IGF 2024 Open Forum #45 From Policy to Practice: Gender, Diversity and Cybersecurity

In today's digital landscape, there's a growing acknowledgment of the gender dimension of cyber threats as well as the persistent digital and cyber gender divide with women representing only 25 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce. However, specific gender-differentiated impacts of cyber threats and strategies to increase women participation in cybersecurity remain underexplored, hindering multi-stakeholder efforts to enhance cyber resilience and promote inclusive international peace and security governance models. Building upon the work within the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Gender and its Best Practices Forums, this open forum will explore gendered impacts of cyberattacks and practical steps for mainstreaming gender into global cybersecurity policy. It will also aim to identify concrete strategies to enhance women's participation in cyber diplomacy and the cybersecurity workforce more broadly to pave the way for a more inclusive and secure digital future.

This session is part of a series of events convened jointly by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and the Stimson Center to collect insights and recommendations from across the multi-stakeholder community for a ‘Compendium of Good Practices for Mainstreaming Gender into Global Cybersecurity Policy.’ With this workstream, the conveners intend to stimulate practitioner-led discussions to advance consensus recommendations of the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) to identify specific gender-based vulnerabilities and harms stemming from cyberattacks as well as concrete good practices for integrating gender considerations into cybersecurity policy and digital development initiatives across the globe.

Key Session Objectives:
- Raise awareness about the gendered impacts of cyberattacks on individuals, communities, and society.
- Highlight the importance of gender-focused research in strengthening the UN framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace.
- Share good practices from existing gender mainstreaming initiatives in cybersecurity and digital development projects, including those identified through IGF channels and forums like the Gender Report Cards and relevant Best Practices Forums.
- Foster gender-sensitive approaches to countering malicious cyber activities and inform actionable insights for cyber and digital capacity-building efforts.
- Encourage the Internet governance community to explore gender-based threats and support the collection of gender-disaggregated data for policy making.

To ensure seamless interaction between onsite and online participants, after the initial kick-off interventions, we will prioritize questions and interventions from the online audience before turning to onsite participants, ensuring inclusivity and equal engagement across both groups. Utilizing online polling tools, we will collect input and written resources on the subject from all attendees. This approach will allow us to promote real-time engagement but also to gauge the pulse of the audience and tailor discussions accordingly. To collect lessons learned and good practices, we will divide in-person and online participants into break-out groups using one or more online moderators as needed. This will provide opportunities for all attendees to actively contribute and exchange ideas. The organizers will also leverage complementary online tools and platforms such as Slido and online polling tools to collect input and encourage engagement during the session. These tools will enable us to collect questions, gather feedback, and facilitate interactive polls in real time, enhancing engagement and fostering a sense of community among participants, regardless of their location. By incorporating these interactive elements and encouraging active participation from both online and onsite attendees, we aim to create a dynamic and inclusive discussion where diverse perspectives are valued, heard, and recorded to inform the compendium of good practices, which will be published in 2025.