Technology as a Driver of Gender Equality and Peace

CSIS Commentary by Abigail Edwards, Alexis Day, and Erol Yayboke

Between March 6–17, UN member states, UN agencies, and NGOs from around the world will meet at the 67th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Established in 1946, the CSW has been the primary forum through which the United Nations—and the broader international system—has promoted gender equality and the empowerment of women. This year’s theme is innovation, technological change, and education in the digital age, with an overarching mission to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

At the same time as CSW delegates convene in New York, the U.S. government will inch closer to releasing strategies for the country-level implementation of the Global Fragility Act (GFA) The GFA led to the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS), a 10-year, whole-of-government effort that portends to reshape how the United States approaches these challenges, starting in nine countries: Papua New Guinea (PNG), Mozambique, Libya, Haiti, and five countries across Coastal West Africa. The GFA does not have a congressionally mandated gender focus and thus the SPCPS does not overly focus on gender; however, country strategies will hopefully acknowledge that gender inequality contributes to much of the state fragility in question. Women are left out of decisionmaking spaces, excluded from the paid labor force, deprived of access to valuable assets, and regularly experience gender-based violence to varying degrees in each of these nine countries—all dynamics that can exacerbate state fragility. These dynamics can be mitigated, at least in part, through technology.

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