On 19 October 2021, WIMISOM organized a Zoom advocacy meeting on the barriers against women’s digital rights in Somalia. The meeting came after two roundtable discussions held in Garowe and Mogadishu respectively. The objective of the meeting was to share and discuss the outcomes of the roundtable discussion with relevant authorities to discuss ways of adopting policies and practices with improve the state of digital rights of women in Somalia.
This zoom meeting was intended as an advocacy and lobbying to adopt policies and practices which advance the digital rights of women in Somalia, therefore the participants of the meetings were mostly from government authorities from federal government level of Somalia and federal members states, higher education institutions providing ICT, CSOs involved in digital sector, internet service providers in Somalia.
After opening remarks by WIMIOSM Director Nasra Abdirisak in which she highlighted the project and its objectives and the ways this project will contribute to improvement of the state of digital rights in Somalia.The moderated then shared a presentation summarizing the findings, observation and recommendations from the two roundtable discussions held in Garowe and Mogadishu.
After the moderator made the presentation, he opened the floor to the participants remarks and input. He guided the deliberations of the discussion focusing on action-based solutions and commitments from the different stakeholders as well as making the grounds for future cooperation of relevant stakeholders on combating online violence and promoting the digital rights of women and girls in Somalia. The discussion was very engaging and directed toward long term solutions and actionability of recommendations.
The zoom discussion was very productive and was built upon the findings and output of the two preceding roundtable discussions. The participants were very well informed and had clear perspectives and common vision about the necessary change to ensure a safe and empowering online environment for women and girls to achieve effective and inclusive use of technology for socio-economic and political development in Somalia.
In order to achieve effective and inclusive use of technology and address the existing challenges, the key relevant stakeholders agreed on implementation and actualization of commitments aimed at improving the digital rights of women and girls in Somalia.
