Digital Literacy - Key to Women's Empowerment

MUMBAI, INDIA - A panel discussion was organized by World Trade Centre Mumbai and All India Industries Association on January 19, 2017 as a precursor event of the 6th Global Economic Summit on Women’s Empowerment (March 27-29). Mr. Vinod Pande, Filmmaker and Novelist moderated the discussion.

Ms. Ulrika Sundberg, Consul General of Sweden, a panellist said, “Empowerment of women in any society starts with political will and leadership, as legislative actions, self-regulatory frameworks and implementation measures are all necessary to achieve desirable results”. She said a combination of these actions was especially necessary if we wanted to transform the national society. This became clearly evident when Sweden abolished joint taxation of the family in 1971, resulting in a 160% rise in women’s participation in the workforce.

Ms. Samina Naz, Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh said that technology had a positive impact on the economic empowerment of women. She added that advancement and empowerment of women in Bangladesh had a long track record and the United Nations had acknowledged the country’s remarkable achievements in this area.

Ms. Saroja Sirisena, Consul General of Sri Lanka said that though most women-led businesses in her country were not tech-driven or tech-intensive, all of them had easy and equal access to technology. Sri Lankan women were now addressing issues using social media.

Ms Rosimar Suzano, Consul General of Brazil said that the government in her country was trying to reach out to the poorest people using technology. “The country is offering incentives to businesses maintaining crèches and nurseries for children.” She also said that Brazil had set up special police stations for women and provided mobile apps for women’s safety.

Ms Jennifer Larson, Deputy Principal Officer, US Consulate said that though technology in the US had played a gender-neutral role, it had also empowered women in various innovative ways to participate in the economy. She said that education held the key to true empowerment. “When you educate girls, they participate in economic activity and the GDP goes up.”

Mr. Tuhin Sinha, Novelist and Activist said it was an interesting time to be born a woman in India, as the society was at the cusp of a progressive revolution leading to gender-neutral perspectives.

The panellists unanimously agreed that technological breakthroughs were gender neutral, but they had contributed to giving women a higher degree of freedom and choices. Digitalisation and digital literacy had propelled women across the world to become more productive in various innovative ways.

Ms. Rupa Naik, Director-Projects, WTC Mumbai wrapped up the session by saying, “Research reports have clearly indicated that if we can increase women’s involvement in mainstream economic activity by completely bridging the gender gap, it could add as much as USD 28 trillion to the world’s GDP by 2025!”

In photo (L-R): Ms. Rupa Naik, Director-Projects, WTC Mumbai, Ms. Saroja Sirisena, Consul General of Sri Lanka and Ms. Samina Naz, Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh.

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