The International Telecommunication Union, on Tuesday, said it had trained over a million women worldwide on basic Information and Communication Technology skills.
Dr Hamadoun Toure, ITU secretary-general, said that the training was in partnership with the UN specialised agency for ICT and a Philippines-based NGO, Telecentre.org Foundation.
Toure said that over one million disadvantaged women in 79 countries around the world were now benefiting from the newly-acquired ICT skills.
He said that the training which was based on the ITU’s ‘Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign’ was launched in 2011 with a target of training one million women around the world.
“The training leveraged the combined reach of Telecentre.org Foundation’s global network of 100,000 telecentres worldwide and the ITU’s 193 Member States and 700 private sector members.
“The campaign reached its goal earlier this month with a total of 1,014,096 women trained in basic computer skills, through the efforts of 153 participating organisations and 20,000 telecentres around the world.
“The success of this joint campaign meshes perfectly with this year’s International Women’s Day theme of ‘equality for women is progress for all.’
“This is because training in today’s ICT systems is so often the change that turns around the lives of unskilled and disadvantaged women and their families,” the statement quoted Toure as saying.
The Secretary-General said that having the skills to use ICT opened up new horizons and empowered women, both economically and culturally.
According to him, offering digital skills to over one million women at grassroots level is helping to reverse the paradigm whereby, in many countries, ICT still, most often, benefit men more than women.
Mr Brahima Sanou, director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau said that technology now widely recognised as a critical enabler for socio-economic development.
“Hence, the Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign has been the key in reinforcing the ITU’s global efforts to promote the digital inclusion of women, in line with the Millennium Development Goal 3 on gender equality,’’ Sanou said.
Mr Miguel Raimilla, executive director of Telecentre.org Foundation, said that partnership was the key in any undertaking.
“And what had been achieved so far under the ‘Women Digital Literacy Campaign’ is a testament to the collaboration.
“I, therefore, take this opportunity to thank ITU and all our partners in this campaign for accepting the challenge and for embracing this cause with so much fervour.
“There is still so much more to be done out there and the programme will definitely continue to empower women worldwide through ICT, in the hope of inspiring change and ultimately bringing about the much needed results,” Raimilla added.