Pan-African Parliament women celebrate International Women’s Day

The Pan-African Parliament Women’s Caucus joined the rest of the world in observance and celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8.

The caucus called for governments and national parliaments to give priority to national initiatives that uplifted women in digital technology.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme was: For an inclusive digital world: Innovation and Technologies for Gender Equality.
It seeks to recognise and celebrate the contribution of women and girls’ advances in transformative technologies and digital education.

The commemorations, held at the parliament headquarters in Midrand, took place on the sidelines of the ongoing sittings of the parliament’s permanent committees which kicked off on March 6 to 17, and are running under the African Union theme of the year ‘The Year of AcFTA: Accelerating the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area.’

The chairperson of the caucus, Amina-Tidjani Yaya spoke at the high-level celebrations to mark the day. Yaya implored governments to prioritise national strategies to improve access to digital technologies by women. “We call upon governments and national parliaments to give priority to the national strategies on the development of digital technologies to assist women and girls to get capital to become leaders, businesswomen, and positive change agents. The capacity to provide jobs and equal opportunities in information and communication technologies for both boys and girls should be looked at,” said Yaya.

Recognising the power wielded by digital technologies, Khadija Arouhal, the vice chairperson of the parliament committee on gender, family, youth, and persons with disabilities, said digital technologies were a means to achieve gender parity.

“Digital technologies are a tool to achieve gender equality because women in developing countries still lag behind in using technologies. We need to harness the use of these technologies for the betterment of women,” said Arouhal.

The chairperson of the parliament committee on transport, industry, communications, energy, science, and technology, Behdja Lammali said, “Capital should be directed at addressing the digital gap between males and females. Development cannot be achieved without reducing the gap as there is inequality in the distribution of digital wealth.”

In closing, the parliament’s third vice president Lucia Maria Mendes Goncalves dos Passos reiterated calls to ensure women fully participated and recognised the full potential in digital technology.

Related Article:

Glen Austin Conservancy AGM outlines big plans for the Bullfrog Pan