We believe that digital skills and tools are fundamentals for survival in business and personal development for women and girls in the current century.
Various reasons hinder women and girls’ access to and use of digital technologies including high cost of devices and data plans combined with women’s lower financial capacity to cover costs associated with digital access together with low female literacy (including digital literacy), ID requirements, risk of online abuse, as well as a lack of content and services targeting women.
In Kenya, 54% of women reported that affordability was the main barrier to getting a mobile phone. While data on digital skills are limited, it’s telling that women make up only 30% of tertiary ICT graduates in the Eastern and Southern African countries where data is available.
Today, digital skills and tools are increasingly essential to access services, such as employment, health, education, social protection, and financial services.
At WISE, we offer support to close the digital gender divide in several ways, including:
- Supporting digital literacy learning through basic skills as well as more advanced digital skills tailored to girls and women’s needs and interests in spaces that are safe and accessible to women and girls.
- Training women entrepreneurs on digital and social media tools necessary for business.
- Building Supporting women to build tech startups through tech hackathons and training.
Undertaking STEM boot camps for teenage girls for awareness creation.
