The event raised awareness on the gendered impacts of innovation and technology, as well as on the interventions that are needed to address them. Speakers from the private sector as well as from regional and international organisations and academia focused on:

– How to ensure that we leave no-one behind from the digital transformation, looking at the future of work in the digital economy and the under-representation of women in key emerging technological sectors.

– How to create a gender-transformative innovation ecosystem, by not only attracting, but also retaining and promoting women in STEM careers.

– How to ensure that technology and innovation responses to the needs of women and girls are inclusive and accessible, including in sectors that are relevant to the SDGs – for instance digital technologies to support financial inclusion for women, innovation in the context of agriculture, among many others.

– Recommendations on how to better mainstream gender in digital policies and investments – both public and private

Anne-France Wittmann, DG NEAR, presented the upcoming regional programme in support to Women Economic Empowerment in the Southern Neighbourhood, focused on access to finance and exploring the potential of digitalisation for financial inclusion, particularly for underserved women entrepreneurs.

Christophe Malherbe, Team Leader of the EU financed MED MSMEs Programme also participated explaining how the MED MSMEs Programme strives to advance the mainstreaming of the gender dimension into fintech by elaborating a regional action plan with specific actions that will be shared with the MED MSMEs Community of Practice and relevant stakeholders in June. The programme is also organising a webinar ‘Training on Gender mainstreaming in NBFIs’ on 14 March.

The recording of the webinar is accessible here: Webinar for the International Women’s Day: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality - Union for the Mediterranean - UfM (ufmsecretariat.org)