The annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will this year take place from March 6 to 17, with a priority theme: "Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.”

Happening for the 67th time at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the CSW is the UN organ promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, where every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters to evaluate progress in gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

The Gender Ministry in partnership with UN Women Rwanda held a pre-CSW consultative meeting with different stakeholders on January 11, to prepare for the meeting.

UN Women Representative in Rwanda, Jennet Kem, said in an interview that specific efforts and focus have to be put on women and girls to ensure that as the country moves into the digital world, everyone is on board.

"As we all know, digitalisation, innovation, and technology are driving the fourth industrial revolution. They are driving the way we live and the way we do business. Because it is a global phenomenon that is taking place, we have seen it as a priority because of the particular reason that it is the driver for development.

"Within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, digitalisation is driving almost all the growth, at the country level, investing in digitalisation is creating jobs, financial platforms for women and girls and for the whole population, and driving businesses. We realise that women cannot be left behind because, from statistics, we see that women and girls are lagging behind in STEM education already,” Kem noted.

Mireille Batamuriza, the Permanent Secretary at the Gender Ministry, said Rwanda is not performing poorly on the gender digital divide.

"If we look at device ownership, women are not lagging, and there are many government projects which have increased the number of women who own digital devices,” she added.

Batamuriza said that several norms that limit girls from pursuing STEM subjects should be identified and tackled.

The review theme of the CSW 67 will be "Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls,” where participants will discuss the agreed conclusions of the 62nd session which took place in 2018.