Dakar Declaration

The Dakar Declaration calls on Francophone African governments, private sector, media, civil society, and international organizations to take 6 actions to promote gender equality in access to and use of technology. The actions are: 1) integrate gender perspectives into public policy, 2) address barriers women face in accessing and using the internet, 3) support multi-stakeholder cooperation in the region, 4) commit to collecting and analyzing gender-based data, 5) advocate for financial investment, and 6) accelerate adoption of legislation protecting digital rights and security. The overall goal is to ensure equal participation of women in emerging technology.

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Dakar Declaration

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DAKAR DECLARATION

Recalling the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the 4th World
Conference on Women in 1995, which identified and anticipated the importance of
emerging global technology and communications platforms as critical spaces for women’s
equal participation and inclusion, and which included a strategic objective to “increase the
participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the
media and new technologies of communication”;

Recalling the Preamble to the WSIS+10 Statement on implementation of the outcomes of

the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), reaffirming the importance of
promoting and maintaining gender equality and women’s empowerment, guaranteeing the
inclusion of women in the emerging global ICT society, including the mandate of UN
Women;

Recalling the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of
Women in Africa, notably Article 2 concerning the elimination of discrimination against
women and the need to integrate a gender perspective in their policy decisions, legislation,
development plans, programmes and activities, and in all other spheres of life, as well as
Article 9 Right to Participation in the Political and Decision-Making Process, and Article 12,
Right to Education and Training, which underlines the need to promote education and
training for women at all levels and in all disciplines, particularly in the fields of science and
technology;

Recalling the Open Data Charter, notably Principles 3 (Accessible and Usable), 5 (For
Improved Governance and Citizen Engagement) and 6 (For Inclusive Development and
Innovation), governments should raise awareness of open data, promote data literacy, build
capacity for effective use of open data, and ensure citizen, community, and civil society and
private sector representatives have the tools and resources they need to effectively
understand how public resources are used; encourage the use of open data to develop
innovative, evidence-based policy solutions that benefit all members of society, as well as
empower marginalised communities; and create or support programmes and initiatives that
foster the development or co-creation of datasets, visualisations, applications, and other
tools based on open data;

Recalling the African Platform on Access to Information Declaration of 2011;

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Recalling Resolution 70 of the ITU (Rev. Busan, 2014) - Mainstreaming a gender perspective
in ITU and promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women through
information and communication technologies;

Recalling the ECOWAS Supplementary Act on Equal Rights between Women and Men for
Sustainable Development in the Community Region:

Recalling that in 2013, the Broadband Commission endorsed an advocacy target, calling for
gender equality in access to broadband by 2020;

Recalling that the Commission on the Status of Women, at its 57th session, in 2013, adopted
agreed conclusions that highlighted emerging issues, such as the role of information,
communication and technology and social media;

Recalling SDG 5, Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, specifically the
targets to 1) enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and
communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women, and 2) adopt and
strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality
and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels;

Recalling the Accra Summit Action Plan adopted in Accra on the occasion of the Africa
Summit on Women and Girls in Technology;

Recalling the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms endorsed by the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in October 2016 in Banjul, Gambia, notably
Article 13 with regards to gender equality, underlining that to help ensure the elimination
of all forms of discrimination on the basis of gender, women and men should have equal
access to learn about, define, access, use and shape the internet. Efforts to increase access
should therefore recognise and redress existing gender inequalities, including women’s
under-representation in decision-making roles, especially in internet governance;

Considering recommendations made in the March 2017 report by the Working Group on the
Digital Gender Divide and Recommendations for Action: Bridging the Gender Gap in Internet
and Broadband Access and Use by the UN Broadband Working Group on the Digital Gender
Divide;

Anticipating the Sixty-Second session of the Commission on the Status of Women Review
Theme will be participation in and access of women to the media, and information and
communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the
advancement and empowerment of women and the agreed conclusions of the 47th session;

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Call on Francophone African Governments, Private Sector, Media, Civil Society, and
International Organisations to:

1) Integrate and promote gender perspectives in the development of public policy

through the integration of gender equality targets and key performance indicators into
strategies, policies, plans and budgets, with a specific focus on ensuring policy dialogue
at the grassroots level between public policy decision-makers, media and civil society,
particularly women and youth. This must entail synergies between all ministries and
government agencies, for effective gender mainstreaming.

2) Address the barriers women face in both access, use, and production of local
content on the internet that impede gender equality online, and promote:

a. unlimited and unfettered access to affordable internet;

b. women’s safety and digital rights online, as well as the use of ICTs to ensure
women are involved in the fight against online harassment, trolling, and
bullying, violation of privacy, radicalisation and violent extremism;
c. digital equality, literacy and skills, and confidence, through the promotion of
multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships to promote digital citizenship,
creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship;
d. availability of relevant and localised content, applications, and services
developed by and for women and girls;
e. mobilisation of and dialogue with communities working already on gender data-
driven initiatives, and work to minimise duplication of efforts while maximising
the scalability of interventions.

3) Support concrete multi-stakeholder cooperation, with a focus on the

Francophone Africa region, through the development of tools and policies to support
local, national and international efforts; effective sharing of best practices and
methodologies to address the digital gender gap, as well as the development of
sustainable and scalable initiatives, working with grassroots and international
organisations of women and girls, public policy decision-makers, the private sector, and
innovators and entrepreneurs, to ensure the expansion and scaling of successful
initiatives and best practices. Consider the implementation of periodic convenings to
foster knowledge exchange and accountability of governments.

4) Commit to and advocate for the collection and analysis of gender-based data.
Secure resources to enable gender data collection and dissemination to monitor

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progress on digital equality. This data must be open to all to see, open licensed, and
machine-readable; open gender data is essential in encouraging regional accountability
and enabling transnational knowledge exchange.

5) Advocate for appropriate financial investment from international, regional, sub-

regional, national, and local funding mechanisms to ensure the implementation of the
aforementioned policies and programmes developed to promote gender equality in the
online sphere and ICT sector in Francophone Africa.

6) Accelerate the adoption, consolidation and implementation of requisite

legislation, such as Right to Information laws and rights-based cybersecurity laws,
integration of cyber security and mobilisation on the dangers of ICTs in gender policies
and programmes.