IGF 2022 Open Forum #79 CGI.br’s Gender and Diversity Agenda for ICTs

This session aims to provide an overview of the activities developed by CGI.br within the scope of the Gender and Diversity Agenda, a project that has been implemented since 2021. The Agenda, that has a multistakeholder nature, aims to promote gender and ethnic-racial diversity in the IT sector and the Internet Governance ecosystem, in accordance with the Principles for the Governance and Use of the Internet in Brazil. The debate on the importance of digital inclusion and the role of the Internet for social and economic development are well established and guide a long list of initiatives around the world. It is known that the technology advancement can represent improvements in many aspects of our lives, as education and medical access. On the other hand, there aren’t enough initiatives aimed at dealing with adverse and unexpected effects of the Internet, as its potential for reproducing and deepening inequalities. The report “Pictures of Inequality” exposes a “structuring scenario of Brazilian social inequality”. Brazil has more women than men in the population, representing 51,8%. Amongst them, most declare themselves black and brown (52,7%). However, their participation in almost all sectors, productive and public activities is notably smaller as these social variables are considered. Considering Brazilian population in 2020, only 10.7% of Brazilian women in university are enrolled in STEM programmes versus 28.6% of men. In this sense, the Gender and Diversity Agenda seeks to encourage the participation of women, afro-descendants, indigenous people and other historically excluded social groups, not only for Internet usage, but also for the development and research of digital technologies. The indicators of the 2019 National Household Sample Survey show that women are the majority among the working-age population in Brazil (52.4%), as well as the population that declares itself black and brown (55.7%). The survey also shows that, in 2019, the participation rate in the labor force of the population over 15 years old reached 73,7% among men and 54.5% among women. The last demographic survey, carried out in 2010, tells us that the only sectors where women have more participation than men is Education, health and social services (17,6% compared to 3,9%) and Domestic services (14,7% compared to 0,9%). Careers in Brazil are also marked by gender inequalities when observing the low number of women hired in the sciences, mainly in medicine, engineering and technology. Therefore, the Gender and Diversity Agenda is expected to contribute so that technologies can benefit more and more excluded and marginalized groups, supporting the sustainable development of communities, regions and countries and the strengthening of a more inclusive and egalitarian society. In its first two years, the agenda was divided into three phases. The first phase focused on strengthening the debate on the topic, within the scope of CGI.br and Internet governance in Brazil, and on bringing CGI.br closer to different actors in the IT sector and related areas. To this end, an annual publication on the subject was launched in 2021, which already has two editions (in 2021 and 2022) and is under development for the launch of the third edition, in 2023. Along with the launch of each edition, a debate was held with some of the authors. Another activity of this first phase was the seminar “Diversity and Equity in the IT sector in Brazil”, which took place on March 11 of 2022, during the week of International Women's Day, with the aim of bringing together actors in this ecosystem and bringing awareness for the debate in the context of CGI.br and Internet governance in Brazil. The second phase, currently under development, is aimed at surveying and systematizing the main challenges for the development of a more inclusive and equitable Internet ecosystem in Brazil, as well as actions and guidelines to overcome them. To achieve this objective, multistakeholder workshops are being held with important national and international actors. Finally, after carrying out these first two phases, a plan of actions and guidelines will be developed to encourage and promote diversity within the scope of CGI.br and Internet governance in Brazil in the coming years. It should be said that the first three stages will be completed by the end of 2022. It is worth noting that there is an important opportunity for CGI.br to strengthen the process of digital inclusion with a focus on gender and diversity in Brazil, considering its vocation for formulating thoughts and strategies, ability to dialogue with the various actors in society and influence positively the decision making for the development of guidelines related to the use and development of the Internet in Brazil.

With the aim of ensuring a great experience and interaction between all participants, both online and on-site, the activity will be developed based on three aspects: on-site participants and organizers; dedicated people and tools to ensure good interaction between online and on-site participants; and an on-site technical facilitator to balance on-site and online participation. The session then will be divided in two main segments: explanation and interaction. In the first part, the organizers will explain how the Gender and Diversity Agenda came about, how it is being developed and the main lessons learned so far. In this part each individual speaker presentation will have a total duration of up to 15 minutes. The second segment will consist of the overall interaction between the participants and speakers. With the aim of encouraging debate and participation of online and onsite audience, some polls will be launched through the IGF platform or by external tool (such as Slido or Kahoot). Questions from the Q&A will also be gathered by the online moderator and given to the on-site moderator, who will select and distribute them. The session will count with an on-site and an online moderator, and also an on-site facilitator. Online attendees will be encouraged to make questions and share their experiences. During the activity, the on-site moderator will be responsible for organizing the interventions and interacting with the speakers (on-site and online) to guarantee the balance of participation of online and on-site participants, as well as ensuring diversity both by speakers and the audience. The online moderator will be responsible for managing the online tools used in the session, and also read, select and deliver questions and comments made by the remote audience to the on-site moderator. Comments and questions will be collected through a series of tools, such as Zoom chat and hashtags in social networks. The on-site and online moderators and the on-site facilitator will also work together to ensure the best experience possible for the interaction between online and physical audience. The rapporteur will be responsible for capturing the highlights and critical information of the activity, as well as listing the main topics for the summary report and for consolidating another final report to be delivered to the IGF Secretariat.