At the end of 2016, the sectoral program „Promoting Gender equality and women’s rights” launched the GIZ-wide competition “Empowerment of women through digital solutions“ calling for proposals of measures that use an innovative “digital solution” which specifically strengthens women and girls and helps reduce gender-based discrimination.
The competition triggered a great response: a total of 63 contributions were submitted, covering an impressive variety of regions and sectors. This multitude of proposals clearly shows that there is huge potential for digital solutions in empowering women and promoting gender equality.
Eventually, three winning measures were selected by a jury consisting of representatives from different GIZ-units (Sectoral Department, divisions G200 and G400 of Sector and Global Programs) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The implementation of the three awarded digital measures will be financed and backstopped by the sectoral program:
1. Women Plant Doctors 2.0
The measure will be jointly implemented by the two GIZ programs „Promotion d’une Agriculture Durable et du Développement Rural (PAD)“ and „Innovations pour l’Agriculture et l’Agro-alimentaire (IAAA)“ in Tunisia. Female smallholder farmers will gain access to information and knowledge about plant diseases through a smartphone-app in order to better prevent harvest failures.
2. Smartphone-game about labour rights
The GIZ-program „Social and labour standards in the textile and garment sector in Asia“ will develop a smartphone-app targeting female garment workers in Myanmar. The app seeks to empower them through a gaming approach. The women can playfully acquire knowledge about their rights, to claim these rights and to build a network among themselves.
3. Fight violence against women through an app
A new smartphone-app will be piloted by the GIZ-program „Participatory Initiative for Social Accountability (PISA)” in Lesotho. The app will facilitate reporting and persecution of cases of violence against women, which also helps to increase the accountability of (police) agencies.
After completion, learning experiences and possibilities for a scaling-up of the piloted measures will be compiled and made available to other programs. This not only contributes to the GIZ corporate objective “Increase digital innovative capacities”, but also improves and increases the gender equality portfolio!
Further information and updates on the implementation of the three awarded measures will be available on www.gender-in-german-development.net soon.
For any inquiries concerning the competition please contact Stephanie Mumenthaler: stephanie.mumenthaler@giz.de
Contact Details
Name: Stephanie MumenthalerEmail: stephanie.mumenthaler@giz.de