Questions/Answers
Question 1
Please briefly describe the initiative, what issue or challenge it aims to address and specify its objectives (300 words maximum)
There was an evidence of gender gap in women participation in ICT field in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. In addition to cultural traditions and stereotypes, internal and external barriers. Women in ICT faced discrimination in the workplace among their male peers, as most of the lead positions were assigned to males.
The ministry was able to create number of initiatives to address the gender gap and the low capacity and low awareness on women’s role as well as lack of inclusiveness approach. The initiative aims to qualify female cadres in the field of digital transformation and actively stimulate their participation in the labour market by empowering women through the sector strategy, which aims to build a digital system that embraces, develops and attracts women’s minds and skills in support of the digital transformation process and increasing the sustainability of quality work opportunities for women.
The initiatives had four main pillars, the first pillar is about raising awareness to increase the social and economic impact about the opportunities available to women in the communication an information technology sector through conducting events, awareness campaigns and forums for women.
The second pillar is about Digital Skills Development where training and qualifying women in digital and future skills to bridge the gap in the labor market by having training programs in different technical fields.
The third pillar is about Innovation and Entrepreneurship by encouraging innovation by providing training and facilities to qualify digital talent.
The last pillar is about Increasing Women’s Participation in the sector by implementing programs and initiatives to support employment and create job opportunities for women. The initiative is directly addressed in the Kingdoms’ vision 2030.
Question 2
Please explain how the initiative is linked to the selected category (100 words maximum)
The four main pillars address each aspect of the gender gap that existed, and the initiative is all about women empowerment. As the initiative falls in promoting gender-responsive public services to achieve the SDGs category, it is notable that creating a suitable environment through proper program development, content, and practices that responds to the realities of women and their roles that address the gender gap and trying to bridge it through accurate steps to insure the support of development of women as capable, strong and self-directed and a broad acknowledgment that women are achievers and equal to their male peers
Question 3
a. Please specify which SDGs and target(s) the initiative supports and describe concretely how the initiative has contributed to their implementation (200 words maximum)
SDG Goal 5 is related to women’s empowerment with the four-pillars initiative.
Target 5.1 is achieved by monitoring and encouraging programs for women in ICT fields, there is a 140% increase in women trainings between 2018-2019, and more than 500,000 girls have been trained in programming skills in #SaudiCodes initiative and 16,000 women were in digital skills programs.
Target 5.4 is reflected by equaling women with men payment scale and with leading roles. We can see also target 5.5 achieved by having more women in managerial positions as they are now considered an economic resource.
Target 5.6 a and b are reflected as well by seeing how women roles has been changed in positive way and how they are enabling technology to promote empowering women.
SGD 8 is achieved by having sustainability plans which enrich women roles and spread security sense of their role in ICT fields.
Target 8.2 is linked with increased number of females studying ICT has increase by 34.1% and subsequently would result in increase in the GDP.
One of the four pillars is focused on entrepreneurship programs as this fall in Target 8.3.
Target 8.5 is fully achieved by productive employment of women and the initiatives.
b. Please describe what makes the initiative sustainable in social, economic and environmental terms (100 words maximum)
The Ministry supports women’s empowerment by holding a women’s empowerment summit annually on International Women’s Day to achieve more engagement of the public to support the initiatives continuously
To have a work - life balance by establishing facilities to support women during the work ours, for example: kid’s daycare and female gym, this would result in an increase in happiness and positive energy, where is would also result in a better work-life balance.
Many of the ICT objectives is achieving faster and sustainable work results, this would result in a better advanced economic and environment
Question 4
a. Please explain how the initiative has addressed a significant shortfall in governance, public administration or public service within the context of a given country or region. (200 words maximum)
The shortfall was addressed from the highest level by adding the issue to the kingdom’s 2030 vision which directs and backs most of the initiatives.
The Ministry worked on designing a sustainable business model and support packages to motivate and support companies to establish and localize centers by covering the costs of recruitment, specialized training, qualification, vocational guidance, technical and administrative costs and office space and launched "The private sector stimulus initiative to localize applications and software development centres”
The initiative to motivate the private sector in particular technical companies to expand the scope of their business to the less fortunate areas in terms of job opportunities and business and the high rate of unemployment with the aim of localizing technology locally, achieving regional economic development in addition to raising the local technical content by stimulating the localization of a number of specialized technical centers In developing applications, software, outsourcing and communication centers to create qualitative job opportunities in a number of regions of the Saudi Arabia
we already have 23 centres in (Tabuk, Medina, Makkah, Jazan Eastern Province, Riyadh, Al-Qassim) in total of 275 female employees.
b. Please describe how your initiative addresses gender inequality in the country context. (100 words maximum)
Women, especially young ones, might find challenges in finding their voice and work in a male-dominated culture. Thus, and in line with current awareness efforts -such as those in the Women’s Enablement in Communications and Information Systems Sector Program Agreement with the Ministry of Human Resources & Social Development to develop enabling programs to Increase the rate of women's participation in the sector. We are working to ensure that female STEM graduates join the sector, to accompany them in the process of job hunting. Also, making men part of the conversation by including them in awareness campaigns.
c. Please describe who the target group(s) were, and explain how the initiative improved outcomes for these target groups. (200 words maximum)
Students & Job Seekers:
Qualifying women in digital and future skills to fill the gap in the labour market by launching training programs in several modern, traditional and emerging technical fields in various regions of the Kingdom. 18,396female in future skills program, 30 in the web design camp, 225 students in the Cyber Boot Camp
Women employees & leaders:
Encouraging and qualifying female employees in the telecommunications sector for leadership positions by providing qualitative training to develop leadership and technical skills and create appropriate opportunities for them. There are 100 beneficiaries of several leadership training programs
Women entrepreneurs:
We believe in innovation and entrepreneurship as the driving force for industry. So, we focus in helping women star their own business in ICT. Female entrepreneurs in the sector has also reached 5591 woman, we are building a network of innovation labs for entrepreneurs to explore ideas and test new business innovative models, and come up with solutions to improve the in-ICT sector by providing training, business accelerators and incubators, and facilitating access to markets, financing, technologies, attractive legislation, digital talent and entrepreneurial societies, in Tech Champions 2020, 1352 Female beneficiary of the program and 36 Entrepreneur
Question 5
a. Please describe how the initiative was implemented including key developments and steps, monitoring and evaluation activities, and the chronology. (300 words)
The program includes five tracks
She Inspires
This stream aims to spread digital knowledge of women, Change the stereotype, and raise awareness about the opportunities available to women in the communications and information technology sector. Through the establishment of many events such as “women in ICT Summit” that we launch every year, Women in Data Science Summit, awareness campaigns and success stories
She Thrives
MCIT has launched extensive training program to enhance the digital skills of the women workforce and qualifying women in digital and future skills to bridge the gap in the labor market by training programs in several modern to align with market needs and future technology trends and to prepare new women graduates for ICT market
She Innovates
Supporting them to become employers and not job seekers. We are building a network of innovation labs that helps students and entrepreneurs. To explore ideas and test new business innovative models, and come up with solutions that can contribute to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and Vision 2030 by providing training, business accelerators and incubators, and facilitating access to markets, financing and technologies.
She Leads
We have designed a C -level executive training program. Specially for women to enable them to develop their new leadership skills and to prepare them for key executive roles in ICT market, with designing multiple training programs to Increasing women's access to leadership positions and the training module is "leadership skills, organizational effectiveness, effective communications and leading changes
She Works
Increasing women participation in the labor market is a focus in this program as it is an important goal in vision 2030 and the ICT sector strategy from that we’ve seen a growth of the women percentage in the ICT sector from 11% by 2017 to 17% by end of 2020
b. Please clearly explain the obstacles encountered and how they were overcome. (100 words)
women do not choose to study & work in the ICT sector as much as their male counterparts. They leave the sector in mid-career and are significantly more affected by barriers that prevent them from moving ahead to decision-making positions. The cultural traditions & stereotypes is one of the obstacles we have. Therefore, we have held forums, campaigns, and highlighting the success stories in order to increase the awareness. We believe that inclusion has to start top-down. That is why we have designed a C -level executive training program for women to enable them to develop their new leadership skills
Question 6
a. Please explain in what ways the initiative is innovative in the context of your country or region. (100 words maximum)
The program lunch new diversity and inclusiveness initiatives in 2021:
"Women Empowerment Award in ICT”
A yearly Award to achieve the women empowerment goals and the sustainable development goals in ICT sector. The Award targeting Women in the ICT sector "Government, Private, and on-profit sector. The Award candidate are students, employees, leaders, entrepreneurs, volunteers.
Women Empowerment Council in ICT
Held quarterly to deal with everything related to all affairs of female employees in the sector.
Identifying the challenges facing women’s empowerment in ICT sector, then to develop the necessary plans and programs to enhance women’s participation in the sector
b. Please describe, if relevant, how the initiative drew inspiration from successful initiatives in other regions, countries and localities. (100 words maximum)
Gender equality is a cornerstone of modern societies and prosperous economies. Thus, it is critical to ensure that both men and women can contribute to societies and economies' advancement. Furthermore, the digital transformation offers new paths and leapfrog opportunities for women's economic empowerment. This report aims to provide policy recommendations to increase female participation in the ICT in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry gives great importance to the intuitive due to the national movement of empowering women across all sectors in addition to be one of the goals of vision 2030 and information and ICT sector strategy.
c. If emerging and frontier technologies were used, please state how those were integrated into the initiative and/or how the initiative embraced digital government. (100 words maximum)
MCIT have adopted emerging technologies in most of its initiatives, and have dedicated one called Think tech to raise awareness about 4.0 IR tech, together with women empowerment we have total of () beneficiaries in Future trucks and virtual labs.
Virtual labs are: a website that allows the users to create virtual models using emerging technologies, such as 3d printers, Arduinos. Etc.. And deliver those prototypes to them
Future trucks: A Truck equipped with Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies that roams in public places and schools to present the sciences of digital manufacturing based on innovation and science fiction
Question 7
a. Has the initiative been transferred and/or adapted to other contexts (e.g. other cities, countries or regions) to your organization’s knowledge? If yes, please explain where and how. (200 words maximum)
The initiative had been presented to inside and outside parties in the Kingdom. Some of the internal parties are private companies such as DELL, Monshaat, others are public entities such as Ministry of Labor and society development, institute of Public Administration and Emirate regions.
The initiative had been presented to some countries such as Egypt and Oman.
b. If not yet transferred/adapted to other contexts, please describe the potential for transferability. (200 words maximum)
We know for a fact that women is half of the society, and we are working towards spreading awareness of her important role in ICT in the country and in the region as well, some future plan would be regarding participation in global forums and regional conferences about women and their role and their effort in lifting their position while enhancing social, economic and environment impact.
Question 8
a. What specific resources (i.e. financial, human or others) were used to implement the initiative? (100 words maximum)
The kingdom vision 2030 places the ICT as the key enabler of a digital society, a digital government, and a thriving digital economy. We got the financial and human resources with the support of regulations that ensured efficiency from government, privet, and NGOs sectors. They provide venues, coaches trainers, Mentors, and materials. In addition to Attaa and Thinktech initiatives inside MCIT, Also women empowerment is on the priorities of the government and being supported.
b. Please explain what makes the initiative sustainable over time, in financial and institutional terms. (100 words maximum)
One of the main goals of the Women’s Empowerment program is to contribute to sustainable goals so we have been keen in our training programs and camps, for example, the trainee is able to become a trainer. In addition, the Female Entrepreneurs one of the highest in the world. Also, we strongly believe that inclusion must start top-down. That is why we designed a C -level executive training program specially for women
The ministry insures to include women empowerment initiative in its main strategy and as a clear objective in master plan.
Question 9
a. Was the initiative formally evaluated either internally or externally?
Yes
b. Please describe how it was evaluated and by whom? (100 words maximum)
ITU – MCIT
An internal team was assembled to evaluate the initiative and it impact. This team requested the private sector to participate as well in this evaluation. The team created an evaluation module that consisted of 3 main points: Idea and planning, Impact and development, and success factors. Each main points was divided to sub-points to make the evaluation more effective and a scoring system was built.
c. Please describe the indicators and tools used (100 words maximum)
• Percentage of women in the sector
• Number of women leaders
• Number of trainees
• Number of female entrepreneurs
A swot analysis was made for the whole ministry, brainstorming sessions were conducted in order to create the four main pillars as well as a hug mind map was written in order to create a plan and bridge the gap in the gender gap.
d. What were the main findings of the evaluation (e.g. adequacy of resources mobilized for the initiative, quality of implementation and challenges faced, main outcomes, sustainability of the initiative, impacts) and how this information is being used to inform the initiative’s implementation. (200 words maximum)
The evaluation showed an increased number of women who are benefiting from the initiative in its different pillars. The private plays a vital role in women in ICT, or even in the ICT sector, the built partnership has enriched the communication and eventually the impact. As numbers of beneficiaries were increasing, the positive reflection is increased as well. It is notable that the moral is at it highest with positive energy and productivity as well. Part of the evaluation showed some resistance to change in the culture and in some leaders, such resistance was delt with care, as the initiative is important, change management approach was used to reduce the level of resistance and to reduce the tension in the work place, the approach resulted in positive outcomes and positive implementation. It was critical to ensure the initiative would be sustainable thus is was embedded in the ministry strategy and main objectives. And this created a level of trust and comfort in women.
Question 10
Please describe how the initiative is inscribed in the relevant institutional landscape (for example, how it was situated with respect to relevant government agencies, and how the institutional relationships with those have been operating). (200 words maximum)
The kingdom vision 2030 and it efforts to achieve a cohesive method of quality between met and women of society in various fields including the ICT by enhancing their rights, support systems and care programs, thus improving their work environment in all sectors. Women rights in Saudi are in accordance with Saudi regulations, justice decisions strengthening women’s rights, women empowerment in education and training, female health, social support, business, and politics.
The law of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, derived from Islamic law, adopt the principle of complementary equality between men and women, taking into account the characteristics of both sexes, to achieve ultimate justice. As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia believes that the integration of the relationship between the sexes is an ideal way to promote and protect human rights and to guarantee the equality between men and women, such as the rights to work, education, health, economic rights and others.
The Kingdom established reforms dedicated to the promotion of women’s engagement in economic development by setting an equal age for both genders, preventing gender discrimination in terms of wages, occupation, work field and hours, and enabling women to incorporate and practice commercial business without obtaining prior consent.
Question 11
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts emphasis on collaboration, engagement, partnerships, and inclusion. Please describe which stakeholders were engaged in designing, implementing and evaluating the initiative and how this engagement took place. (200 words maximum)
The women empowerment initiative has started when HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Salman promised about women empowerment. The ministry partnered with the private sector along with its internal qualified team to run the initiative and empower women. The initiative is derived from the 2030 vision, Vision 2030 places the ICT as the key enabler of a digital society, a digital government, and a thriving digital economy.
We got the financial and human resources with the support of regulations that ensured efficiency from Government, privet and NGOs sectors. They provide venues, coaches trainers, Mentors and materials. For example: Ministry of labor & society development, Ministry of Education. STC, DELL, ZAIN, IBM, Huawei, and Misk. Universities, and Institutions as INSEAD Business School, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University ِ also helped in implementing women programs such as training, cotching, etc.
We can see all different stakeholders were keen to achieve the vision, HRH vision of women empowerment.
Question 12
Please describe the key lessons learned, and how your organization plans to improve the initiative. (200 words maximum)
We are convinced how important is the role of women in building the economy and environment through ICT. In the labour market, and although women represent 35% of the total labour force, measured against the ICT sector, their participation falls to 15%. Furthermore, women leave the sector in mid-career more often than men –leaky pipeline- and are significantly more affected by barriers that prevent them from moving ahead to decision-making positions.
Our plan:
• Ensure that female STEM graduates join the sector, to accompany them in the process of job hunting. Simultaneously, promote entry-level positions such as coding, programming, data cleaning for those without college degrees.
• Make men part of the conversation by including them in awareness campaigns, mentorship programs to support women’s development throughout their careers.
• Focusing on women leaders and providing training programs to qualify them for leadership (executive) positions.
• Continue in the awareness campaigns, continue in participation in summits and conferences to educate and encourage women all over the kingdom, to ensure sustainability and increase activity.
• Respect the culture, change the resistance through using the right tools.