The United Nations Broadband Commission
Working Group on Broadband and Gender report has revealed that a significant
and pervasive tech gap in access to information and communication technologies
(ICTs) exists between women and men in the world, DigitalSENSE
Business News reports.
The recent report that was sighted by DigitalSENSE Business News titled ‘'Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the
Inclusion of Women & Girls in the Information Society', showed that there
are currently 200 million fewer women online than men globally with an expected
rise to 350 million within the next three years except something is done.
The report which was officially launched
by the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen
Clark, who has led the Working Group since its establishment at the 6th meeting
of the Broadband Commission in New York last September to bring together
extensive research from UN agencies, Commission members, partners from
industry, government, civil society and to create the first comprehensive
global snapshot of broadband access by gender.
The report reveals that “around the
world, women are coming online later and more slowly than men. Out of the
world's 2.8 billion Internet users, 1.3 billion are women, compared with 1.5
billion men. While the gap between male and female users is relatively small in
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, it widen rapidly in the
developing world, where expensive, 'high status' ICTs like computers are often
reserved for use by men.”
DigitalSENSE
Business News findings from the report showed
that in sub-Saharan Africa, there are only half the number of women connected
as men and worldwide less than 21per
cent women are likely to own a mobile
phone-representing a mobile gender gap of 300 million, equating to US$13
billion about N2,081,300,079,345.70 in potential missed revenues for the mobile sector.
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