E-Agriculture

International Women's Day 2017

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International Women's Day 2017

International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. From a development point of view, the idea of this theme is to consider how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal number 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

According to a report by the EU Commission, only 30% of the around 7 million people working in the information and communication (ICT) sector are women. The ICT sector is rapidly growing, creating around 120 000 new jobs every year but due to differences in demands and skills – and despite soaring unemployment – there may be a lack of 900 000 skilled ICT workers in 2020.

But recent projects are could change the situation of women in ICTs. Recently, e-Agriculture has covered a project by Grameen in partnership with Citi and MasterCard to provide financial technology solutions that will assist low-income minority women entrepreneurs. The project will target more than more than 86,000 low-income minority women entrepreneurs across the United States.

ICT for development and the ICT sector in general could greatly benefit from the woman's worforce, knowledge and skills. The increase in job demands can be an oppotunity to achieve that. But companies, governments and NGOs have to provide same access to ICT related projects to accelerate gender parity.

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