Skills Coalition

Empowering women and girls to acquire skills to become both ICT users and creators in the digital world and STEM fields

#eSkills4Girls Fund

The #eSkills4Girls Fund provides financial resources to local initiatives providing gender-sensitive skills training across countries in the Global South. The fund is committed to tackling online gender inequality and to fostering digital skills for women and girls.

Lead partners: GIZ, BMZ

Her Digital Skills

EQUALS Her Digital Skills aims to design and provide access to free, gender transformative, foundational digital skills training, e-skills badges, and e-mentoring for one million women and girls by 2026. The initiative brings together three EQUALS projects into one comprehensive program: Tech4Girls workshops, EQUALS Badges, and e-mentoring.

Lead partners: EY, GSMA, ITU, W4

Skills Coalition Lead Partners:

GSMA

INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION

About the EQUALS Skills Coalition

The Issue

In the space of a decade, digital skills and competencies have moved from optional to critical. In increasingly technology-saturated societies, the ability to operate a smartphone, navigate the internet and understand how to safeguard information in digital mediums are ‘survival skills.’

Recent United Nations data reveals that digital skills divides across lines of gender are deep, wide and growing. In many national contexts, men are four times more likely than women to have advanced ICT skills such as the ability to programme computers, and similar divides are apparent for basic tasks such as using email or a spreadsheet.

These skills gaps carry serious repercussions for employment. Leading consulting companies estimate that 90% of all future jobs will have a digital component. Despite this, the number of women choosing to pursue technology studies and careers has been declining globally since the 1980s.

Today in Europe, only 1 in 5 technology graduates are female, just 17% of technology jobs are held by women, and app developers are six times more likely to be male than female. Over the past 10 years there has been no measurable improvement in the number of women choosing ICT careers. In the countries that make up the ‘global South,’ this digital skills gender gap is even more severe.

Why it Matters

For young girls to take advantage of the innumerable benefits technology has to offer while staying alert to technology risks, they must have the opportunity to acquire and develop digital skills.

Overall, helping women and girls develop digital skills offers a clear return on investment. It leads to stronger families, stronger communities, stronger economies and stronger technology. This is the goal of the EQUALS Skills Coalition.

Because when women thrive, societies, businesses and economies thrive.

Skills Coalition Goals

Our goal is to ensure 60% of women and girls have achieved at least a minimum level of proficiency in sustainable digital skills by 2030.

Ensure girls receive a good ICT foundation at school
Ensuring women and girls can access additional high quality ICT education and training
Change mindsets of men and women about the role of women in ICT
Ensure women and girls’ safety and security in education institutions