Action plan to close the digital gender gap

Women’s equal and meaningful participation in the digital society is seen as both integral to the realization of women’s rights in the 21st century, as well as the realization of a just, inclusive and rights based information society and to achieve global objectives around gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030.

In 2016 the international development community will begin implementation of a new set of universal goals and targets embedded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the global financing framework, the Addis Ababa Action Plan 2015.

In view of this shift and building on the past processes and other commitments and outcomes of WSIS, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and General Conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women, the involved parties issue this Action Plan to encourage stakeholders involved in the post-2015 process, including governments, the private sector, NGOs, civil society and IGOs, to unify efforts and build synergies across international development processes and efforts towards closing the digital gender gap through converting shared commitments into action.

ITU partners that collaborated in this Action Plan are the governments of Costa Rica, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia and the United States, together with UN Women, Microsoft, Mozilla and the Association for Progressive Communications.

The Action Plan to Close the Gender Gap focuses on key areas:


Develop gender responsive strategies and policies
Ensure access to ICTs by women and girls and mitigating or responding the threats online that hinder women’s access to and use of technology
Build digital capacities of girls and women and support development of content, applications and services that meet women’s needs
Promoting women in the technology sector, including into positions of decision-making
Establish multi-stakeholder partnerships to advance women’s empowerment within the Information Society and strengthen international cooperation.