Target 5.b: Enabling technology for women's empowerment
Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Enabling technology for women's empowerment is delivered mostly by private telecom and device companies, so corporate conduct on pricing, safety and outreach matters. GSMA's 2025 report finds women in low- and middle-income countries are 14 percent less likely than men to use mobile internet, and 885 million women there remain unconnected. It finds an entry-level handset costs 24 percent of a woman's monthly income in those countries versus 12 percent of a man's, and that progress has stalled. Closing the gap could add $230 billion in mobile industry revenue, giving shareholders a commercial argument. UN Women's 2025 review nonetheless finds private-sector gender efforts fragmented and under-measured. Governments still set spectrum, taxation and digital-literacy policy, so owners help at the margin.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. No shareholder advocacy located on closing the mobile internet gender gap, handset affordability for women, or digital inclusion outreach by telecom and device companies. ICCR's digital rights programme, which we opened, covers privacy, censorship, misinformation, surveillance, algorithmic discrimination and child safety, and explicitly does not address access equity or broadband reach. GSMA's Mobile Gender Gap work and UN Women's review are industry and UN research rather than engagement through ownership.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.