The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) convened a high-level meeting at the UN Women Country Office in Islamabad to review progress on the Digitalisation for Women Economic Empowerment (D4WEE) project.
The four-year initiative (2024–2028), funded by KOICA, is overseen by a national steering committee chaired by MoITT. The committee serves as the project’s highest authority, providing strategic oversight, guiding policy integration, and ensuring accountability.
Key government and private sector stakeholders attended the meeting to assess ongoing efforts and ensure the effective delivery of program objectives.
Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja emphasized the committee’s role in embedding project outcomes into institutional strategies, ensuring sustainability beyond the project cycle, and tracking gender-disaggregated results in real time.
Highlighting progress, the minister said Pakistan has narrowed the gender gap in mobile internet usage from 36–38% to 25% over the past year. She also noted that more than 800,000 digital wallets were created by women through the Ramazan digital payments initiative.
She added that the government has provided seven million free SIM cards to underserved women, expanding access to digital services and financial inclusion.
Khawaja stressed that integrating women into Pakistan’s digital economy is critical to formalizing the largely informal sector, which accounts for about 50% of GDP. Increasing women’s participation, she said, will strengthen the workforce, improve per capita productivity, and build a sustainable talent pipeline.
She also called for strategic preparation for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to ensure they act as equalizers rather than deepen existing disparities in access to opportunities.
