We’re excited to share with you a short new report to help guide our future research and advocacy efforts around closing the digital gender divide. This short report, Advancing Women’s Rights Online: Gaps and Opportunities in Research and Advocacy, looks at the data and research we need — but are missing — to meaningfully monitor progress toward improving women’s internet access and use.

The analysis, which builds on our 2015 research and 2016 digital gender gap audits, and considers existing policy pain points (e.g., affordable, universal and unconditional access to and meaningful use of the web by women and girls) that remain to be addressed to close this digital gender gap. It also looks at areas where additional research would help to shed light on needed policies and interventions, including:

• Insights into new topic areas like the future of work, artificial intelligence, and net neutrality, as they relate to women’s access and use of ICTs;
• A deeper look at the different aspects of the REACT framework, including a more in-depth understanding of tech-mediated gender-based violence (under the ‘Rights’ vertical of the framework).

This research, together with a forthcoming series of qualitative and quantitative research questions centered around our REACT policy advocacy framework, will help to guide future WRO research and to improve the evidence base for gender-responsive policy.