RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR

Create opportunities for technical employees to participate in leadership and management development, on company time. Technical women value opportunities for professional development of leadership and management skills. Above and beyond a core investment in their technical professional development, high-tech companies can improve technical women’s advancement by investing in their career development.

Private sector firms -to actively combat the application of gendered stereotypes in the hiring processes as well and to engage in capacity-building around eliminating bias in digital sector job recruitment.

Develop capacity building and other steps for promoting women’s recruitment, retention and promotion to decision-making positions in the technology sector, in public and private spheres. This includes through investments in creating positive role models in technology and enlisting existing women in technology leadership, recognition of women’s technology and innovation achievements and promoting positive images of women in tech in the media, and developing learning, networking and mentoring opportunities.

Establish enabling environments for women in the digital sector by inviting diversity in the hiring and promotion process.

Promote the UN Womenʼs Empowerment Principles, which define clear and transparent criteria for ensuring gender balance in recruiting, promoting and recognising women in the digital sector.

Train managers to be aware of the serious implications of perpetuating wage disparity between their men and women technical employees. Eliminating the wage gap between technical men and women signals that your company values technical women and fairness in the workplace.

Offer flexibility as a work benefit and expand it to include options for part-time schedules, flexible schedules, and telecommuting. Change employee allocation practices to encourage managers to consider part-time work arrangements.

Significantly increase retention by providing extended parental leave options and include both women and men as eligible for parental leave.

Make women part of the business strategy including setting targets and key performance indicators to ensure appropriate focus on women and girls accessing and using the Internet; along with clear accountability structures to ensure targets are delivered.

Assess business strategies, policies and plans to ensure that a focus on women customers is sufficiently reflected and prioritised, and establish processes for ensuring a consideration of women customers in the future development of all strategies, policies, plans and budgets (including those related to products, services and marketing).

Consult and involve women and local communities as well as researchers and NGOs involved in gender equality and/ or women’s rights in ICT from the outset in the development of products, services and pricing strategies to drive uptake amongst women customers.

Launch multimedia campaigns which target men as agents for change who can help transform the circumstances surrounding women and girls accessing and using ICT and participating in the digital sector.

Develop and offer online content and services that are accessible to women with limited literacy, language and ICT-related skills and confidence and ensure that women with lower literacy levels are included in the pilots and user testing of these services.

Support and promote female role models as Internet users
(e.g. in marketing communications, through women engaged in customer outreach activities, and the promotion of gender equality in staff and decision- making positions).

Collect, analyse and track Gender-disaggregated customer data related to Internet access and use (e.g. by tracking the gender composition of customer bases, analysing existing data with a gender lens and integrating gender questions into existing surveys).

Consider sharing gender-disaggreagated data with other stakeholders in a safe and secure manner and within the limits of data protection requirements/ privacy considerations and commercial confidentiality.

Design products and services at price points that help ensure that
the cost of data for accessing the Internet is affordable to women and girls, particularly for those with lower incomes (e.g. through pricing plans and promotional offers).

Increase network coverage, capacity and quality as well as access to existing capacity, particularly in underserved areas where a significant population are women and girls (e.g. through infrastructure sharing and energy-efficient and renewable energy networks in o -grid regions).

Strongly encouraged to work to lower or remove cost barriers to help stimulate interest in ICT access amongst women and girls. Access serves as a prerequisite to help females develop digital literacy and the e-skills needed to work within the digital sector.

Strongly encouraged to ensure the availability of safe public spaces where women and girls can access on ICT on a regular basis.

Participate actively in industry, government and NGO initiatives established to protect women and girls against ICT-mediated abuse and harassment.

Develop applications and services that make it safer for women and girls to access and use the Internet, addressing issues of harassment, abuse and violence.

Make it easy and safe for women and girls customers to report online abuse (and ensure that such reports are responded to quickly and effectively) while ensuring that other fundamental freedoms and rights are upheld.