CASE STUDY 4: GLOBAL DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT

“DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE DIGITAL GENDER GAP”

A new ‘digital economy’ (or information economy) has emerged as digital technologies have
increased the amount of information available, with increasing ease of access and reducing
costs. ‘This has facilitated searching, matching, and sharing of information and contributed to
greater organization and collaboration among economic agents—influencing how firms operate,
people seek opportunities, and citizens interact with their governments’ (World Bank, 2016, p.8).
Considering the impacts of ICT into businesses, government, academe, science, agriculture,
industry, and such, we can conclude that the technology almost encompass everything as these
changes how everything works and as what are these things are made of through modifications.
Digital technology modifies in the areas of job and employment, service delivery, social norms
and values, e-government and online application, as well as, skills and education. However, ICT
issues such as digital gender gap/ divide, poor digital access among rural areas, and etc. can
still be trace in these areas mentioned as they are related to these issues.
-De Guzman, Allonah G.

Women who have less access and are differently empowered when it comes to certain
technologies and particularly as they are positioned as consumers rather than producers of
technology faces digital gender gap. It is believed that digital gender gap exists from the time
that personal computers and Internet connections become popular. According to an article,
digital gender gap is so important that it is needed to reduce and control by means of
addressing the barriers to women’s access and use of the Internet and digital services, as well
as their participation in the digital sector. We need to address issues of gender equality and
social norms, as well as focusing on accessibility, affordability, safety, usability, and training of
digital skills and the availability of relevant content, applications and services.
-Delos Santos, Graciella Mae

While there is a widespread acknowledgement that the world is undergoing a digital revolution
which is changing the way people, businesses, and countries operate and develop, the digital
gender gap still persist and in some context, are growing. Globally, the proportion of women
using the Internet worldwide is 12% lower than the proportion of men. The nature of these
gender divide is rooted in structural gender inequalities and more research is needed to
understand it in its specific context. It is indeed a fact that digital gender gap still persists and
continue to persist as the factors that contribute to this such as poor education and skills among
women, social norms and values, age variations, and such aren't control in a way that these will
never affect women on owning and using technologies and as they can overcome risks and
receive more opportunities.
-Mendoza, Cedrick C.

The promotion of digital technologies to develop three mechanisms: inclusion, efficiency, and
innovation lead into the global digital development. Inclusion mechanism expands trade,
creating jobs, increase access to public services, and thus promoting inclusion. Efficiency
mechanism covers digital technology augment factors not substituted and make them more
productive by easier, quicker, and more convenient to carry out. Innovation mechanism leads to
a ‘new economy due to the existence of e-commerce platforms, digital payment system, e-
books, streaming music, and social media. These mechanisms are evidence of how digital
technologies transform society into a digitalized form as these can be apply into areas of
business, people and government.
-Ramos, Mark Louie P.

The Global Digital Development was triggered as the potential gains from digital technologies
became high. These potential gains lead into economic growth as digital technologies help
businesses become more productive; jobs – providing greater access to employment
opportunities; and services – as governments capacity to deliver better public services
increases. Many more people, businesses and governments are gaining access to, and are
using, digital technologies across the world. However, being a digitalized economy doesn't solve
other common problems of society such as poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to education
and such but it may help the society to slowly reduce the effects of these problems as
technologies brought a better life to the people.
-Sales, Queency Cole M.