Mrs Mary Uduma, Chairperson, Nigeria Internet Governance Forum (NIGF), has said that the forum is working on digital inclusion for women to make them relevant in internet governance.
Uduma spoke with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja in commemoration of the 2019 International Women’s Day (IWD).
IWD is celebrated annually on March 8 as movement for women’s rights, after the Socialist Party of America organised a Women’s Day on Feb.28, 1909 , in New York and in 1910, the International Socialist Woman’s Conference suggested an annual Women’s Day.
The 2019 International Women’s Day has “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change” as its theme.
She said that the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) wanted digital inclusion for women to have a voice globally and locally in policies that concern them in the cyber space.
“In our school of internet governance, we are encouraging and training women to be experts in internet governance so that they can voice their concerns in the internet governance.
“From the global perspective, more women are encouraged not only to be members of the organising committee because the UN took it upon itself to make sure there is a balance.
“We have diversity in IGF and this year the women are given upper hand to make proposals, be panelists brining ideas that the whole world will discuss and come up with recommendation, ” she said..
She said in 2017, there was a meeting on women in Internet Governance in Nigeria.
She said that the essence of the meeting was to encourage women to come out with ideas on what they wanted the government to do for them to be included in development and policies in internet
“At the West Africa level, we have also called for panelists those that will take part in our programmes and we are asking women to apply to become members and to be trained on internet governance issues.
She said that the global event would hold from Nov. 25 to Nov. 29 in Berlin, Germany, the West Africa event would be July 22 to July 26 in The Gambia and that of Nigeria will hold in Lagos second week of July.
Also, an Information Communication Technology expert, Mrs Hassana Ibrahim, said that on Every international women’s day the Womenwill, an initiative of Google bring women together and invite speakers to speak with them on various topics.
Ibrahim who is the Chief of Executive of Durian Technology said that they also move to secondary schools to sensitise young girls on the benefits of ICT as a career. (NAN)
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