For those of us, like myself, who work at the intersection of digital and inclusion, it is exciting to see this year’s International Women’s Day focus on “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” While globally, the percentage of women who own a mobile phone has barely budged from 81 percent to 84 percent between 2017 and 2021, there is some good news: the proportion of women using the Internet has grown significantly over the same period, from 44 to 60 percent.

However, that growth is not necessarily evenly distributed. It is no secret that connectivity tends to expand in urban and peri-urban areas before it does in more remote and rural areas. Even within rural areas, one’s access to mobile connectivity can vary significantly, with smallholder farmers particularly affected. An analysis of mobile coverage overlaid on croplands using data from 2018 found that “only 37 percent and 24 percent of farms of <1 ha receive 3G and 4G services, respectively, whereas 80 percent and 74 percent of farms of >200 ha receive 3G and 4G services, respectively.” This tends to have a compounding effect on women, who often face an even greater digital divide in rural areas than the global average. In Nigeria, as one example, the gender gap for mobile Internet jumps from 23 to 38 percent between urban and rural areas.

Why Does This Matter?

An increasing number of digital services, including those targeting the agriculture sector, rely on data from users to deliver, refine, and enhance their services. The representativeness of that data can have clear and direct implications on the inclusiveness of said service, as it can impact decisions related to service design and outreach, among others. 

Digital services may not collect user information on gender to begin with or they may collect the sex or gender of the device owner, who may be more likely to be male, rather than the primary user of the service. This lack of disaggregated data can impact the ability of service providers to understand and respond to gender differences. 

Furthermore, even if they collect sex disaggregated data, service providers may not know how to effectively utilize that information. Preliminary findings from a forthcoming digital agriculture state of the sector report sponsored by USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office highlight this point. While around three-quarters of the innovators interviewed to date collect sex disaggregated data, few of them reported being able to effectively make use of that data.

Gender-related social norms in agriculture can also impact the types of agricultural work women engage in and whether, even with device and Internet access, a given digital service would align with their needs. It is not enough to simply know how many women may be using a particular digital service. One must also understand what unique needs women farmers may have, and then seek to fulfill those needs.

All of these factors can impact whether women farmers are adequately served by digital agriculture services. This can have real-world impact on women’s economic inclusion and opportunities. As USAID’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan notes, for example, “AI technologies may systematically give lower credit scores to women compared to men, in part because there is less available financial data for women, thereby amplifying existing disparities in financial access. That’s just one example of the many ways that gender bias in AI can negatively impact women. Of course, the issue extends beyond AI to less sophisticated digital agriculture services as well.

This impacts more than just women. As a recent UN Women’s report found, “excluding women from the digital world has shaved $1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade. Without action, this loss will grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025.”

Realizing the DigitALL Vision

The reality is that achieving a vision in which all women and girls have equal access to the opportunities — and equal protection from the risks — that digital technology can offer requires a wide-range of both small and large actions from all stakeholders. One blog post certainly won’t get us there, although there are a few not-overly-complicated actions that practitioners can take to do their part.

• Be intentional in the design and implementation of digital interventions. Think about how social norms, digital access, and digital literacy may impact women’s usage of and needs for digital agriculture services. Not sure how to do this? The good news is that RFS recently commissioned a toolkit on inclusive digital design for agri-food systems, so stay tuned to Agrilinks for its release later this year.
• Collect sex disaggregated data — and make use of it. If you’re a development practitioner, go beyond collecting sex disaggregated data for your project and also encourage any digital service providers you work with to do the same. Also, make sure to analyze that data so you can understand what tweaks or overhauls may need to be done to increase the equitable benefit of digital agriculture services in the communities where you work.
• Consider how smallholder farmers — including women — are included in the governance of data. All too often data subjects are excluded from the governance of data about them and their farms. Be proactive about how they are included in managing and benefiting from that data. Not sure where to start? RFS and BMGF recently commissioned a comprehensive study on farmer-centric data governance with all you could want to know on the topic, and then some.

What other ideas do you have that would help us move towards a more inclusive digital agriculture ecosystem? Share them with us at [email protected].