Addressing the Digital Gender Divide in Africa Through the African Girls Can Code Initiative

Globally, 3.7 billion people do not have access to the internet. Half of them are women. In some parts of the world the digital gender divide has been shrinking, but data shows it is growing in Africa.

The pandemic has shown that access to technology is not a luxury anymore, it is a necessity, especially for girls. There is a gender digital divide globally: girls are disadvantaged when it comes to digital adoption, have lower levels of access to and use of digital technology than boys, and often they are not benefitting from digital technology as boys are.

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To address this, UN Women, in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) implemented the African Girls Can Code Initiative to train African girls in critical coding and tech skills. Launched in 2018, the first phase of the African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI) has trained 600 girls, developed a guide on mainstreaming ICT, gender and coding in national curricula across the continent, launched an eLearning platform and hosted a series of webinars to keep the learning going in the pandemic.

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This year Generation Equality Forum, convened by UN Women and the Governments of France and Mexico in collaboration with civil society, launched ground breaking Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality and collected commitments from all over the world, including from Actional Coalition Leader the Government of Rwanda. The Action Coalition will tackle the digital gender divide as its importance is growing with the COVID-19 pandemic and measures to contain it.

As we celebrate International Girl Child Day, let’s hear from some of the participants of the African Girls Can Code Initiative as they share what they learned on this journey.

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