Access to Knowledge for Development Center
17.06.2021

Introduction

In collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Egypt, the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) hosted “Women, Data and Code: Gender Inclusion in MENA’s Digital Economy”, a webinar aiming to engage in a conversation on women in the digital economy in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. The speakers, Jazem Halioui (Founder & CEO at WebRadar.me, Tunisia), Nada Ihab (Policy Manager at Access Partnership, United Kingdom), and Manal Jalloul (Co-founder of AI-Lab, NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, American University in Beirut, Lebanon) shared their insights on a number of questions about women as subjects of data and makers of technology, as well as the ways in which digital technologies can help women navigate frictions caused by social, cultural, economic and legal barriers.

Women as subjects and makers of data 

Among the ideas discussed within the broader theme of women as subjects of data and participants in the technology-making process was the way in which patriarchy is intertwined with gender representation of data in MENA. Panelist Manal Jalloul spoke specifically to the gaps created in women’s representation in data by inequalities embedded by patriarchy in data collection processes. Indeed, the issue of the gender data gap manifests elsewhere in the world. Journalist Caroline Criado Perez recently published a book titled, ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’, in which she explains how the gap is caused by researchers in various fields failing to collect data on women.

This gap is not a matter of simple oversight, Perez argues, but rather part of a structural problem that can sometimes lead to dangerous consequences. As an example, Perez notes how women are sometimes misdiagnosed by doctors who train to recognize symptoms almost exclusively in men.

Women’s visibility in data, medical or otherwise, is also connected to broader issues. Panelist Nada Ihab pointed to fundamental inequalities among men and women with respect to access as an example. Ihab particularly outlined limited digital skills and know-how, the high cost of devices and network connectivity, as well as a lack of relevant content to engage women, as primary causes behind the lack of accurate representation of women in data. 

Both panelists pointed to the phenomenon whereby resulting algorithmic models, which are continuously ‘fed’ data biased against women, end up further exacerbating existing inequalities. A recent report by the World Wide Web foundation has referred to this phenomenon, highlighting that ‘AI systems are only as good as the data they rely on during the training phase’. As a result, ‘building AI on biased datasets encourages the systems to learn the values embedded in them, and further cement the patterns of exclusion and discrimination, including racial discrimination currently present in the world’. As such, and as an alternative, both Jalloul and Ihab agreed that the process of designing algorithms should be ‘reiterative, whereby algorithms are monitored for the biases they hold and corrected by a feedback loop’.

As a woman in a senior position belonging to the field of STEM, Jalloul specifically reflected on the challenges that face women in the field, as well as those involved in entrepreneurship. Reflecting on her experience with AI Lab, Jalloul spoke to the social dimension of related difficulties: ‘starting your own company in the MENA region as a woman and entrepreneur in AI and data is not easy…I could be the only woman in the room and it feels unnerving speaking about your research in a room full of men’. Jalloul’s testimony is an accurate reflection of available statistics about the region. A 2016 ILO report places the percentage of women CEOs in MENA at just 13 percent of the total, the lowest representation globally.

On a related and more recent note, a study into the value of women entrepreneurs to the post-COVID-19 pandemic economy has found evidence of a shortage of funding for women-led startups in MENA. The study attributes this trend to ‘unconscious bias’, given that ‘venture capital investors are mostly men’. This was mentioned as an additional challenge by Jalloul, who noted access to funding was scarce due to the fact that the majority of existing investors in the field are men.

Jalloul further noted that the presence and active participation of women in STEM is frustrated by domestic responsibilities, the burden of which is mostly shouldered by women. Indeed, an earlier webinar hosted by A2K4D and FES Egypt, titled ‘Women & the Future of Work: The Urgency of Inclusion’ delved deeper into the ‘double shift’ phenomenon – full-time labour carried out by women, at both the office and household. The phenomenon was discussed by panelist Nada Shousha, regional advisor to the International Finance Corporation, for whom the ‘pandemic simply amplified the already existing inequalities behind why women do not join the workforce’ (generally, not just STEM). One example of this amplification was how, ‘while working mothers around the world continue to work a double shift…the pandemic eliminated support, in the form of school and childcare, which was vital to the sustainability of the double shift. In a similar vein, for Jalloul, ‘businesses, companies, and governments are not providing enough support for women to stay in their careers’.

Gender-focused Initiatives for an Equitable Digital Economy 

These rich discussions had by our recent and past panelists speak to each other and raise important questions in connection with the future status of women in the digital economy. Indeed, what are companies, businesses, and governments doing to support women in their digital endeavors? What kind of support is necessary to ensure a more equitable future for women? In the following, we try to highlight a few initiatives which provide some answers for the context of Egypt. Which gender-focused initiatives have been launched to solidify women’s place in the digital economy? Are they civil society or government led? 

1. ‘Heya Ra’eda’ Program by TIEC

An example of one such gender-focused initiative is Heya Ra’eda, Arabic for ‘she leads’. The program is launched by the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC), an affiliate to the Egyptian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and offers women in the Information and Communication Technology sector a number of business development workshops and activities. According to the initiative’s website, the ‘primary target audience of this program are female entrepreneurs whose product is technology or the entrepreneurs who use technology as an assistive factor to commercialize their products’. The program runs for multiple rounds a year, with each round enrolling a maximum of 20 participants.

2. Women-Up

Women-Up is an Egyptian initiative funded by the European Union, and coordinated by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology. The initiative aims to support women-led businesses in Egypt by ‘enabling an environment for their start-ups and creating sustainable support between young female social entrepreneurs and women single headed households who led micro business’.

3. Planning and Economic Development Ministry Equal Opportunities Unit 

In response to issues arising as a result of gender discrimination, such as workplace abuse, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development in Egypt is reportedly establishing an ‘Equal Opportunities Unit’, which aims to promote gender inclusiveness in a number of government entities. Early reports indicate that the unit will be established across entities affiliated with the ‘Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, including the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, the National Planning Institute and the Demographic Center’. While this initiative does not relate directly to the digital economy, part of the units’ mandate is preparing databases of employees within the ministry and its affiliated agencies. This innovative use of data-driven reports to address the challenges and reflect the realities of women working at the ministry is hoped to then ensure women have further access to training, educational programmes and a stable work-life balance.

4. Henkel and GIZ collaboration 

On the civil society side, Henkel Egypt, in cooperation with the German development agency GIZ, has recently launched the “ProGirls Project” initiative. The initiative aims to ‘encourage girls to explore new fields of work, which for years have been perceived to be exclusive for men, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics’.  Henkel representatives state the programme aims to qualify girls to use the ‘latest global technical and digital solutions, while training them in a multinational and multicultural work environment’.

5. Motoon’s Noon Program

Described by Motoon as an ‘intervention’, the Noon program aims to apply ‘a gender lens to technology and particularly to women and technology’. Through this program, Motoon attempts to identify women in tech, working to actively integrate and normalize ‘their presence in the broader community of techies’. The objectives of the program include, advocating women empowerment & bridging the gender gap in tech field at all levels; making tech more accessible to women & encouraging them to “competency, mastery”; and achieving equal women representation in the field of technology.

On the one hand, in most of the cases surveyed above, it is too soon to tell whether these initiatives are indeed effective in terms of gender empowerment in the realm of the digital economy. Some initiatives, such as the ProGirls project, were launched as recently as June 2021. On the other hand, if one thing is for certain, it is that there is much room for further development and multi-stakeholder efforts. For example, one thought-provoking fact is how difficult it was to find examples of initiatives from the ground up, launched by civil society – the majority belonged to the government sector. 

While this development is exciting and these efforts are commendable, (indicating that the government is committed to advancing gender equality), it is interesting to think how much the existing support ecosystem would benefit from further involvement from the grassroots. For example, a quick comparison between civil initiatives and government initiatives would reveal that the former, by nature, are able to reach more marginalized populations in need of support. Additionally, the flexibility offered by civil initiatives also allows for more room to experiment with different methods until the right formula to address gender inequality is found. Furthermore, and perhaps on a related note, government programs, such as the Heya Ra’eda program or Women-Up, tend to focus on training women in ‘cycles’, starting and ending on specific date frames. Civil society initiatives, such as Motoon, are often permanently grounded in specific areas, and can therefore potentially create more sustainable changes.

Perhaps a comparative approach is not necessary at all. A more productive one would rely on and capitalize on the strengths enjoyed by both, as well as other sectors. Recent years have witnessed the rise of multistakeholderism. The term itself has been described as ‘a fairly recent form of global governance’ which aims to ‘bring together stakeholders – anyone with a stake in the discussion to address a specific policy challenge or goal’. The stakeholders we mentioned in this piece are governments and civil society, but multistakeholderism makes room for many more actors and their expertise.

These can range from experts at international institutions, technical experts, industry experts, as well as academics. This approach would therefore provide all parties involved and invested in advancing gender equality with more diverse options, particularly in respect of innovative ways of navigating the gender question in the digital economy. It is the resulting initiatives of multi-stakeholder collaborations that are inclusive of diverse representatives from society that can be counted on to change the tide.

It is clear that the tide is already changing on the part of different stakeholders across both the public and private sector in terms of recognizing the urgent need for a more equitable digital sphere. Further collaborations between more varied stakeholders, which take an outwardly gender-responsive approach, are much-needed to further bolster women’s status in the digital economy in Egypt.