The Gender Digital Divide in Morocco
Across the world, COVID-19 has exposed the critical importance of the digital divide. When countries went into lockdown, digital access became increasingly important for people from every walk of life. From connecting with family to finding a COVID testing site, internet access has been an absolute necessity.
The digital divide is not new, though. While it has garnered more attention this year, easy and free access to the internet has been a limiting factor in development for marginalized communities for years. In almost every Middle Eastern and North African country, the digital divide has fallen along gender lines, and this is especially the case in Morocco. This article discusses what the gender digital divide is and how Morocco has tried to bridge it.
What is the Gender Digital Divide?
The digital divide refers to the “gap of unequal accessibility and experience for access and use of modern information and communication technologies”. When this gap exists between men and women, it is known as the gender digital divide. There are numerous reasons that this technological gap falls along gendered lines. According to Plan International, cost is a bigger barrier for women than for men where gender income inequalities already exist. Some societal traditions and norms also discourage women from embracing technology like their male counterparts. Additionally, fears over a woman’s safety on the internet and a lack of female role models in tech also prevent women from taking to the internet like men do.
The gender digital divide limits economic development. In basic terms, gender inequality stymies the economic potential of half of a country’s population. Limiting female access to information and communication technology (ICT) suppresses a woman’s ability to innovate and potential to become economically self-sustaining. If access to ICT is equitable, the expansion of online information and training could serve as a great opportunity to increase female economic equality. If not, the digital divide could widen with time and gender inequality could increase as economic opportunities for women diminish.
Studies have already begun to find the gender digital divide to be widening. According to the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency focused on information technology, the internet user gender gap in Arab states grew by 5% between 2013 and 2019. The report also found that, across all Arab states, men have an average internet usage of 17.3% higher than women.
The Divide in Morocco
According to the Arab Barometer, in Morocco, 79% of men use the internet while 56% of women do. Even for the Middle East, this is a huge disparity. Of twelve Arab countries surveyed, only Tunisia had a larger divide between male and female internet usage rates.
It follows that Morocco would have one of the worst gender digital divides in the Arab world. Morocco ranked 143rd out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. The report compared countries in four categories: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Of these topics, Morocco faired worst in economic participation and opportunity, partly because women make up only 35% of Morocco’s professional and technical workers and only 25% of Morocco’s total labor force.
One intersecting factor in this gender gap is the urban-rural divide. According to Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net Report, about 38% of Morocco’s total population lives in rural areas. In rural parts of the country, access to phone lines and internet is scarce, with only 55% of the rural population reporting that they use the internet. Even if access to the internet was suddenly improved in rural regions, though, illiteracy rates would still be a limiting factor. Freedom House reports that nearly half of rural Moroccans are illiterate, and the majority of those are female. This is an example of how education level is also an intersecting factor in the gender digital divide, since a higher educational attainment can lead to training on using the internet as well as a higher income and ability to afford digital devices.
In Morocco, however, higher education does not directly translate into higher internet usage. In fact, the World Economic Forum’s report places Morocco first among all 153 surveyed countries in terms of female enrollment in both primary and secondary education. Yet, they also report that this phenomenon drops off dramatically at the graduate degree level, as Morocco drops to 107th in tertiary education enrollment. According to Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch), this is because there is strong social pressure for women to play a more traditional role in society and start a family after they receive their degree. According to the World Bank Group, for example, 71% of Moroccans feel that a working mother has a negative effect on her children. These societal pressures prevent women from developing technological skills and negate the positive effect that education would have on internet usage rates for women in other societies.
What the Moroccan Government is Doing
The Moroccan government recognizes the need to develop the country’s technology sector and access to internet. Over the past few years, the Arab Weekly reports that the government has connected over 10,000 Moroccan villages to quality broadband telephone and internet connection. Moreover, in collaboration with the United States and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University , the government established an Interactive Digital Center this past February, the first in North Africa and only the second in the MENA region.
The Moroccan government believes that this is only the beginning for their tech sector. Their Agency of Digital Development is leading the effort to make Morocco an African technology hub and digitize public services by 2025 by lowering the cost of digital devices and providing digital literacy training. So far, they are off to a good start, partially because Morocco’s digital development plan has been jumpstarted by the pandemic. This year, The Ministry of Education developed an online platform to record school closures and digital learning resources. The government has also taken to social media to communicate with the public and created an online platform to make health appointments at public hospitals.
These government digital initiatives do not explicitly address the gender gap and there are few programs solely run by Morocco that address the gender divide. According to GISWatch, though, women should still benefit from some of these outcomes like the lowering of the cost barrier for technology devices. Additionally, Morocco’s Agency of Digital Development reported in February 2020 that over half of their employees are women, which may show that gender inclusion will be prioritized in future government programs.
To create programs that explicitly address the gender digital divide, the Moroccan government has mainly taken to collaboration with foreign partners. Organizations like USAID, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and Cisco have partnered with the Moroccan government to open up career centers and training programs targeted at women. By opening up technology to women and breaking down societal norms, these programs bare the lofty task of making sure that women are not left behind in the digital development revolution that Morocco is working towards.
Citations and Sources for Further Reading
al-Alawi, Mohamed Mamouni. “Digital Economy Making Inroads in Morocco: Mohamed Mamouni Al-Alawi.” AW, 1 Dec. 2020, https://thearabweekly.com/digital-economy-making-inroads-morocco.
“Bridging the Gender Digital Divide.” Plan International, https://plan-international.org/education/bridging-the-digital-divide.
“The Cisco Networking Academy Works with UNIFEM in Jordan and Morocco to Help Get Women into IT.” Feature | The Network, 27 Oct. 2008, https://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent.
“Closing Morocco's Gender Gap: Fact Sheet: Morocco.” U.S. Agency for International Development, 28 Aug. 2019, www.usaid.gov/morocco/fact-sheets/closing-moroccos-gender-gap.
“Freedom on the Net 2019- Morocco.” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/morocco/freedom-net/2019.
“Global Gender Gap Report 2020.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality.
Hatim, Yahia. “Morocco Launches First Interactive Digital Center in North Africa.” Morocco World News, 12 Feb. 2020, www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/02/293487/morocco-launches-first-interactive-digital-center-in-north-africa/.
“Human Capital.” Agence De Développement Du Digital, www.add.gov.ma/capital-humain.
Kerras, Hayet, et al. “The Impact of the Gender Digital Divide on Sustainable Development: Comparative Analysis between the European Union and the Maghreb.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 20 Apr. 2020, www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3347.
Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Figures 2020, www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/facts/default.aspx. Facts and Figures 2019
“Morocco: Roadmap for Digital Development.” Market Opportunities, 22 May 2020, www.marketopportunities.fi/home/2020/morocco-roadmap-for-digital-development?type=business-opportunity.
Raz, Daniella. “The Arab World's Digital Divide.” Arab Barometer, 25 Sept. 2020, www.arabbarometer.org/2020/09/the-mena-digital-divide/.
Rhanem, Karima. “COVID-19 Is Accelerating Morocco's Digital Transformation.” Morocco World News, 13 Apr. 2020, www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/04/299449/covid-19-is-accelerating-moroccos-digital-transformation/.
Roumate, Fatima. “Morocco.” Morocco | Global Information Society Watch, 2016, www.giswatch.org/en/country-report/economic-social-and-cultural-rights-escrs/morocco.
“World Bank Group. 2015. Morocco - Mind the Gap : Empowering Women for a More Open, Inclusive and Prosperous Society. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/24004License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
