Womenchapter Desk:
“On this International Day, I urge commitment to end bias, greater investments in STEM education for all women and girls as well as opportunities for their careers and longer-term professional advancement so that all can benefit from their ground-breaking future contributions,”-United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres
United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres on 11th February, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, urged greater investments in teaching science, technology, engineering and math to all women and girls as well as equal access to these opportunities.
“For too long, discriminatory stereotypes have prevented women and girls from having equal access to education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM),” said Mr. Guterres in his message for International Day of Women and Girls in Science, marked annually on 11 February.
“As a trained engineer and former teacher, I know that these stereotypes are flat wrong,” he said, explaining that they deny women and girls the chance to realize their potential – and deprive the world of the ingenuity and innovation of half the population.
“On this International Day, I urge commitment to end bias, greater investments in STEM education for all women and girls as well as opportunities for their careers and longer-term professional advancement so that all can benefit from their ground-breaking future contributions,” he said.
Earlier this week, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization released its UNESCO Science Report: Towards 2030.
“We must raise awareness about the work of women scientists by providing equal opportunities for their participation and leadership in a broad spectrum of high-level scientific bodies and events,”-UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova also emphasized on empowering women and girls to learn and research.
In 2016, UNESCO and the L’Oréal Foundation launched the manifesto For Women in Science, to engage governments and stakeholders in promoting the full participation of girls and women in science.
Furthermore, UN Women observed that science and technology offer unique opportunities for women and girls to overcome a number of the barriers they typically face.
For example: mobile money has empowered and transformed the lives of millions of women previously thought to be “unbankable” by enabling them to directly access financial products and services.
Women with skills in science and technological fields can help improve vital infrastructure such as water and power supply, and in doing so ease the responsibilities that women and girls carry of providing unpaid care work for the household.
Similarly, Internet and mobile technology can help bridge barriers to education for the 32 million girls who are out of school at the primary level and the 29 million at the lower secondary level, explained the main UN entity on women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Sources:
1.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56144#.WKCrlzt97IU
2. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002354/235407e.pdf