UN's Ngongi Namondo urges for more women in technology

"Bringing women and other marginalised groups into technology results in more creative solutions and has greater potential for innovations that meet women's needs and promote gender equality."

Those were the words of Susan Ngongi Namondo, the UN Resident Coordinator in Uganda, in her address at the national celebration of the International Women's Day at Kaaro High School in Sanga, Kiruhura district on Wednesday.

Marked every March 8, the national theme of this year's commemoration is 'Equal opportunities in education, science and technology for innovation'.

The global one is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality'.

President Museveni, accompanied by his wife Janet, presided over the women's day national celebrations in Kiruhura

Speaking in Kiruhura, Cameroonian diplomat Ngongi Namondo, said this year's theme "recognises the catalytic role that advancing gender equality can have on our overall development agenda".

By her side was Dr. Paulina Chiwangu, the UN Women country representative.

Ngongi Namondo said despite the continuing efforts towards gender parity, "women still enjoy less than their appropriate share of the overall development progress we are making globally and nationally across all the SDG (sustainable development goals) areas - in poverty reduction, education, health decent jobs, etc."

She cited UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres' message for this year's celebration.

"Women's exclusion from the digital world has shaven an estimated $1 trillion from the GDP of low and middle-income countries in the last decade. A loss that could grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025 if we don't take drastic action," she quoted him as saying.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres

The UN is warning that if gender equality and women's empowerment are not prioritised, the SDGs will not be met. Without significant progress in the two, Uganda could be destined for falling short of achieving Vision 2040.

SDG 5 concerns gender equality and is fifth of the 17 SDGs established by the UN in 2015.

'Digital divide'

With this year's theme in mind, Ngongi Namondo said the benefit of the internet has not reached everybody equally, especially in the underserved areas of Uganda.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) June 2022 statistics showed that there are 25 million phones connected to the network. Of these, about 10.9 million have access to internet. 

"This limited access to the internet has created a digital divide, which impacts the overall progress.

"One of the major challenges is the deficit in infrastructure, including electricity, internet cables and telecommunications masts or towers," said the UN Resident Coordinator.

The high cost of internet is also another related obstacle.

"There have been great efforts recently that the Government has deployed to reduce the cost of internet by NITA (National Information Technology Authority) and others, but the cost is still unfortunately too high," said Ngongi Namondo.

"There is need to expand the coverage of the national backbone to bring on board all parts of the country that benefit especially rural women, including institutions such as schools, community libraries, health centres and local government offices to facilitate efficient service delivery."

Education is one of the pillars that can advance this agenda.

"We need to continously work to eradicate the barriers at every level of education for all our children, especially girls. Barriers such as fees and requirements charge by Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools, which the most vulnerable in society cannot afford," said the diplomat, who has been representing the UN in Uganda since June 2021.

"We need to make sure that we take these barriers out of the way so that parents and children are able to access services as required."

Ngongi Namondo hailed the Government's efforts in pushing down poverty levels.

"According to the Uganda Poverty Status Report of 2021 produced by the finance ministry, the poverty rate was lower by 15.75% and 23.7% for households who had at least one beneficiary of the Senior Citizens Grant and Uganda Women's Entreprenuership Programme interventions, respectively.

"So we are extremely pleased. Congratulations to you for launching this group project and hopefully we will go towards supporting this very successful programme."

And her parting shot . . .

"I wish to congratulate everyone for the efforts that have been made for women. We know that without them we cannot achieve our goals and we look forward to continuously working with you, Mr. President, and your Government to be able to help advance these ambitions."