KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 1

Gender equality and digital development are inextricably linked. Yet globally, men are 21 percent more likely to be online than women, a figure that rises to 52 percent in low-income countries.

The Web Foundation estimates that barriers that keep women and girls offline - high device and data costs, lower digital skills, and restrictive social norms, to name a few - have cost developing countries about $1 trillion over the last decade.

The Digital Development Global Practice recently launched a new approach to accelerate its work on gender equality, with an ambitious vision that centers women and girls across its financing and analytics.

The approach orients solutions to the five foundational pillars of the digital economy: digital infrastructure, digital public platforms, digital financial services, digital businesses, and digital skills.

It also emphasizes the need for more and better sex-disaggregated data and to tackle risks, such as algorithmic bias and online gender-based violence.

A version of this article appears in the print on December 2, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.