Today, our Digital Equality Advocacy Manager Nanjira Sambuli is presenting the Web Foundation’s commitment to the UN Women High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment. We’re proud to join this eminent group of organisations who are working to achieve gender equality as part of the Agenda 2030. Follow the conversation using #WomensEconomicEmpowerment on Twitter.

“Women and girls living in poverty in the Global South are 50% less likely than men to be online and 30-50% less likely to use the Internet for personal empowerment and civic participation.

“The Web Foundation is committed to catalysing resources, partnerships and political will globally to change this and change it fast.

“In 2017, we will launch a bottom-up, multi-country campaign to close the gender digital divide.

“We’re calling for policies to guarantee:

• Free public internet access facilities in every community.
• Devices and data cheap enough for everyone to afford.
• Digital and data literacy for all as part of the basic right to education.
• Women’s rights to participate in online life without harassment, intimidation or surveillance.

“We will not stop until women globally are not only using the web, but actively creating a web that amplifies their voices, their needs and their power to build a better life and a better society.” – Nanjira Sambuli

-ENDS-

Read more about our research on gender and ICTs in our Women’s Rights Online report and Digital Gender Gap Audit.