The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Wednesday, stated that without access to technology women cannot make the desired progress.
She spoke at the 4th Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN’s) Annual International Women’s Day celebration themed #DigitAll: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality in Abuja.
Continuing Mrs Ahmed said, “In this respect we must seek for innovative solution that can facilitate how to leverage technology to close the gender gap and empower women to have access to health care, information, financial services, education and governance processes.”
The minister pointed out that “It is indeed gratifying to note that the commitment of this government to issues of women development and empowerment has remained legendary and commendable only recently Mr president inaugurated the high level advisory council of women and national women economic policy dialogue whose major objective is to bridge the gender gap in our polity.
In her remarks at the occasion, Minister for Women Affairs, Paullen Tallen, stressed that advancements in digital technology offers immense opportunities to address development and humanitarian challenges and to achieve the 2030 sustainable development goals.
“Unfortunately the opportunities of digital revolution also presents a risk of palpitating existing patterns of gender inequality as we are currently experiencing with the new monetary policy as we go cashless. As good as the policy is, in the long run the immediate concern is the growing inequalities which are becoming increasingly evident in the context of digital skills and access to technologies with women being left behind as a result of this digital gender divide,” she said.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Managing Director/CEO, Development Bank of Nigeria Plc., Dr. Tony Okpanachi, expressed dismay that notwithstanding, some tremendous advances by women in technology, there is still a significant employment discrepancy in the tech profession, with women accounting for between 28% and 42% of the workforce. According to a report by The World Bank, women make up less than a third of the world’s workforce in technology-related fields.
