Championing community-driven digital gender inclusion
Leveraging seed funding to help grassroots organizations bridge the digital gender divide.
By Solji Oh, Associate Innovation Officer
Imagine a world where the very communities facing displacement are also the ones creatively and courageously advancing the digital empowerment of forcibly displaced women and girls. Well, guess what? That world is already here! Let’s dive into the inspiring work of a few such everyday heroes.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, believes in community-driven solutions to championing digital gender inclusion. We know that the digital gender divide is more pronounced for women and girls who are forced to flee, and we’re committed to bridging this divide safely and advancing digital gender equality.
Following UNHCR’s first-ever Digital Gender Inclusion and Innovation Bootcamp, we invited the participants — community-based, refugee-led, and women-led organizations — to apply for seed funding that could help them put their newly acquired skills into practice and make their digital inclusion projects a reality. As a result, innovative projects run by eight passionate organizations have been endorsed for UNHCR seed funding, with the support of Safe from the Start and PROSPECTS.
The vision of these organizations demonstrates how, when given the space to do so, communities can take the lead in designing projects to bridge the digital gender divide and empower women and girls.
The challenge
Across the diverse settings and circumstances in which these eight organizations operate, forcibly displaced women and girls encounter some shared challenges related to the digital gender divide.
Beyond the overarching issues of poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion, a prevalent concern for these organizations is the limited digital literacy of the communities they work with, which prevents women and girls from harnessing the benefits of the digital world. In particular, displaced women entrepreneurs encounter significant barriers to business growth and success — including limited market access for product promotion — due to a lack of relevant digital skills.
Additionally, women and girls across these contexts are exposed to significant digital risks, including online harassment and gender-based violence (GBV).
Accessible and affordable connectivity — a foundational element of addressing the digital gender divide, which UNHCR is now advancing alongside communities and partners as part of a transformative Global Refugee Forum pledge — is a further concern.
The solutions
These are the eight innovative ideas to break down the digital gender divide for forcibly displaced women and girls that have been selected for seed funding and implementation across 2023 and 2024:
1 Somali Association for Women and Children (SAFWAC): Empowering Somali and Yemeni forcibly displaced women and girls through digital literacy
📍 Cairo, Egypt
SAFWAC’s project seeks to empower Somali and Yemeni women and girls in Cairo to unlock opportunities in the modern digital era by providing digital literacy workshops as well as trainings on business promotion, use of social media, and online safety. These activities aim to empower 400 forcibly displaced Somali and Yemeni women and girls, bridging the digital divide and unlocking opportunities for personal growth, financial independence, and social inclusion.
2 Solidarity Initiative for Refugees: Digital skills graduation model for young women refugees and their hosts
📍Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
The Solidarity Initiative for Refugees will provide 100 women with digital skills training through a group mentorship programme, as well as developing a business sourcing collective, to enable participants to support one another to engage in online work. The skill-building programme will combine online and offline learning, training and peer mentoring. To further support participants who have childcare responsibilities, the organization will enhance their existing creche facility. Upon completion of training, qualified students will have the opportunity to join a business sourcing unit, through which women can bid for projects and work collectively.
3 Arab Women Organization: Empowering Syrian refugee women through digital literacy ambassadors
📍Urban areas in northern Jordan
The Arab Women Organization will empower Syrian refugee women by training them to become ambassadors of digital literacy within their communities. The 30 participants will serve as mentors and facilitators, offering guidance, support, and training that could reach up to 500 of their peers, helping them navigate online platforms, develop digital skills, and ensure online safety. The project will use the Tareeq platform, a comprehensive resource for learning and support, developed in collaboration with Siren Associates.
4 Let’s Help International: Digital empowerment for businesses led by refugee women
📍Kyaka II Refugee Settlement, Uganda
Let’s Help International aims to establish a Digital Empowerment and Service Center in Kyaka refugee settlement. The centre will be a multifunctional facility to provide comprehensive digital training, resources, and support to equip refugee women entrepreneurs with enhanced digital skills. Almost 200 women are predicted to benefit directly within a year, with a particular focus on helping female entrepreneurs leverage their smartphones for essential business tasks. The centre will provide internet access and other digital services, such as printing and graphic design.
5 Prison Fellowship Rwanda: Enhanced digital literacy and skills of girls and women in refugee community centers
📍Kigali, Rwanda
Prison Fellowship Rwanda will train women users of existing connected community centres to become digital counsellors who can cascade information to their peers. The 200 women participants — with emphasis on supporting people with disabilities and young/single mothers — will be provided with digital skills training and guidance on mitigating gender-sensitive barriers to digital inclusion. They will be supported to pass their learnings on to other members of the community and to act as positive role models. This proposal adapts the approach of a previous pilot funded by the Innovation Service, for a more gender inclusive response.
6 Al Nada Association: Silk Hands: E-commerce skills to support digitally enabled livelihoods
📍Damascus, Syria
Al-Nada Association will train 50 skilled craftswomen (including heads of households and survivors of GBV) on how to promote their products — which include textiles, candles, and other handicrafts — online, as well as creating a digital platform for them to showcase and sell their products in an innovative way without exposure to violence or harassment. Trainees will be supported to pass their knowledge on to the women and girls around them, indirectly benefiting up to 250 people. The project will not only help women to support their families, it will also ensure that children who might otherwise be required to function as breadwinners can return to school.
7 The Lotus Flower: Coding Sisters: In-demand skills training for economic independence
📍Duhok, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
The Lotus Flower will provide 30 women and girls in Domiz refugee camp with a pathway to personal growth, economic independence, and social change through a comprehensive package of coding skills development — with a focus not only on technical skills but also on digital safety and privacy awareness. The Lotus Flower will also train a further 500 women and girls on how to navigate the cyber world safely, protecting their personal information and avoiding common online threats. The project will involve hands-on workshops, online resources, mentoring, and a safe space for women and girls to collaborate, ask questions, and support each other. Through this approach, the project aims to address the increasing rates of unemployment and online abuse, as well as the related challenges of early marriage and GBV.
8 Reef Foundation: Digital literacy to address the digital gender divide
📍Taiz, Yemen
By working on digital literacy through a training-of-trainers model and promoting mental health, digital protection, and online safety, the Reef Foundation aims to bridge the digital gender divide, facilitate internet access for internally displaced women and girls from marginalized groups, and combat the phenomenon of extortion and violence against women in digital spaces. The project will prepare a guide on digital protection and safety, in consultation with youth, women, community committees, and other stakeholders. Up to 300 forcibly displaced women and girls are expected to directly benefit.
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Throughout the implementation of these projects, UNHCR will be providing tailored technical and financial support to the grassroots organizations leading them. We’ll provide updates on their progress toward dismantling the digital gender divide in 2024.
Explore UNHCR’s new guidance note on Digital Gender Equality here, and read our blog about the Digital Inclusion and Innovation Bootcamp here.
If you’re exploring digital tools and approaches for bridging the digital gender divide in displacement settings, we would love to hear from you! Get in touch at hqconref@unhcr.org.
