The World Health Organization (WHO) reinforced its commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment through its participation at the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which took place from 6-17 March 2023 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Representatives from the Organization spoke to the Commission’s priority theme of “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls,” by focusing on improving the health of women and girls through digital innovation, technology and education.
WHO’s statement to the Commission
In its official statement to the Commission, WHO underscored the need to take action to address women’s right to health, including improving social and financial protection systems. An essential element of social protection is Universal Health Coverage (UHC), which is one of WHO’s top priority. Achieving UHC requires applying an intersectional gender lens to ensure that women and girls who are disproportionately disadvantaged are not left behind. Digital innovation, technology and education have the potential to create a paradigm shift towards UHC, whether through addressing barriers to care, improving access to medicines or increasing women’s and girls’ engagement and participation in their own health. Medical innovations like self-administered contraceptive injections, self-sampling for HPV, telemedicine systems and harnessing social platforms like Viber and WhatsApp to disseminate health information were cited as positive uses of the digital revolution for the health of women and girls around the world.
WHO’s side event on improving health outcomes for women and girls through digital innovation, technology and education
WHO co-organized two side events at CSW67. During WHO’s flagship side event, co-organized with the Republics of Chile and Rwanda, speakers discussed the role of digital innovation, technology and education in improving health outcomes for women and girls, particularly those who experience compounding barriers to health and well-being.
Yasna Provoste Campillay, Senator of the Republic of Chile, spoke of the importance of looking at factors that may compound existing gender inequalities and asserted the need to begin from the basics, providing connectivity in rural areas before deploying health technology. Rose Rwabuhihi, Chief Gender Monitor of the Republic of Rwanda, gave examples of how different digital health tools are improving health outcomes in the country, like the use of drones in transporting blood and medicines to hard-to-reach settings and the digitization of paperwork, which has improved medical history keeping, particularly for maternal health. In speaking on her work advancing the health of Afro Bolivian women and girls as General Coordinator of the Network of Afro Latin American, Afro Caribbean Women and the Diaspora, Paola Yañez underscored the need for intersectionality in achieving gender equality and health for all, stating that we need to address systemic racism to achieve universal access to health.
WHO’s side event on the role of digital health in the prevention and control of NCDs
Digital health interventions are an essential catalyst to support the WHO’s work in implementing its Global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs (NCD-GAP). The WHO side event on NCDs provided an opportunity to show how digital services can help to address the gender divide in many NCD areas, including gender-based stigma and discrimination against women living with NCDs, reproductive health and NCDs, breast cancer, cervical cancer, targeted advertising of tobacco and alcohol to women, physical activity and obesity.
The first lady of Liberia, H.E. Clar Marie Weah, kicked off the event with her keynote address where she spoke of the potential of digital health to provide innovative solutions for and address disparities in women and girls’ health. She implored all Member States to stand up and take action to prevent these diseases from becoming more widespread. The first lady of Gambia, H.E Fatoumatta Bah-Barrow, gave the second keynote address, speaking of digital technology’s potential to amplify the voices of marginalized women and serve communities of women and girls often left behind from mainstream health promotion and media strategies. Adriana Blanco Marquizo, Head of the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, spoke on behalf of the NCDs-related programmes such as an SMS programme in Zambia which saw a 6% increase in women screening for cervical cancer, and WHO tools such as its digital health worker, Florence, who helps people quit smoking. Dr Devaki Nambiar, Programme Director of the Healthier Societies Strategy of the George Institute for Global Health in India spoke of putting technology into the hands of community health workers, many of whom are women themselves, in order to refer women with high-risk conditions in pregnancy to primary care. Closing the session with a call to action, NCD Alliance representative Marijke Kremin spoke of the opportunity the event provided to link evidence and research to action.
