UN Women – Nokia partnership:
Advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through online solutions
In 2024, UN Women and Nokia embark on the second phase of their global partnership, scaling-up the successful results of phase 1 (Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Kenya 2022-2023) to five regions. The global partnership aims to facilitate women’s empowerment through tailored online solutions.
Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development recognizes that “information and communications technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies”. Under Sustainable Development Goal 5, the international community, including the private sector, has committed itself to enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women everywhere.
The UN Women – Nokia partnership sets out to increase women’s engagement in the online world, according to country contexts and priorities. In 2024, the programme is being implemented in Argentina, India, Jordan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tunisia and Türkiye.
In the Philippines and India, this initiative will focus on enhancing employability opportunities for women from selected underprivileged communities. In the Philippines, UN Women and NOKIA will provide certified trainings to women in male dominated tech environments, especially in fiber splicing roles. In India, the partnership will focus on empowering women in STEM through upskilling in tech/telecom industries, soft kills, mentoring support and networking opportunities for women based on the South African Pilot Framework from Phase 1.
The collaboration between UN Women and Nokia introduces an innovative partnership model to advance gender equality and women's empowerment by leveraging global resources and local expertise to achieve our common objectives. The partnership is founded on a strong ethos of collaboration between UN Women and Nokia, which sees Nokia personnel across the globe participating in the direct implementation of projects alongside UN Women, as sustainable development partners. The project design and implementation are fully aligned with UN Women’s global Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and contribute to Nokia’s implementation of the Women's Empowerment Principles.
Related story(s)
Bridging Dreams: UN Women and Nokia Unite to Mentor 100 Young Women in STEM
Date: 4 September 2024
Photograph from the industry roundtable on the role of advertising in building human rights and inclusion in Mumbai. Photo: UN Women
Mumbai, India — UN Women and Nokia launched the Mentorship for Young Women initiative under the WeSTEM project on September 4, 2024. The program targets 100 final-year female students from technical diploma courses in tribal-dominated districts of Madhya Pradesh. Twenty senior women leaders from Nokia will mentor these young women, focusing on digital literacy, resume crafting, and interview preparation.
According to World Bank data there are more Indian female graduates (43 per cent) in STEM than in developed nations like the US (34 per cent), UK (38 per cent), Germany (27 per cent) and France (32 per cent). However, getting a STEM education has yet to translate into jobs for women in India, with women holding just 14 per cent of STEM jobs in India.
Women in STEM face a lot of challenges, including a lack of role models, pressures to conform to societal norms and trappings of domesticity, stressors related to marriage, childbirth, etc. They experience an inordinate amount of responsibility associated with the running of households and elder care, physical safety during the commute to work, sexual and other types of harassment in workplaces, and a whole host of other issues
This initiative aims to bridge the gender gap in STEM fields. The launch, attended by government officials and industry leaders, highlighted mentorship as a powerful catalyst for change.
