Women in the Digital Economy Dr Patrice Braun

Women in the Digital Economy Dr Patrice Braun Centre for Regional Innovation & Competitiveness

womenomics • The Economist first used this term in several editorials and features in its April 12, 2006 issue. A few excerpts: – Arguably women are now the most powerful engine in global growth; - Women have contributed more to global GDP growth than have either new technology or the new giants, China and India; – Women are the world’s most under-utilised resource.

womenomics • The Weekend Australian, September 30, 2006 (quoting The Economist) - Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic Growth is driven by women; - The next big thing for salespeople: learning how to crack the ultimate power consumer market: the Baby-Boomer woman.

2006 APEC Forum on Digital Economy for Women: Innovation & Leadership Held in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam from 16 to 17 September 2006. This year’s forum addressed the significance of women’s innovation and leadership in the digital economy. The objectives of the forum were: • to identify key strategies for enhancing innovation and leadership for women entrepreneurs in the knowledge-based society; • to provide opportunities to exchange and reflect on proven practices and platforms; and • to promote enabling environments for women entrepreneurs.

2006 APEC Forum on Digital Economy for Women– key recommendations: • To explicitly include women in each economy’s ICT master plan and develop a database and research on women’s contributions to the digital economy across the APEC region which can be made available in a single portal, so that economies can collaborate and share their research, knowledge, technology and experience. • To promote capacity building of women’s participation in the digital economy, public-private partnerships to collaboratively support the growth of e-business and full integration of women-owned enterprises in global value chains. • Make transparent and increase SME awareness of laws, rules and regulations relating to e-business, e-payment, cross-border trading and intellectual property rights (IPR) in order to facilitate compliance.

APEC Women Leaders Network (WLN) Recommendations were carried forward to the "APEC Women Leaders Network" (WLN) meeting, held in Hanoi from 19 -21 September 2006. The WLN is in its 10 th year and brings together delegations from across all APEC economies with attendance by up to several hundred delegates. The 2006 theme was “Towards a Dynamic Community - Enhancing the Competitiveness of Women Businesses for Sustainable Development and Prosperity”.

WLN Selected sub-themes: • Women entrepreneurs for the development of a dynamic and effective economy; • Enhancing ICT capacity and promoting Business Development Services (BDS) to support women entrepreneurs; • Creating a business-enabling and gender sensitive legal environment for women to develop business in the context of globalisation; • Women entrepreneurs and sustainable development; • Promoting women-owned Micro Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises (M/SME); and • Effective measures for poverty eradication and sustainable development;

WLN – key recommendations - Recognising that the full participation of women in the economy is an effective strategy to eradicate the greying of society, regional skills shortages and poverty; - Recognising the extensive and enabling role that ICT can play in the creation and advancement of M/SME, WLN requests that APEC Ministers responsible for M/SME: • Encourage APEC economies to provide gender mainstreaming & disaggregated research and training as an ongoing part of trade policy development at both the economy and regional levels; • Review existing investment, business and credit laws, regulations and practices to eliminate gender bias in their impact and enforcement, and strengthen their compliance by increasing M/SME awareness of such instruments.