Digital Skills and Economic Opportunity for Girls and Women : Part I
We live in a world today that’s increasingly digital. We can’t escape it. It’s here and inextricably woven into the fabric of our daily lives. The promise of digital skills acquisition is compelling, with a plethora of positive impact outcomes noted in recent research and development literature. This is especially relevant to the context of advancing the sustainable development goals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) related to improved quality of education and increased access to opportunities for decent work and economic growth (SDGs 4 & 8 respectively). However, it’s important to note that while digital skills may offer significant opportunities, there are still challenges that need to be better understood and overcome. In some instances these challenges exacerbate the digital gender divide — issues of equitable access, affordability as well as the critical need to have a local, contextual understanding of how the sustainable promotion of digital inclusion for all can be achieved.
For digital skills to be relevant and impactful, digital inclusion needs to be at the forefront to ensure that girls and women have equitable access to education, affordable digital devices and networks, meaningful connectivity (or meaningful offline local distribution and dissemination networks) and the resources that will enable their full participation in the local and global economy. If this can be achieved, it can support their learning journey from young learners to thriving entrepreneurs and business owners, civically engaged and economically productive.
Can digital be an enabling and empowering force for advancing girls’ and women’s economic empowerment? For the digital skills development context, we consider the FCDO definition of women’s economic empowerment as “women having the ability to succeed and advance economically, and the power to make and act on economic decisions to enhance their well-being and position in society”[1] as most pertinent to this discourse. It is critical to leverage the power of digital, when and where appropriate, to increase access to information and services that advance development, accelerating and delivering positive impact through digitally enabled strategies, innovations and investments, advancing digital inclusion and creating an enabling environment. It’s important to focus on digital inclusion with the most marginalised groups and work with those communities to address needs that foster a more inclusive, more prosperous world.
Additionally, economic growth and economic empowerment have been deeply affected in a world emerging from COVID-19. Women entrepreneurs, small business owners, and agricultural producers alike have struggled in some cases to adapt to the rapidly changing economic reality brought about by COVID-19, the recent global economic instability and the massive burden of inflation. What role can digital skills play in empowering girls and women to become more resilient, acquiring the necessary skills to identify market opportunities and increase their economic opportunity and participation?
To meet these critical needs to enable and empower through skills development, the UK aid-funded Skills for Prosperity (S4P) programme supports education and skills development to accelerate inclusive growth and reduce poverty (operational from 2020 to 2023) across Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and the Philippines. The principal goal of S4P is to enable partner countries to diversify their workforce with skills that prepare them for the future, driving sustainable and inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction. S4P focuses on increasing the quality, relevance, equity and affordability of higher education, technical and vocational education and training and English language teaching, working at the individual, institutional and policy levels. S4P supports access to education and skills development for marginalised groups, especially women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and indigenous groups. Most of the programmes have aimed to improve digital skills for these groups in order to improve their employability skills and job prospects.
There is a critical need to advance educational opportunities and economic empowerment of girls and women in LMICs. Digital skills-based learning and training initiatives are a critical component of the digital inclusion pathway that will lead to meeting this need. However, having a clear understanding of contextual digital literacy and literacy needs is another foundational development element that needs to be considered. The Open University UK, one of S4P Kenya’s partners, defines digital literacy as “the skills, competences, and dispositions of [learners] using digital technologies to achieve personal, study, and work-related goals.”[2] The deliberate blending of digital skills acquisition with inclusive education strategies and economic inclusion promotional opportunities are critical for girls’ and women’s economic empowerment (inclusive education being the ability to have equal access and equal opportunity for all learners regardless of any other factors). However, one should not overlook the challenges that digital gender inequity poses. In many developing country contexts, there are significant instances of unequal distribution of digital access as well as inequitable digital skills learning and training opportunities for girls and women.
Reviewing the data capturing digital access for girls and women, in many if not all instances, access is not equal. The 2023 GSMA Gender Gap Report notes that “more women in LMICs are using mobile internet than ever before, but their rate of adoption has slowed for the second year in a row and a significant gender gap remains. Women are 19% less likely than men to use mobile internet and of the 900 million women who are still not using it, almost two-thirds live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where mobile gender gaps are widest. Gender gaps in smartphone ownership and overall mobile ownership also remain relatively unchanged and stand at 7% and 17%, respectively. This slowdown in digital inclusion and the fact that mobile gender gaps are not reducing is concerning as we move to an increasingly connected world.” The key question here that digital skills development practitioners must pose is — why does this trend persist? Practitioners must have the willingness to explore the contextual background and related social forces prior to any responsive digital skills design or development initiative. This is critical to building impactful digital skills competency assessments and designing digital skills training that respond to the needs of girls and women in their daily lives.
The GSMA has also noted that the potential positive impact is great should we successfully close the digital gender gap, with research indicating that “closing the gender gap in mobile internet use in LMICs could deliver an additional $700 billion in GDP growth over five years.[3] In 2020 alone, the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) estimated that the gender gap in internet use resulted in 32 LMICs missing out on $126 billion in GDP. The commercial opportunity for the private sector is also substantial. For example, the GSMA estimates that closing the gender gap in mobile ownership and use in LMICs by 2030 would generate $230 billion in additional revenue for the mobile industry.”[4] Needless to say digital skills acquisition is critical to realising this potential positive economic impact for girls and women. When girls and women have increased access to digital skills, tools and services, the net result will be increased learning and training opportunities as well as improved livelihoods, positively impacting their lives.
This urgent call to action to advance girls’ and women’s economic empowerment is also championed by FCDO in their International Women and Girls Strategy 2023–2030, reinforcing the fact that there is a near-term, critical need to focus on three priority themes to advance girls’ and women’s economic empowerment: promoting inclusive education so that all girls have access to information to achieve their full potential, empowering women and girls with a specific focus on their health and giving them the ability to unlock their full economic and social potential, and ending all forms of gender-based violence.[5]
Footnotes
[1] WOW Helpdesk Guidance Note No 2: Measurement of Women’s Economic Empowerment
[2] The Open University. Digital and Information Literacy Framework. 2016.
[3] GSMA Intelligence. 2019.
[4] GSMA. This estimate is based on closing the gender gap in mobile ownership and use in LMICs from 2023 to 2030.
[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-women-and-girls-strategy-2023-to-2030
About the author
Scott Isbrandt, MA is a Senior Technical Advisor for Digital Solutions at Palladium. He has worked extensively in emerging economies to enhance digital skills programming, designing and developing tech solutions to advance education and economic empowerment initiatives.
This report has been funded with UK aid from the UK government.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in this report are those of the authors. They do not represent those of Palladium International or of any of the individuals and organisations referred to in the report.
LICENCE
This is an Open Access report, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
