VICTORIA FALLS (Zimbabwe): There is need to equip the African girl child with digital skills to enable them to compete with boys for opportunities in the information communication technologies (ICTs) sector.
An International Day of Girls in ICT roundtable session of Ministers which ran concurrently with the Transform Africa summit which is being held in the resort town made the call on Thursday.
According to the ministers, on average across 32 countries and territories, girls are 35 per cent less likely to have digital skills than their male peers, with the major barriers being far deeper than a lack of access to the internet.
In an interview with New Ziana, Ghanaian Minister of Communication and Digitalisation Ursula Owusu Ekuful said there was need for the African girl to embrace digitalisation.
“It is time to break the gender barrier,” she said.
“There is need to change the narrative of saying girls play with dolls. We also want parents to buy technical toys for the girls.”
Ekuful said the knowledge of technology should start from the grassroots, when the child was still an infant.
“An opportunity of digitalisation may pave the way for greater opportunities for a rural girl in Africa, may lead to more women taking up decision making positions.”
This year’s theme for the International Day of Girls in ICT is “Digital Skills for Life” shows that digital technologies continue to shape and weave into everyday life.
Smart Africa director general Lacina Kone said lack of digitalisation may limit opportunities for girls and women in Africa.
“Girls without digital skills will not be able to participate fully in everyday life activities. This is not a scenario we can ever be comfortable with hence the need to support young people, particularly girls and young women, with the skills and resources required to thrive in the digital economy,” he said.
Smart Africa has established a vehicle called the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) through which it has so far trained more than 3,500 policy and decision makers.
The SADA training gives relevant technical, policy and leadership skills. Junior Member of Parliament for Hwange Central constituency Enerita Mumba lamented the lack of inclusion of young girls in curbing gender digitalisation inequality.
“We have no access to resources for digitalization in our schools and homes, making it difficult for both the rural urban girls to perform better in digitalisation,” she said.
According to a Unicef analysis, around 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women do not use the internet in low-income countries while their male peers are twice as likely to be online. – BERNAMA-NEW ZIANA
