By Ruth Douglas
Public and private investments must address the financial barriers preventing women from benefiting fully from digital technologies and artificial intelligence as multiple global crises and aid cuts bite.
That's the view of Shobha Shetty, a senior agricultural adviser to the World Bank and head of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), a World Bank-hosted multilateral finance platform that supports agriculture, food security and climate-resilient development in low-income countries.
Shetty warns that too often women are treated as numbers when it comes to digital access.
Women risk being left behind in the "polycrisis" of climate change and mounting food insecurity without deliberate action to increase their rights to land and water, and their inclusion in digital innovation, according to a report published on Thursday (Oct. 15) by the global agricultural research network CGIAR.
Rising fertilizer prices caused by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, plus a severe El Niño weather event this year, are also increasing pressures on smallholders, particularly women, said Shetty in an interview with SciDev.Net.
Click here to see more...