Session
Organizer 1: Civil Society, African Group
Organizer 2: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 2: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 1: Onica Makwakwa, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 2: Waqas Hassan, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Malahat Obaid, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Masanori Kondo, Intergovernmental Organization, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Waqas Hassan, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Malahat Obaid, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Masanori Kondo, Intergovernmental Organization, Asia-Pacific Group
Format
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: A roundtable format suits this session best as it fosters interactive dialogue, allowing policymakers, civil society, and practitioners to exchange insights, debate policy solutions, and collaboratively generate recommendations. It ensures equal participation, encourages cross-regional learning, and enables intersectional perspectives to surface, making discussions more inclusive, solution-focused, and action-oriented.
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: A roundtable format suits this session best as it fosters interactive dialogue, allowing policymakers, civil society, and practitioners to exchange insights, debate policy solutions, and collaboratively generate recommendations. It ensures equal participation, encourages cross-regional learning, and enables intersectional perspectives to surface, making discussions more inclusive, solution-focused, and action-oriented.
Policy Question(s)
A. How can national and regional digital policies more effectively integrate gender-responsive approaches to address systemic barriers, such as affordability, infrastructure gaps, and socio-cultural constraints, that hinder women’s digital inclusion and participation in the digital economy?
B. What role should multistakeholder partnerships have in ensuring that digital inclusion policies translate into implementation for meaningful connectivity for women, particularly in underserved communities?
C. What are the biggest barriers in the effective implementation of existing policies/strategies for digital gender empowerment and how to overcome the gap between policy and tangible actions?
What will participants gain from attending this session? - Insight and diverse understanding of how digital exclusion intersects with gendered economic disparities.
- New perspectives on the role of intersectionality, and coalition-building in advancing digital rights for women in the global majority.
- Practical insights on the role of policy, infrastructure, and community-driven solutions in ensuring women’s meaningful connectivity.
- Understanding of four tiers of achievable solutions and specific examples of policy levers for women’s digital inclusion, highlighted in GDIP’s Connected Resilience Study
- Cross-regional knowledge-sharing among participants to generate actionable policy recommendations.
- Practical insights on gender-inclusive policy development process from Africa and Asia.
Description:
This workshop will explore policy actions by global majority stakeholders focused on closing the gender digital divide and driving women’s inclusion in the digital economy. The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP) research on Connected Resilience highlights the persistent barriers to women’s digital inclusion across global majority countries. These include lack of infrastructure, high cost of devices and data services, dependency male family members to use devices, time scarcity and challenges with accessing public connectivity or digital skills educational initiatives. The session will unpack these systemic barriers that hinder women’s full participation in the digital economy, emphasizing that digital exclusion reinforces broader economic and digital inequalities. The session will convene policymakers and/or practitioners from Pakistan, Ghana and Mozambique; as well as stakeholders representing regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) and/or Smart Africa, Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) as speakers, to highlight policy solutions. Each of these countries has adopted new gender and/or digital policies and frameworks that provide examples of multistakeholder partnership models that are essential to address digital inclusion barriers across diverse geographical contexts. The session will also bring together advocates and civil society leaders to discuss practical solutions that ensure meaningful connectivity for women, and what this means for women in the digital economy. Through interactive dialogue and collaborative exercises, participants will explore strategies for fostering intersectional digital inclusion and designing policy frameworks that are informed by the lived experiences of women across geographies and communities.
This workshop will explore policy actions by global majority stakeholders focused on closing the gender digital divide and driving women’s inclusion in the digital economy. The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP) research on Connected Resilience highlights the persistent barriers to women’s digital inclusion across global majority countries. These include lack of infrastructure, high cost of devices and data services, dependency male family members to use devices, time scarcity and challenges with accessing public connectivity or digital skills educational initiatives. The session will unpack these systemic barriers that hinder women’s full participation in the digital economy, emphasizing that digital exclusion reinforces broader economic and digital inequalities. The session will convene policymakers and/or practitioners from Pakistan, Ghana and Mozambique; as well as stakeholders representing regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) and/or Smart Africa, Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) as speakers, to highlight policy solutions. Each of these countries has adopted new gender and/or digital policies and frameworks that provide examples of multistakeholder partnership models that are essential to address digital inclusion barriers across diverse geographical contexts. The session will also bring together advocates and civil society leaders to discuss practical solutions that ensure meaningful connectivity for women, and what this means for women in the digital economy. Through interactive dialogue and collaborative exercises, participants will explore strategies for fostering intersectional digital inclusion and designing policy frameworks that are informed by the lived experiences of women across geographies and communities.
Expected Outcomes
Outcomes
1. Participants leave with a deeper awareness of how digital exclusion reinforces economic inequalities and the systemic barriers faced by women.
2. Policymakers and practitioners recognize the importance of intersectional approaches and coalition-building in advancing digital rights.
3. Participants gain practical insights into how policy levers, infrastructure investment, and community-driven initiatives can close digital gender gaps.
4. Stakeholders understand the GDIP Connected Resilience Study case studies and how policy examples can be applied in their respective contexts.
5. Policymakers, civil society, and private sector actors across different regions identify common challenges and exchange strategies to develop gender-responsive digital policies, strengthening cross-regional collaborations.
Outputs
1. Blog about the discussions and recommendations by the panel.
2. We will carry the session outcomes to feed into the regional IGFs workshop proposals.
Hybrid Format: Both onsite and online participants will engage in live Q&A sessions, and collaborative exercises. Real-time polls and chat-based Q&A will encourage active participation, allowing online attendees to contribute dynamically. A co-moderator will monitor virtual interactions, summarizing key online contributions for the in-person audience. Speakers will be given equal time for interventions whether participating virtually or in person, ensuring a balanced exchange of perspectives.