Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER 
WOMEN
Renate Bloem, President, Conference of NGOs (CONGO)
Conference of NGOs has been actively involved in the preparation and the holding of the 
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) by trying to create the largest possible 
space for participation of all civil society entities, including the women’s caucus. The 
implementation and follow-up to the WSIS is done by a complex architecture, including, 
the ECOSOC Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), the 
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the Global Alliance for ICTs and Development 
(GAID) which has brought us all together here. CONGO is now working hard to keep a 
significant level of NGO participation in the activities of all these mechanisms, although 
women’s activists from all over the world succeeded in inscribing on the conference 
agenda and in the Beijing Declaration and Programme of Action the key issues of 
women’s empowerment and gender equality in the Beijing Conference of Women.
The twelve Beijing areas of concern have not been lived up to. Altogether, women still 
don’t hold enough decision-making power in politics and economics, even though some 
lucky exceptions exist and several developing countries have done real progress.
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals do not only need high profile women that 
hold power in politics and economics, but ordinary women who assume leadership roles 
at the grassroots level, within their families and communities, where they have the 
greatest chance to change mentalities. ICTs can greatly help us achieving women’s 
empowerment and gender equality and thereby contribute to the realization of the 
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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