~Powerful Address at Global Gender Conference in Ghana~
Accra, Ghana/PHILIPSBURG;--- President of the Parliament of St. Maarten, Sarah A. Wescot-Williams, in her role as Chair of the 3rd International Conference on Gender Equality (ICGE 2025), delivered a powerful speech in Accra, urging urgent global action to speed up gender equality in a rapidly digitalizing world.
Wescot-Williams opened by highlighting the island's unique history, deep African heritage, and long-standing commitment to unity, noting the significance of advancing gender equality in a global forum hosted on the African continent, a region whose voice and contributions are essential to advancing gender equality worldwide.
She reminded delegates that thirty years after the Beijing Declaration, its unfinished promise still demands global resolve. “Every barrier to women and girls’ equality anywhere becomes a threat to all of us, everywhere,” she said.
She welcomed the Beijing+30 Action Agenda, emphasizing its priorities, including closing the digital divide, eliminating violence, and advancing economic opportunity, climate justice, and participation in decision-making. But she warned that without financing and gender-responsive data, “commitments remain rhetorical.”
A significant portion of her address focused on the digital revolution. Wescot-Williams underscored that while technology can accelerate equality, it can also deepen disparities. Women remain less likely to access mobile internet, girls are underrepresented in STEM, and online harassment continues to silence women’s voices. “The digital divide is not only about access; it is about power, who designs technology, who controls data, and who benefits from innovation,” she stated.
She highlighted the work of technologists, policy leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators from Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, and St. Maarten women who are driving critical advances in digital transformation across the region. In particular, she noted that Ife Badejo’s AI Islands Summit is helping position small island states for AI readiness and supporting Caribbean women entrepreneurs to innovate and lead.
Wescot-Williams urged delegates to view ICGE 2025 not as a moment but a movement. “Let us be the generations that do more than diagnose inequality—let us be the generations that dismantle it,” she concluded. “Equality is the destination. Technology is the vehicle. And our responsibility begins now.”
