During the 2017 World Government Summit in Dubai, the UAE Gender Balance Council hosted a three-day workshop to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 – ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’, as part of ‘SDGs in Action @ WGS’.
Organised by the World Government Summit in collaboration with the United Nations, the World Bank and the UN Foundation, ‘SDGs in Action @ WGS’ explored the role of science, technology and innovation (STI) in achieving the 17 SDGs, bringing together scientists, experts, government officials and other key stakeholders to discuss the key challenges of achieving each goal and to identify potential solutions to those challenges.
Throughout the three days, each of the ‘SDGs in Action @ WGS’ discussion groups were tasked with producing an STI-driven idea to support the implementation of their goal. The SDG 5 team presented their multiplatform campaign, 'GAME-IN’, which was ranked in third place by the audience, based on desirability, viability and feasibility.
‘GAME-IN’ revolves around encouraging schools, governments, corporations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to partner with their local stakeholders to launch multiplatform ICT campaigns on gender equality via SMS, video, radio, online games and applications etc., to disrupt negative gender stereotypes. The team also proposed the design of a multi-category global award to recognise the ICT campaigns with the most impact on gender balance, which would be segmented into categories designated to award schools, governments, corporations and NGOs.