<u>Problem statement</u>
Leveraging Digital Infrastructure to Address Digital Divide-Empowering Women Across the Commonwealth and ESCAP South Asia Countries
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised new barriers for inclusive development. Various restrictions imposed during COVID-19, including physical movement of cross-border goods, services and transport has negatively affected the economies of countries. Whilst the pandemic has made countries recognize the need for deeper digitalization, the digital divide has also widened within and across countries. The digital skills gap is one of the major deficits that many developing, least developed and small state economies are challenged with. The most affected from the digital divide are women across and within countries. According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap report, it will take another 267.6 years to close the gender gap for women’s economic participation. The pandemic has worsened this as economies have contracted and unemployment has risen. The worst impacted are the women who are employed in the non-digital sectors in micro small and medium (MSME) enterprises such as in tourism, textiles, handicrafts, processed food and agriculture sector. Furthermore, most of the women are employed in MSME sectors of the economy that were unorganized or informal in nature. As such the lack of capacity, knowledge on IT skills and digitalization have affected these segments of society. As such there is a need to empower women through leveraging digital infrastructure to address digital divide through training and capacity building. E-commerce and digital marketing are tools which can be useful for bridging this gap as during COVID-19 period most businesses transacted using these platforms.
Addressing the digital divide involves empowering youth and women across different regions through:
a) training and capacity building workshops to enable them to:
- successful e-commerce and digital marketing experiences of women entrepreneurs
- introduction to digital marketing and e-commerce
- hands-on training on how to register and link their business to e-commerce and digital marketing platforms
- building a network of women entrepreneurs and provide an opportunity to display their products and services to fellow participants
b) Development and adaptation of Cardano and Project Catalyst E-Learning courses/resources related to leveraging digital infrastructure to address digital divide including training on new digital tools which women can use for business performance, courses for policy makers for them to better understand the synergies of the digital economy and the technical aspects to better feed into policy decision making.
c) Undertaking joint research for countries that will add value in the area of digital infrastructure policy development and also address the digital divide through addressing the knowledge gaps of the digital economy.
Target audience:
The targeted audience for the project will be youth and women entrepreneurs from 54 Commonwealth member nations and UNESCAP region of Asia, Pacific, Africa, Europe and Carribean who will benefit from Cardano and Project Catalyst training and capacity building solutions to leverage e-commerce and digital marketing tools to promote their business and become part of regional and global supply chains and thereby also address digital divide.
Furthermore, e-learning training will target policy makers to better understand the issues surrounding the digital economy for them to better feed into policy decision making. The joint research is aimed to benefit policy makers too in closing the knowledge gap that currently exists between the business tech and the policy making community. The target audience will be from the Commonwealth and ESCAP Asia countries, as well as the Cardano global community and stakeholders
Cardano4good Impact initiatives such as Catalyst School, Wada, Beanchain Coffee and The Blockchain Learning Center, within the growing Cardano4Climate Education collective, are evolving to fill the gap in education of Cardano and Project Catalyst.
With collaboration within the Cardano ecosystem and beyond with The Commonwealth and UNESCAP, we seek funds to offer courses that will be made accessible on the Commonwealth e-learning platform in the first instance. This will in turn build bridges between ecosystems for greater collective intelligence capacity building and positive impact multiplier effects.
From the Cardano community established educators and stakeholders will contribute to this effort. The Catalyst School is key in our solution. The Catalyst School is a place created to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. We onboard new members and help improve their skills along the way, in any way they decide to engage with Catalyst: as a Proposer, a Community Advisor, a Veteran Community Advisor or without any specific role within the process. In order for Catalyst to flourish and reach its full potential, all these roles need to give their best contribution within the process.
So, this proposal seeks funds to provide capacity for Catalyst School to continue what they do best, and connect directly with potential new entrants, helping to bridge Cardano and the Catalyst community with The Commonwealth network, UNESCAP Asia countries, and the Accelerate 2030 and SDGs Building Bridges Week ecosystem, based in Geneva and the global UNDP and Impact Hub network."
The proposed solution will address the digital divide across countries through knowledge, training and capacity building and enable countries to build back better. It will also empower youth and women at grassroots levels to digitally engage in businesses, empower them and raise the overall standards of living.
The proposed solution will also empower the policy makers through closing the knowledge gaps through provision of technical training in the complex area of the digital economy. As a result enable them to feed into better policy and legislative decision making in relation to the digital economy.
Women entrepreneurs face many challenges in expanding their businesses and becoming part of regional and global supply chains because of lack of knowledge and the scale of their businesses (micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME)). The offline commerce is traditionally male-dominated. However, the accessibility and reach provided by the potential of e-commerce can be a powerful tool for bringing greater gains to the women entrepreneurs as it addresses the outmoded barriers of geographic isolation and limited access to information and financing. Through its formal and informal networks and ongoing working relationships with several key stakeholders (women entrepreneurs and women associations), ESCAP through the project will mobilize the strong commitment of women entrepreneurs and women associations of the participating countries and secure their proactive involvement in the implementation of the project. By doing so, the project will enhance the long-term sustainability of the project results as the participated women entrepreneurs and women associations would develop a strong sense of ownership of the project. Sustainability will also be enhanced when policy options and recommendations proposed by the project are embedded in the regulatory and policy frameworks in support for women entrepreneurship and women empowerment.