A/HRC/40/35 — was sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, ICTs were a crucial tool for women and girls to increase their representation and autonomy. Moreover, ICTs and the digital space allowed women to be educated, know their rights and claim them. 43. She shared concrete examples, based on her company’s experience, of how private companies could further gender equality and women’s rights. For example, her company had committed to absolute gender parity in its workforce by 2020. Currently, 40 per cent of the board of directors of Sonatel were women. In her company, women and men workers could receive equal family allowances. She also explained the company’s “m-Women” programme, through which it organized leadership training and gave out awards for women in ICT. Sonatel had also signed a partnership agreement with the Ministry of Telecommunications of Senegal to campaign to train girls for a career in ICT. She concluded that closing the gender digital gap and achieving gender equality in the economic sphere required strong political will to involve women in governing and to implement parity laws, as well as to encourage the private sector to promote gender equality and women’s rights. She also underscored that women themselves had an important role to play: they must make their voices heard and continue their activism. No one could defend women better than women themselves. D. Statements by representatives of States and observers 44. During the dialogue, speakers reiterated that ICTs had created a revolution in the way people interacted with each other, how they worked and how they lived. They stressed that ICTs could be powerful tools and had a vast potential for improving every sphere of the lives of women and girls by allowing women to gain a stronger voice in their communities and to be involved in the political and public life of their countries. Speakers noted the importance of social media, which had made grass-roots movements such as #MeToo more visible, audible and influential. ICTs could also be an important tool for enabling women and girls in rural and remote communities to engage in public and economic life, as well as include the most disadvantaged groups. 45. It was acknowledged that digital technologies could offer vital access to information and education and could be an enabling factor in ending discrimination and violence. ICTs could also ensure women’s full and equal participation in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes, including conflict prevention, peacemaking and peacebuilding. Speakers fully agreed that ICTs could strengthen women’s economic independence and autonomy, which in turn would enhance means to increase investment in education, health care and other social services. Several speakers also highlighted that the active participation of women in the information society was not only a matter of gender equality, but could contribute to improving competitiveness and economic conditions in society more broadly. 46. The gender digital divide was both a cause and a consequence of violations of women’s rights. Speakers acknowledged that harmful gender stereotypes and systemic power imbalances offline had influenced the online world and that new technologies therefore bore the risk of exacerbating pre-existing offline inequalities and exclusion. They also agreed that the gender digital divide was an obstacle to gender equality. By missing out on the significant amount of human and financial resources that could be provided by women’s equal participation in economic life, opportunities to improve the lives of women and girls were lost and the economic development potential of all countries was affected; this was especially the case for developing countries. 47. To advance women’s rights in the economic sphere and eliminate the gender digital divide, speakers stressed Governments’ obligation to provide women and girls with equal access to quality education and training in relevant digital skills and technology, investing in girls to pursue education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Speakers acknowledged that harmful gender stereotypes and bias which precluded women’s and girls’ meaningful access to and participation in ICTs needed to be challenged. Several speakers emphasized that the structural causes of gender inequality and its consequences, such as online violence, discrimination against women in the workplace and the gender pay gap, needed to be addressed. Moreover, women and girls needed to be seen as equal and 9