This year, the BPF Gender and Access 2016 will firstly investigate women's ability to access and benefit from the Internet (or the gender digital divide), with a particular emphasis on how we can also ensure that access is meaningful to women and able to help support women's empowerment.
Secondly, the BPF will also be building on and updating the outcomes of the 2015 BPF Gender, which focused on online abuse and gender-based violence against women (see the outcome document here), in line with recent developments in this field.
Why is it important to study gender and (meaningful Internet) access?
Almost 60% of the world's people are still offline (World Bank, 2016), and are thus unable to benefit from the many opportunities ICTs offer for empowerment and development. This digital gap is more acute for women, as it is estimated that 12% fewer women than men can benefit from Internet access worldwide; rising to 15% in developing countries and almost 29% in least developed countries (ITU, 2016).
Without addressing the gender digital gap, women will miss out on the potential opportunities the Internet offers for empowerment. As the Alliance for Affordable Internet argues (2016),
We cannot achieve universal access without bringing women (half of the world's population) online; likewise, women's empowerment through ICTs will not happen without enabling women affordable access to the Internet.