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International Women’s Day 2023 – Bridging the digital gender divide for equality in the HKH

Pema Gyamtsho

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Today is 8th March – International Women’s Day. Beyond celebrating the success of women in numerous fields and progress made in advancing gender equity globally, we must use this event as an urgent reminder that there is much more that needs to be done by all of us together to achieve gender equality in our region and to eradicate all forms of discrimination against women and girls.

Here at ICIMOD, we reaffirm our commitment to achieving gender equality, and to fostering women’s and girls’ empowerment as a first step to bridge the many gaps that exist. One such gap is the digital gender divide. UN Women’s theme for IWD 2023 is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality” – highlighting the need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education.

This IWD, we are focusing on the importance of digital innovation and technology for reducing gender inequality and tackling climate change. Our MTAP V 2023–2026 is committed to building capacity through digitalisation and engagement with women and the youth to collectively act on combating climate change and its impacts. Moreover, ICIMOD seeks to promote women-led innovations to accelerate gender equality. At the same time, we must actively protect the rights of women and girls, create spaces for using digital technology and online platforms safely and mitigate against gender-based violence occurring online or facilitated by ICTs.

Another gap that we seek to highlight during IWD is the underrepresentation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. According to UNESCO, women account for only 28% of engineering graduates and 40% of graduates in computer science and informatics fields essential for the transitioning to a just and low-carbon economy. The Global Gender Gap Report 2022 states that the pandemic, climate emergency and large-scale conflicts and displacement have halted the progress towards gender equality with an intensifying risk of reversal.

At the programmatic level, we continue to address the STEM gender gap through our training on women in geospatial information technology (GIT) under our SERVIR-HKH regional initiative and promoting leadership of women researchers and professionals in this sector. Under the spring revival work, we have trained a team of women para-hydrogeologists in long-term data gathering, monitoring and community mobilisation; this is to ensure their meaningful participation in spring governance. These interventions attempt to break gender stereotypes and showcase the critical role of women in STEM. However, challenges remain in the mountain context of the HKH, where access to digital technologies and innovation is almost non-existent for women and girls.

Women and girls in the HKH region are navigating through climate change-related uncertainty and hardships, and the disruptions to lives and livelihoods with growing water scarcity, unpredictable and extreme weather events, falling productivity, and poor access to financial resources and market linkages. With innovation and technology, there is great potential to promote context-specific solutions that are gender responsive, simple, and affordable. However, technology alone is not the solution. While technology holds great promise to help boost various aspects of climate action, the climate crisis is a complex challenge that cannot be solved with technology alone.

Focusing on climate adaptation and resilience of women and girls requires investing adequately in supporting, testing, and scaling digitally enabled solutions that benefit those most at risk and collaborations at scale through financing and promoting gender responsive policies needed for systemic change. While changing perceptions and narratives is a good start, more work is needed to attract and retain women in climate and tech roles to derive benefits from green solutions which cater to their needs and reduce climate risks.

Let’s use this IWD as a serious call to arms – to really drive forward gender and social inclusion work with impact, and to bridge the digital gender divide for equality in the HKH. At ICIMOD, we commit to ensure that equal opportunities rights for women are embedded in our organisational culture and in the programmes that we implement.

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山地被广泛认为是生物多样性的发源地,其陡峭的斜坡孕育了各种繁复的生命形式。这些地区作为自然的庇护所变得愈发重要:虽然它们只占据了地球总面积的四分之一,却容纳了地球上85%的两栖动物、鸟类和哺乳动物。这种丰富的自然资源在联合国教科文组织的738个全球生物圈保护区中得到体现,其中明显超过一半位于山区。 然而,令人担忧的是,这些自然资源的非凡丰富正面临威胁。过去,由于偏远或地形困难,山地得以免受人类干扰,但如今这种状况逐渐减少。曾经被视为大自然摇篮和避难所的山地正在逐渐转变成墓地。在兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区,上个世纪就已经失去了70%的生物多样性。这些损失,包括物种的灭绝,如今正以加速度增长,正如ICIMOD的重要评估报告《兴都库什喜马拉雅的水、冰、社会和生态系统》(简称《HIWISE报告》)所指出的那样。 在公众、政治和外交层面,人们越来越认识到自然是我们当前危机中最重要的解决方案之一。联合国已宣布2021-2030年为生态系统恢复十年,去年,《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》的指导下,全球100多个政府承诺在2030年之前将30%的陆地和海洋保留给自然,其中包括兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区。今年,在联合国全球气候大会COP28上,自然首次成为讨论的核心议题。 这些努力,以及今年国际山岳日的“生态系统恢复”主题,为恢复和保护山区景观提供了迫切需要的推动力。那么,我们的八个成员国离实现“30x30”目标有多近呢?到目前为止,不丹是唯一一个实际超额达标的国家,其51.4%的土地面积已经属于各种保护区类别。 尼泊尔只有不到24%的土地受到保护;中国仅为16%,略高于目标的一半;巴基斯坦占12%;印度为8%;缅甸为7%;孟加拉国为5%,阿富汗为4%。 令人担忧的是,在整个兴都库什-喜马拉雅地区,自然资源仍然丰富的关键区域仍处在保护之外:67%的生态区、39%的生物多样性热点、69%的关键生物多样性区域以及76%的重要鸟类和生物多样性区都没有得到保护。 现有的保护区域犹如在人类改变过的景观中的“孤岛”,缺乏与其他保护区域的连通走廊,无法满足广泛分布的物种需求,并且面临非法捕猎、侵占和资源开采的压力。现有的保护区域不足以确保成功保护我们地区的象征性物种,包括亚洲象、独角犀牛和孟加拉虎。 一个尚未尝试的解决方案是建立跨界生物圈保护区,这将允许在景观层面进行综合保护。实现这一目标需要跨越国家边界的共同政治承诺,并在共享生态系统的管理方面展开合作。ICIMOD将积极推动我们区域成员国接受这一解决方案。 然而,底线是,要扭转自然的损失,我们必须对其进行估值并提供相应的资金支持。只要经济学家继续将其价值定为零,就不会引起足够的重视。在进行估值之前,拥有大量自然资本但经济欠发达的国家将因为缺乏3A信用评级而难以以较低贷款利率借款。必须为该地区的国家提供更便宜的资本来促使自然的恢复:这是ICIMOD将与我们的成员、多边开发银行和其他机构紧急合作推进的事项。为了防止地球系统完全崩溃,我们必须为大自然提供一个适宜的生存环境,这一观点从未像现在这样显而易见。

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