Cybersecurity is about more than just using technologies to safeguard our information and services. It’s about effectively harnessing human resources to improve the overall security and wellbeing of organisations/societies – taking into account diverse experiences, behaviours and priorities.
However, cybersecurity is underpinned by numerous gendered assumptions that pose several challenges to the industry. This problem takes on an additional layer of complexity in the context of cyber capacity building – international development initiatives that support partner nations’ ability to deliver cybersecurity more effectively themselves.
The challenges in mainstreaming gender into cybersecurity capacity building range from programmatic approaches, to gaps in understanding between cyber practitioners and gender experts. ‘Mainstreaming gender’ is often reduced to ‘bringing more genders into the room’, with a limiting effect to a broader understanding and more impactful interventions.
This white paper draws on experience from both cyber implementation experience and cyber capacity building to create a toolkit to help apply gender mainstreaming at a programme and project level.
By breaking the issue down, it provides a way of considering the gendered dimension of cybersecurity not just in terms of equal participation in the workforce, but through designing gender-responsive policy content, procedures and data to underpin cybersecurity decisions.
Complimentary paper: Mainstreaming gender into cyber capacity building - a cyber practitioner's toolkit
We share our learning and approach to designing gender-conscious cyber capacity building initiatives in an effort to help practitioners apply gender mainstreaming to cybersecurity.