The Federal Government has said that access to technology has greater potential for innovations that will aid women in achieving desired progress and promote gender equality in Nigeria.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed who revealed this at an event to commemorate the International Women’s Day, in Abuja, stressed the need to seek for innovative solution that can facilitate the use of technology to close the gender gap and empower women to have access to basic services.
Zainab commended women for their tremendous contributions to the society over the years but however, expressed concern over the challenges they face despite these achievements.
According to the Minister, the challenges women continue to face include: discrimination, inequality and violence, while she called for all hands to be on deck to ensure women’s participation and gender equality in developmental process as well as in technology and science.
“We must ensure that every woman has the opportunity to fulfill her potential and achieve her dreams it has been established that inclusion of women in leadership has contributed significantly to economic growth and stability in any nation.
“We must also work to eliminate the gender pay gap, support women entrepreneurs and business owners”, Ahmed said.
The Minister for Women Affairs, Paullen Tallen in her remarks was of the view that access to the use of digital devices , internet and content to mainstream women into the digital space was highly imperative.
Tallen said “Bringing together women and other marginalized groups into technology results in more creative solutions and has greater potentials for innovations that meet women’s needs and promote gender equality .
“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”.
The Minister called for an inclusive and transformative technology and digital education to achieve sustainable future .
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Managing Director, Development Bank of Nigeria DBN Plc, Dr. Tony Okpanachi hinged on the fact that more effort was required to advance gender equality and
to leverage technology to provide women with the tools and resources to succeed.
“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.
“Technology has the potential to improve the lives of women and girls all over the world in a variety of ways, including increased access to education, health care, and financial services, as well as new avenues into business and entrepreneurship, but to realize the full potential of the technology, we must also confront its perils.
‘We acknowledge the fact that there is still much work to be done in this regard. Therefore, we must continue to challenge gender biases and promote diversity in all aspects of our lives. We must join our hands together to close gender disparity.
“We must also ensure that technology is used to empower women, not reinforce gender stereotypes. We need to challenge biases in data and algorithms that perpetuate gender-based discrimination and ensure that technology is designed with the needs and perspectives of women in mind”, he said.
Consequently, Okpanachi assured of the Bank’s commitment to creating an enabling environment in the workplace for women to thrive.
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