An initiative to close the gender digital divide announced last year by United States Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining steam at this year’s U.N. General Assembly.
The Women in the Digital Economy Fund, or WiDEF, a $60 million initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Gates Foundation, last Friday announced two new partners to its roster: the India-based Reliance Foundation and the UPS Foundation. It also unveiled the 20 semifinalists that made the cut for WiDEF’s first funding round — 85% of which are women-led. It’s an elite cohort. The call for proposals was flooded with over 1,350 applications from 98 countries.
WiDEF also released a report detailing the state of women’s digital inclusion — and in many ways, it’s in a sorry state, with 244 million more men than women using the internet in 2023. And in low-income countries, just one-fifth of women have access to the internet compared with one-third of men.
About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
