THE Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has commended Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for the development of a Gender Digital Inclusion Strategy (DGIS).
CITAD in a statement on Monday, signed by its Executive Director, Y. Z. Ya’u, also commended the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, for the foresight in recording the national milestone for digital gender justice in Nigeria.
Ya’u expressed the hope that the contents of the strategy document will be speedily made public and all necessary mechanisms, resources and plans for its full implementation be put in place.
“We also hope that implementation will be driven by wide consultations and engagements of stakeholders, especially women groups in the country. We urge for purposeful and diligent implementation that is backed by rigorous and robust monitoring plan to ensure that progress is being tracked and challenges on the way are appropriately addressed,” said Ya’u.
According to the statement, the announcement disclosing the DGIS was made at the United Nations International Women’s Day celebration organized by FGN Women Ambassadors Network (FWAN-NET) in Abuja.
“While we await to see the full contents of the strategy, we commend NITDA for finally seeing the wisdom in having a strategy that can address the various ramifications of gender digital divide in the country,” Ya’u said.
Going down memory lane, CITAD revealed that it had in 2016, conducted research on access to and use of the internet by society and found that women were largely left behind in terms of both use and benefits of the internet.
Ya’u disclosed that CITAD published the result of that research in a book entitled “INTERNET FOR MEN? The Digital Marginalization of women in Northern Nigeria” available on CITAD’s website.
Ya’u further stated: “We followed this with consultations with several stakeholders across the country on how to address the marginalization of women in the digital space. These consultations culminated in the publication of a model National Gender Inclusion Agenda in 2018.
“Since then, CITAD has been consistently campaigning and calling on the government to articulate a national gender digital inclusion agenda to address the glaring digital marginalization of women.
“It was this campaign that led to working with the Nigeria Internet Governance Forum Team to institute the convening of the annual Women Internet Government Forum as a special pre-event of the National IGF at which issues pertaining to women and internet, and in particular, their inclusion in policy making of the digital space, are discussed with a view to ending the gender digital divide in the country.
“While progress has been made in raising awareness as well as in understanding the key driving factors for the persistence of this gender digital divide, there had been no systematic and policy-based response by the government to tackle this serious development problem.”
