With AI-based technology becoming commonplace, the UN system is beginning to leverage that digital tool to advance gender equality.
Southeast Asia, a middle-income region with extensive internet coverage and relatively high levels of digital literacy, is fertile ground for development supported by artificial intelligence.
Below we present three examples of initiatives that could help a large number of women in their private and professional lives in the coming years.
Philippines: Entrepreneur training in remote areas
The Philippines is made up of an archipelago of thousands of islands that can be expensive and difficult to reach from the country’s urban centers. This has meant that people on more remote islands have often not been able to fully benefit from training opportunities offered by the UN and its partners.
However, since December 2023, the International Labor Organization (ILO) supports business owners, particularly women entrepreneurs, with the help of the latest chatbots of artificial intelligence. Chatbots are computer programs that simulate a dialogue with the user and answer questions about a good or service.
“In many cases, trainers no longer need to travel to remote villages on distant islands and mountains,” explains ILO technical specialist Hideki Kagohashi. “The trainer is a chatbot of mobile phone.”
On the island of Siargao, this chatbot provides technical advice to women selling coconut products and helps women entrepreneurs create publications marketing digital for Facebook, reducing the time needed to post daily from a few hours to just 10 or 20 minutes.
“Previously, entrepreneurs often stopped publishing because it took too long to get demonstrable results,” Kagohashi details. “But now, with generative artificial intelligence they can quickly create higher quality content with relevant images or videos, more varied posts on a daily basis with audience segmentation in terms of tone and content, generating greater online engagement and a increase in sales,” he adds.
The project is still in the pilot phase, but the ILO and its partners will scale up the AI-based training to reach some 15,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the country over the next three years.
These students at a high school in Phuket, Thailand, use a chatbot supported by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
Thailand: Protection for vulnerable women and girls
For about a year, the artificial intelligence-powered SoSafe platform has been offering Thai women personalized advice on social issues such as unwanted pregnancies, sexual harassment and domestic violence, among others.
Used mainly by women and girls in vulnerable situations, SoSafe contains verified information for young people, women and the elderly about their social benefits and rights.
The impact has been palpable: SoSafe is accessible to 600,000 users in 14 pilot provinces, communication between affected women has improved, as have support services. In addition, it has allowed more than a thousand cases of domestic violence to be reported to the authorities.
The platform, provided by the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), in cooperation with the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Development of Thailand and other partners, detects keywords and provides automatic responses to offer users timely support. SoSafe information comes from government databases and trusted sources, helping ensure users receive accurate information.
Community leaders in Indonesia test an artificial intelligence tool supported by the UN Development Program (UNDP).
Indonesia: A stronger voice in the community
In Indonesia’s 75,000 villages, decisions are often made by middle-aged men, who are more likely to attend open discussions and meetings.
“Participation in village meetings is dominated by men, and open voting can lead to stigmatization of those who may not agree with the village head, suppressing open debate,” notes Dhany Oktaviany, manager of projects Social Innovation Platform (SIP).
The SIP platform, an initiative managed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in support of the Indonesian Ministry of Villages, aims to change this situation, through an artificial intelligence-enabled digital tool that collects the aspirations of the residents of those villages and generates recommendations for subsequent community planning.
The app allows people to raise ideas in a wide variety of ways, from photos and videos to text and audio. Proposals can also be made anonymously, allowing different points of view to be expressed.
UN reform
“Across the Asia-Pacific region we are working to strengthen the capacity of the UN system to harness the latest technological trends to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals,” says David McLachlan. Karr, director for Asia and the Pacific of the UN Development Coordination Office.
“These projects are a great example of technological innovation at the UN, which is at the center of the UN reform agenda. Secretary General so that the UN is more prepared for the needs of the 21st century,” he added.
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