The Women Leaders Global Forum
December 3, 2018.
As the First Female Deputy Majority Leader and the Chairperson of the Women's Caucus in Parliament and First Minister of Public Procurement, I joined Women Leaders from across the globe at the Women Leaders Global Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland from 26th-28th November 2018.
The Women Leaders Global Forum is organized annually by the Women Political Leaders(WPL) in collaboration with the Government and Parliament of Iceland as the platform to discuss ideas and solutions on how to increase equality between women and men in Leadership, increase the influence of women in political office, encourage women in decision making to influence Politics and Policies for the better and to promote and develop the number of women in Leadership positions.
I shared the panel with the following top Women Leaders, Ana Birchall, Vice Prime Minister of Romania and Jewel Taylor, Vice President of Liberia and Mari Kiviniemi, OECD Deputy Secretary on the 'Topic: The Digital Age: The Women's Era' which was chaired by Donna Leinwand Leger, Principal DC Media Strategies LLC and former Managing Editor of USA Today.
The digital revolution is the single biggest driver of Change in the world today. The well-being of societies is tied and linked on how governance frameworks optimize the benefits. Technology opportunities, characterised by artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and mobile robotics influence economy, environment and society in general.
In my presentation, I acknowledged that the world has gone digital. Digital literacy is very important for the girl child and women. Gender equality also means equal access to technology and digital training.
Illiteracy is a huge barrier for girls and women to take advantage of technology. Over 700 million illiterate adults are women. It is in this light that the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo introduced Free Senior High School education in Ghana. This is aimed at giving every child of school going age the chance of getting educated to the Senior High School level in which girls form a critical part.
There is a technology gap that prevents girls from accessing, using and creating digital works, so Girls, must therefore be engaged at an early stage to take part in digital careers. I encouraged Governments to prioritize STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) for girls in their early stages.
The lack of Female role models in technology in Africa is a problem. There is therefore, the need for African governments to invest heavily in digital education. There is the need to set up Special Start Up Funds for Women Technology Entrepreneurs. We need to embark on a campaign and advocacy to get more girls into the digital industry. In Ghana we are going E-Procurement with the support from the World Bank, if girls and women are left out of the digital world how will they be able to be active participants in government procurement? How can they take advantage of the allocation of 30% of government contracts to Youth, Women and persons with disability policy that will be introduced soon?
The contributions of my co-panelists enriched my worldview on how we can ride on the current digital age in creating a better and meaningful future for our girls and women in technology.