign on in support of these principles online. Just Google "Feminist Principles for Including Gender in the GDC." So, personally, as Girlhype and as Baratang, I have signed on that document to say "I support these principles." And these are reflective of so many organizations coming together and putting this, thanks to Equality Now, APC, World Wide Web, UN Women and all those who played part, and UNFPA for literally bringing us all together to come up with this document. So, I'm endorsing this document as part of Women in IGF. We are saying, this is something that we really endorse to take to the GDC. Thank you very much to everyone for coming. Bye.