OECD Going Digital Toolkit 2021

On the 5th of October 2021, the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting addressed the Digital Gender Divides in a special workshop and presented the latest status update of the OECD Going Digital Toolkit 2021. Digital transformation provides new avenues for the empowerment of women and girls – but discrimination, negative stereotypes, and social and cultural biases create other challenges for women and girls to thrive in a highly digital economy and society.

The Internet, online platforms, mobile phones, and digital financial services offer women and girls “leapfrog” opportunities to earn additional income, increase their employment opportunities, and access knowledge to help bridge digital gender divides. Action to close these gaps also requires providing the right skills; encouraging women into entrepreneurship and innovation, STEM, and software development; and providing the right conditions to enable women to participate fully in the labor market. National strategies and targeted educational programs can encourage women to develop the skills needed in digital-intensive sectors, foster female entrepreneurship, and combine motherhood and a professional career.

Addressing the event Mr. Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD stressed the following four key action areas for years ahead with to goal to enable the diminishing of the digital gender divide until 2030:

• Invest in improving women´s access to the necessary digital infrastructure
• Empower girls and women to succeed in the digital world and invest in the development and planning of the necessary skills for the future of work. Digital skills are essential for women´s full participation in society and in the labor market.

From early years on school curricula must overcome gender biases in STEM. At a younger age girls and women should be actively supported to undertake STEM studies. National role model databanks can play a major role in this context.

• Support women´s businesses and especially their access to finance
• Continue to develop the evidence base and address the key findings of OECD´s Going Digital Toolkit.

Follow the OECD full conference material here. Check out the OECD’s Going Digital Toolkit where you can explore the Toolkit using three entry points: Policy dimensions, Countries, and themes. The seven policy dimensions that need to be coordinated to shape a common digital future that improves the lives of all people include:

• Access to communications infrastructures, services, and data
• Effective use of digital technologies and data
• Data-driven and digital innovation
• Good jobs for all
• Social prosperity and inclusion
• Trust in the digital age, and
• Market openness in digital business environments

The Toolkit maps a core set of indicators to each of the seven policy dimensions and allows users to interactively explore these data to assess a country’s state of digital development. The Toolkit also contains OECD policy guidance and insights related to each of the policy dimensions to help governments design and implement policies that are fit for the digital age. In due course, the Toolkit will incorporate innovative policy practices.