On behalf of the Government and people of Cuba, I extend warm greetings and gratitude to China for its warm invitation.
The Beijing Platform for Action recognizes that technologies are rapidly transforming the world, so it is essential that women not only benefit from them, but also participate in the process from the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages.
Achieving equal access to technology, promoting the building of inclusive societies, preparing women and girls to be leaders in artificial intelligence and digital innovation, and ensuring their safety and privacy in their online activities will require significant efforts to move closer to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Global statistics show that only one in five professionals in Artificial Intelligence is female, and they represent only 28% of graduates in engineering and 40% of graduates in IT and computing.
In the case of Cuba, it promotes the development of information technologies in all sectors of society, with an active participation of women and girls in all development programs of the computerization process.
The existence of gender-oriented public policies refers to equality and the empowerment of women, and are endorsed in the National Program for the Advancement of Women. Its actions and measures include gender indicators to analyze access, use and time of interaction with technologies; it promotes access to technical and professional careers, according to the economic and social development needs of the territory.
The approval in 2021 of the Digital Transformation Policy, the Cuban Digital Agenda and the Artificial Intelligence Strategy, with a rights-based approach, favors the participation of women, girls and adolescents in scholarships to study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Multiple-Indicator Cluster Survey conducted in 2019 showed that 36.6% of interviewed women had used the Internet in the previous three months, compared with 33.3% in the case of men, demonstrating a slightly higher use of the internet by women.
Similar to global trends, the gender digital divide is expressed from childhood, when girls and boys begin to express different inclinations in the field of knowledge, in accordance with stereotypes. In Cuba, although more than 60% of university graduates are women, they represent only 30% of the graduates of the University of Computer Science.
As a result of the political will of our government, Cuba has a solid development in biotechnology research. It has promoted a strong scientific branch dedicated to the research and elaboration of medical-pharmaceutical products obtained through genetic engineering and biotechnology.
Cuban women have made a significant contribution to science. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Cuba, and other six countries, have achieved gender parity in science, while the World Intellectual Property Organization announced that in a list comprised of 74 nations, the country ranks first with 53% of its investors being women.
In the scientific and technological innovation system, about 51 thousand women are currently working in science-related activities, which is the highest figure in recent years, according to the National Statistics and Information Office.
Out of them, 51.5% have a Master's degree and 32% hold the academic degree of PhD in various fields.
As for the Academy of Sciences, they represent 70% of those who lead various subjects of biomedical, social and humanistic, natural, exact, technical and agricultural sciences, to give just a few examples.
While these results are being achieved and international commitments are being ratified, the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States government and the inclusion of Cuba in the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism continue to be the main obstacle to the nation’s development.
Thank you