"Exploring the likely barriers that women face in owning, accessing, and benefiting from digital sector interventions in urban areas."

This session explores the barriers that women face in owning, accessing, and benefiting from digital interventions and potential opportunities to empower them in WBG urban operations.

Access to the internet is power, yet more than two billion women and girls are silenced, unable to access key resources, information, and opportunities that come with an internet connection. Constraints include lack of finance, limited digital skills, and social and cultural barriers. More than ever, gender disparities in internet access and use are further marginalizing women and ultimately undermining efforts and goals to foster a more gender-equitable world. Urban environments offer opportunities for connectivity and knowledge about the digital world, but for women to reap those benefits more needs to be done to create safe spaces for women and girls to explore the digital world.

This session explores the likely barriers that women face in owning, accessing, and benefiting from digital sector interventions in urban areas. Drawing on the World Bank publications, Engendering ICT Toolkit and Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning and Design, here is a discussion on the importance of digital access for women, barriers to women’s access to ICT, and opportunities that ICTs may provide for women’s empowerment. In particular, the session discusses how digital inequalities can diminish the gains urban living has made possible on eroding gender inequalities; present effective ways to address the gender digital divide specifically during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic; identify opportunities for using ICT to empower women; and, finally, share/suggest a set of actions, drawing from existing examples with the potential to address these barriers and provide lessons learned and good practices from real projects.