IGF 2017 WS #37 Tackling gender divides: ICT and women’s economic empowerment

Session Format: Other - 90 Min
Format description: The format will be a “Campfire Session”. The goal of a campfire session is to create an open forum in which the attendees generate the majority of the discussion and knowledge sharing. The session will open with speakers/experts interventions. For the remainder of the session, the speakers become facilitators, inviting comments and questions from those around the room and letting the audience dictate the ultimate direction of the conversation. Campfire sessions allow attendees to drive their own learning, listen to multiple perspectives on the same issue, and share experiences with individuals throughout the room.

Proposer:
Country: France
Stakeholder Group: Private Sector

Co-Proposer:
Country: France
Stakeholder Group: Private Sector

Speaker: Ji-Hyang Song
Speaker: Reema Nanavaty
Speaker: Towela Nyirenda
Speaker: Gary Barker
Speaker: Asma Ennafer
Speaker: Raul Echeberria

Content of the Session:
Internet Governance issue:
This workshop will explore the complex relationship between ICT and women’s economic empowerment and evaluate the contingent probing factors which are posing challenges to women being truly empowered by ICT. The goal is to illustrate how different stakeholders contribute to supporting women’s economic empowerment through ICT and survey opportunities and address challenges faced in developed and developing countries.

Session format:
The format will be a “Campfire Session”. The goal of a campfire session is to create an open forum in which the attendees generate the majority of the discussion and knowledge sharing. The session will open with speakers/experts interventions. For the remainder of the session, the speakers become facilitators, inviting comments and questions from those around the room and letting the audience dictate the ultimate direction of the conversation. Campfire sessions allow attendees to drive their own learning, listen to multiple perspectives on the same issue, and share experiences with individuals throughout the room.

The purpose of this workshop is to survey experiences and generate best practices on how stakeholders can tackle gender divides and boost the use of ICT to promote the empowerment of women. The campfire session format will facilitate this goal by enabling knowledge exchanges through an informal learning environment. Participants will be encouraged ahead of time via social media to bring questions, case examples and subject matter theories of their own to share with the group.

Agenda:
Although discussion and participants contributions will ultimately drive the agenda, the following will be used to guide conversation:
• The session will start with a short video of a case study example of how an ICT application can be used to support women’s economic empowerment (for example a mobile application for rural women entrepreneurs in India which has automated the supply chain process, allowing women to sell farm produce within their local communities more efficiently, to reduce travel time and generate more business opportunities). As an ice-breaker to help participants feel engaged and comfortable in the group, the moderator will ask the audience questions about the case study video by asking for a show of hands. The organisers will explore providing paper and pens with questions for the participants so they have time to reflect on answers. (15 minutes)
• Experts representing different stakeholder groups (business, civil society, technical community and government) will be invited to explain how ICT supports women’s empowerment and the role they play in initiatives which seek to empower women through ICT. Speakers will be encouraged to use concrete examples (30 minutes)
• Participants will share ideas on the probing factors which are posing challenges to women being truly empowered by ICT (for example: online abuse, socio-economic and cultural factors, role of family members, education and skills etc.) and suggest economic, social, technical and governance policy considerations. Speakers will become facilitators, inviting responses to comments and questions from those around the room and letting the audience dictate the ultimate direction of the conversation. The moderator will manage the discussion to ensure diverse interventions in person and remotely. (40 minutes).
• Moderator wrap up and summarize main take a ways (5 minutes)


Relevance of the Session:
This workshop will be directly related to the IGF 2017 theme as it will provide an important discussion on how the ICT ecosystem can support sustainable development (focus drawn to SDG 5) and highlight the ways in which stakeholders can work together to support women’s digital futures and overcome challenges facing women to become truly empowered by ICT.

The issue provides a timely link to Internet governance more broadly as the United Nations 2030 development agenda reflects the growing understanding that ICTs can be powerful instruments for advancing economic and social development through the creation of new types of economic activity, employment opportunities, enhancements in health-care and education and the enrichment of participation and advocacy within society. The WSIS+10 outcome document also recognizes the potential of ICTs as tools for promoting gender equality and Goal 5 of the UN sustainable development goals includes a target to “Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular ICT, to promote the empowerment of women”.The workshop will provide an opportunity for IGF participants to share ideas on how to reach these goals.


Tag 1: Access and Diversity
Tag 2: Empowerment
Tag 3: Gender Issues

Interventions:
Speakers have been chosen to ensure geographic, gender, sector, and stakeholder group diversity. Each speaker will bring a unique perspective and experience to opportunities and challenges faced.

Asma Ennafer is Chief Executive for Corporate Communication, CSR& Innovation of Orange Tunisia. Ms Ennafer will bring private sector perspectives from North Africa and share examples of the role the private sector can play and her experience in supporting women’s economic empowerment through ICT.

Gary Barker is the international Director of Promundo which works globally to achieve a culture of non-violence and gender equality by engaging men and boys in partnership with women and girls. Mr Barker will bring a unique perspective to IGF and weave the experiences and role of men into the discussion.

Ms Ji-Hyang Song will bring the perspectives of the Government of Republic of Korea to this dialogue and share examples of how governments can support women’s empowerment through ICT.

Reema Nanavaty is an Indian social worker, known for her humanitarian services as the head of Self-Employed Women's Association of India. Ms Nanavaty will bring her experience and expertise working with self-employed women workers in India who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses.

Towela Nyirenda, has 20 years of experience spanning the academic, private and civil society sectors and is currently working with the e-Africa Programme at the NEPAD Agency (a technical agency of the African Union charged with facilitating and coordinating priority development programmes). Ms Nyirenda will bring her experience in managing a range of development programmes and personal interest in women’s economic empowerment.

Raúl Echeberría is Vice President, Global Engagement at ISOC. Mr Echeberría will share technical community experience organizing initiatives to support women’s economic empowerment through ICT.

All speakers will be given the opportunity to share short interventions on the topics discussed and will be encouraged to participate in discussion with participants.


Diversity:
Each stakeholder group will be represented (civil society, business, technical community and government) and speakers will represent different geographies and cultures.

Co-organizers and speakers will include representatives from developing countries (for example NEPAD and SEWA). Co-organizers bring the unique perspectives of a trade union for self-employed women workers (SEWA) and an organization that has experience facilitating and coordinating the development of programmes in Africa (NEPAD).

Efforts will be made to introduce new perspectives in the dialogue such as development practitioners which have not been heard in Internet governance discussions (for example Promundo and SEWA).

Gender balance has been encouraged through speaker choices and each speaker will bring unique expertise and experience to the topics discussed. Efforts have been made to ensure that men are represented in this discussion as they have a role to play in women’s economic empowerment.

Special attention will be made throughout the planning of the session to ensure diverse interventions from workshop participants can be facilitated by working closely with the remote moderator in the planning of the session.

Organisers will encourage remote participation by promoting the workshop and subject area on social media in the run up to the IGF and will explore facilitating interventions from remote hubs.

The remote moderator will be a youth participant and organizers will encourage youth participation.

Onsite Moderator: Elizabeth Thomas-Raynaud, ICC BASIS
Online Moderator: Youth Ambassador, dotAsia (Names have not yet been confirmed for IGF but we are in contact with dotAsia who will provide)
Rapporteur: Sheetal Kumar, Global Partners Digital

Online Participation:
The remote moderator will be involved throughout the workshop planning phase in an advisory role. Organizers have identified a youth online moderator for this role to provide a substantive opportunity for an IGF youth participant. The remote moderator will represent the technical community dotAsia and will be invited to assist in bringing youth participants into the discussion.

The Moderator will frequently communicate with the remote moderator throughout the session to ensure remote participants’ views/questions are included. The remote moderator will be asked to raise their hand at any point should an online participant wish to make an intervention.

The use of the video at the start of the session is intended to make remote participants feel connected to the discussion and people in the room. The remote moderator will manage the ice-breaker questions at the start of the session and report to the group on remote answers.

Organisers will ensure that the workshop is promoted on social media in advance to the wider community to give remote participants the opportunity to prepare questions and interventions in advance and to generate interest in the workshop.

Organizers will provide the remote moderator with details of the training organized by the IGF Secretarait for remote participation and ensure the remote moderator has all the information and is able to use the remote participation software.

Discussion facilitation:
The list below provides examples of the ways discussion will be facilitated amongst speakers, audience members, and online participants and ensure the session format is used to its optimum:

Seating: Participants will sit in a circle (or a round table) to create an enabling and comfortable atmosphere where all speakers and participants are given equal weight in the discussion. The moderator will have a prominent seating position and may walk around in the middle of the circle to engage participants.

Media: The session will start with a short video example of an ICT application for women’s economic empowerment. This video will help bring focus to the discussion, introduce the subject to those unfamiliar, engage remote participants and provide a base for conversation between participants.

Invited speakers and discussants will have the opportunity to view the video ahead of the workshop to prepare their interventions and reactions.

ICC BASIS will explore the use of other visuals (ie PowerPoint slides, images, handouts) to animate the session and aid those whose native language may not be English. A policy paper prepared by the ICC Commission on the Digital Economy on ICT, policy and sustainable economic development may be used and referred to, to provide background and an explanation of the ICT ecosystem and background of issues.

Preparation: A preparatory call will be organised for all speakers, moderators and co-organisers in advance of the workshop so that everyone has a chance to “meet”, share views and prepare for the session.

Given the varied background of discussants and audience members, ICC BASIS will explore introducing questions and other case studies about how women can be empowered by ICT on social media in the run up to the workshop. This will introduce the subject, encourage conversation to links to other dialogues on women’s economic empowerment (within and outside Internet governance arenas) and help prepare in-person and remote participants for the interaction.

The moderator will have questions prepared in advance to encourage interaction among invited experts and between participants, if conversation were to stall.

Games: Following the video, an ice-breaker consisting of a short fire round of questions to all participants (based on the video) will be managed by the moderator. This will help engage participants in a game and support the campfire session format where all participants should feel comfortable and able to contribute.

Moderator: The moderator will be an expert and well-informed and experienced in animating multistakeholder discussions.

During the open discussion in the group, open questions will encourage responses from participants and everyone will be given equal weight and equal opportunity to intervene. Walk-in participants will be encouraged to participate in the discussion by the moderator who will seek contributions from participants in person and remotely.


Conducted a Workshop in IGF before?: Yes
Link to Report: http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/filedepot_download/4098/291