On behalf of feminist EU civil society, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, W20 EU Co-Head of Delegation, led the W20 EU Delegation‘s contribution to the G20 India Leader’s Declaration which onboarded significant language from the W20 India Communiqué, and includes the following:
✨1. Launching a G20 Women’s Empowerment Working Group, the most institutionalized mechanism in the G20;
✨4. Closing the gender pay gap and ensuring women’s equal access to decent work and quality jobs;
✨5. Eliminating gender-based violence; and
✨6. Increasing women’s participation in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction.
W20 Team India 2023, led by Sandhya Purecha and Dharitri Patnaik, deserve massive recognition for their leadership and vision, as do all W20 delegates and experts, for their hard work, determination and commitment to making this outcome a reality.
The W20 EU Delegation is eager to continue moving the bar forward for the world’s girls and women as part of W20 Brazil in 2024.
Ahead of the G20 India Summit on 9-10 September in New Delhi, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Co-head of the W20 EU Delegation, along with Ayaka Matsuno and Uli Silalahi, W20 Heads of Delegation from Japan and Indonesia respectively, shared a video message on Indian national television which was broadcast to millions of viewers.
Ms. Miller Van Dÿck described impressions of India from the three on-site W20 India meetings she attended in 2023 as “eye-opening and enlightening”. She underscored the opportunity presented for historical leadership of India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which she said, translated to the work of W20 India 2023 under leadership of Dr. Sandhya Purecha, Dr. Shamika Ravi and Dharitri Patnaik, latter two who were the subject of the broadcast.
Ms. Miller Van Dÿck also highlighted the groundbreaking work by W20 India to promote women-led development, a step-change in global feminist policy which is a vision, said Miller, the EU could stand behind.
Full broadcast is below with intervention by Miller Van Dÿck, in English, at 3’26”.
Find out here about W20 EU Delegation outreach activities in Winter 2023, including the 18 January meeting of W20 India 2023, the first W20 meeting of the G20 India Presidency with International W20 Heads of Delegation, attended by Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, W20 EU Co-Head of Delegation for 2023.
24 January 2023 – G20 Women20 EU 2023 Delegation KickoffMeeting (Online): On 24 January 2023, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck chaired the online 2023 Kickoff meeting of the Women20 European Union Delegation in her official capacity as Co-head of Delegation.
W20 EU Delegation members are actively engaged in outreach activities with our stakeholders around the world that promote feminist EU civil society and the interests of the girls and women of the European Union, the G20 nations, and beyond.
For upcoming events of the W20 EU Delegation and our stakeholders, please visit here, and to browse past activities, please click here.
As Policy Chair and Community Councilmember for the WEgate project promoting women-led entrepreneurship in Europe, DLI Director Cheryl Miller also leads the WEgate Thematic Group on Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition (“Digital Transition TG”).
Over the course of 2022, the Digital Transition TG gathered to analyse and synthesise the impact of the digital transition on women entrepreneurs in Europe. Outcomes and recommendations from this work which address Ethics in AI, Gender and Cybersecurity, Tech-readiness of Women-led Startups, and the Gender Gap in Digital Skills, are captured in a policy brief published by the WEgate project on 22 January 2023.
One of the aims of WEgate is to increase the visibility of women entrepreneurs and to promote discussion on important topics for improving the conditions for women’s entrepreneurship development. To address critical areas of interest in women’s entrepreneurship development, dedicated WEgate Thematic groups (TGs) are formed as ad-hoc groups within the WEgate Community. The third WEgate TG is dedicated to Digital transition, analysing the challenges faced by women in the digital arena.
This policy brief summarizes the findings of the WEgate thematic group on women’s entrepreneurship policy. It highlights the key challenges and recommendations forpolicy-making in four areas: gender mainstreaming, evidence-based policy-making, finance and funding for women entrepreneurs, and stakeholders engagement in policy development. For each policy area, recommendations are being proposed, targeting policymakers at the European and national levels.
Download the WEgate Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition Policy Brief (PDF) here.
Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director General for Social and Human Services, UNESCO (video message) Virginia Littlejohn, Co-head of US Delegation to the G20/Women20 & Global Coordinator, W20 Women Entrepreneurs Act Initiative (WE Act)
Tamara Dancheva, Senior Manager, International Relations at GSMA & EU Delegate to the G20/Women20
Format: This event will feature a Roundtable, with interventions by representatives of public and private organizations promotingwomen’s economic empowermentandclosing the gender digital dividefor economic recovery andsustainable development. A Question & Answer session open to the public will follow the Roundtable.
Registration: This online event is open to the public and registration is required. The event will be organized on Zoom and accessed via the STI Forum Whova platform which is still in process. Those who register via Zoom will also have access. Please stay tuned.
Live Stream: The event will also be streamed live on the DLI YouTube channel.
Concept Note:
Anywhere in the world today, a woman is:
Less likely to be online;
More likely to have low or no digital skills;
Less likely to be an IT professional; and
Far less likely to launch a tech-driven enterprise.
As a result, women are at greater risk of being excluded by the digital disruption, a phenomenon exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.
COVID has disproportionately impacted women—forcing millions out of the workplace, many permanently. In response, entrepreneurship is and will continue to be a key factor in sustaining financial independence for women and in reigniting the global economy. In the digital society, such participation is increasingly linked to skills supporting both digitally-enabled and digitally-driven entrepreneurship.
However, a key characteristic of the digital disruption which cuts across geographic locations and socio-economic conditions is that, no matter where they are in the world, women are less likely to be online than men. Of the Earth’s 7.8 billion human population, men make up thirty percent and women twenty-five percent of people who are online, reflecting 195 million fewer women online overall. Despite a surge in online participation during the COVID pandemic, the rate at which women go online continues to lag behind. This ubiquitous and persistent trend represents the digital divide compounded by the gender gap which, without focused effort to address it, risks widening.
In countries where digitalization has a firmer hold, women are still less likely to have digital skills, take up formal computer science or other STEM studies, or hold technical and leadership roles in IT organizations.Globally, the founder of a digitally-driven enterprise is five times more likely to be a man than a woman, and in many places the ratio is closer to ten-to-one.
In addition to the yawing social divide this reality reflects, italso represents a loss for the global economy and for women themselves who are unable to fully realize their potential as economics actors in an increasingly digital society. In 2013, the UN reported that bringing 600 million women and girls online could boost global GDP by up to $18B.A European study of the same period suggests that equal participation of women in the ICT sector would contribute as much as €9B annually to the European economy.Especially as a response to the COVID-induced “She-cession,” action to tackle the gender digital divide presents an opportunity to improve women’s economic agency, address the digital skills and job gap, and promote a pathway toward sustainable development.
Regardless of geography, closing the gender digital divide presents a critical factor in ensuring women’s economic agency, previously and again at present, in order to promote economic development. This focus has the advantages of limiting the risk of further marginalization of women as a result of the digital disruption, addressing the global IT skills gap, filling tech jobs that otherwise go unfilled, and of supporting a woman’s pathway to economic agency in the workforce and as an entrepreneur whose work is digitally-enabled and/or tech-driven.
As such, the greatest single driver of economic recovery exiting the COVID pandemic, and that which will most contribute to sustainable development going forward, will be action supporting digital equity for women’s economic agency at the intersection of promoting women’s economic empowerment (WEE)—with women as entrepreneurs, equal actors in the workforce, and leaders across the board—and closing the gender digital divide (GDD).
Questions: The event will investigate the following questions:
What is the economic impact of the gender digital divide and the opportunity presented by closing it?
What is the state-of-play regarding development action that focuses on tackling the gender digital divide and promoting women’s economic empowerment?
What indicators and best practices may be employed to support digital equity for women’s economic agency as a pathway to economic recovery and sustainable development?
Topics: The event will address the topics of women’s economic empowerment, the gender digital divide, gender equality, woman’s rights, inclusive digital transformation, digital financial inclusion, access to finance, online safety, digital equity, digital skills, STEM skills, women-led entrepreneurship, economic recovery, building forward better from COVID, diversity, equity, inclusion, women in peacekeeping and conflict avoidance, women migrants and refugees, women in leadership, women in innovation, female founders, the SDGs, sustainable development goals, and sustainable development.
