Mabel Bianco at the High Level Political Forum 2020
On Thursday, July 9, the president of the Foundation for the Study and Research of Women (FEIM) spoke as Principal Exponent representing the Women’s Group and the Steering Committee of the Major Groups in the presentation «Strengthening local Action to Accelerate the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda».
Science Technology Innovations (STI) are tools necessary for cities and urban areas to become more equal and inclusive. The trend observed in last years, the increasing of people living in slums, or inadequate housing or homelessness, is an expression of the fact that we are far away from applying STI in a positive way. Now COVID 19 makes those inequalities more visible and affect those groups more drastically, increasing the severity of the disease as well as the mortality. In most developing countries children living in slums or are homeless, or in inadequate housing have problems to remain in the schools due to the virtual system. This is one of the negative impacts of the pandemic and the STI must be required to solve it as soon as possible to end the economic and personal consequences. Women in those populations are more vulnerable due to the lack of tools and capacity to technology with the clear impact on their access to poor and precarious jobs. This requires innovative approaches to reach those women and train them. Simultaneously the girls and adolescents from these communities require training in Science Technology Mathematics (STEM) education since their early ages. We need holistic and systemic approaches gender sensitive for the implementation of the Agenda, not considering only some SDGs year by year. The experience of considering only some SDGs and not all, demonstrated that is not a good methodology, so we need to avoid continuing using the wrong approaches. STI helps to implement the systemic approach.