This week, the Working Group on the Digital Gender Divide of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development released a new progress report on Bridging the gender gap in Internet and broadband access and use. The report offers a six-month review of the progress made by Working Group member organisations across four key areas critical to closing the digital gender gap:

• Increase the collection of sex-disaggregated data on internet access and use

• Integrate a gender perspective in strategies, policies, plans and budgets

• Address barriers to access and use, including affordability, safety, digital skills and relevance

• Work together and share good practices and lessons

The report highlights ongoing work by the Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) to close the digital gender gap and to work toward achieving these outlined goals, including:

• Our work with APC and the GSMA to develop a “Women and Internet Research” toolkit, which aims to create a framework for research in measuring adoption, access, awareness and usage of the internet from a gender perspective. The toolkit will provide both suggestions on specific questions, and advice for researchers on how to ensure ecologically valid, reliable and robust findings on the digital gender divide.
• Our development of a gender-responsive ICT curriculum to train policymakers across regions in developing gender-responsive policy that will work to close the gender gap and ensure full digital inclusion. This curriculum will be piloted at an upcoming workshop on gender-responsive ICT policy to be held in Dakar, Senegal (September 25-27).  

We encourage you to read the report to learn more about the great work being done by other Working Group member organisations, including the GSMA, APC, the ITU, UNESCO, and UN Women to close the gender gap in ICT access and use.

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