Ensuring that countries behave responsibly in cyberspace demands that we rethink how we, as an international community, write our rules and resolve our disputes. We cannot simply hammer out a peace treaty by convening heads of state around a mahogany table to draw lines on a map. The borders of cyberspace are elusive, the infrastructure, or battlefield, belongs largely to private companies, and the nature of the threat evolves as quickly as we draw up the rules.

The complexity is staggering.

Yet some truths of international cooperation remain steadfast. The United Nations affirmed earlier this year that international law applies in cyberspace and that all countries must abide by a set of norms that, for instance, bar them from launching attacks on critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and health care organizations. As we search for solutions to end the growing threat of cyberattacks outlined in the first section of this report, this affirmation by the UN sets a starting point. 

The next section will explore the path toward an effective global strategy for a rules-based order that ensures digital peace and security for everyone.

Our essayists will tackle critical questions, such as who should sit around that mahogany table to negotiate the rules, whether our zeal to curtail bad behavior in cyberspace could unintentionally squelch the human rights and freedom of expression, and how the rules can be enforced once they are set.

We will look at the nature of alliances in a cyberspace, in which the traditional treaties of mutual assistance will mean building a defense based on strategic intelligence sharing, collaboration and connecting the data points.

Beyond diplomacy, solutions must also recognize the need for investment in cybersecurity capacity, particularly for emerging economies. Rules are great, but countries must have the resources to follow them.

Finally, the new rulebook must understand and account for the ever-evolving nature of the threat. While the conventional weapons of war took years to develop, cyber warriors need only a nanosecond. The attack on SolarWinds brought global attention to a new front by tampering with legitimate software and disrupting the supply chain. The next attack is likely to use different tools and techniques, exploiting gaps in our defense systems that we are not yet aware of. Moreover, the technology we use will itself evolve and augment human capabilities for good — and for ill. The capacity for malevolence is endless; the consequences for failing to act today will be devastating for nations, economies and individuals. 

Among the up-and-coming female cyber diplomats from emerging economies who attended the most recent round of the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group dialogue, Thailand’s Vowpailin Chovichien brought a resume that hardly fit the usual international relations mold.

She has held part-time jobs in publishing, including as a critic for a film magazine, and has written “a few” books. And she maintains a keen interest in the arts, especially musicals.

“Soft skills, such as creativity and communication skills, are as useful as hard skills, such as legal knowledge, when it comes to diplomacy,” she said in an email interview.

Now serving in Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a counselor in the Department of International Organizations, Chovichien’s portfolio includes cyber, along with the classic security issues such as weapons of mass destruction, conventional weapons and counterterrorism.

To Chovichien, cybersecurity, like her own life, is anything but one-dimensional.

“It is not just about the security when we spend time online, but everything – the infrastructures: electricity, water, health care system, transportation, banking – all depend on cybersecurity,” she said. “It is an issue that deserves priority attention at the global scale.”

Chovichien, who earned two law degrees at British universities, including the London School of Economics, while on full scholarship from Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has served in a variety of diplomatic posts, including the Embassy of Thailand in Singapore. She has also focused on a range of issues, including international economics and consular affairs.

Protecting critical information and other infrastructure from cyberattacks is a top priority for Thailand, which has no offensive military cyber capabilities.

 Thailand, like other developing nations, possesses “insufficient financial resources and IT capabilities, which cannot keep up with the fast pace of rapidly growing digitalization in the emerging markets,” Chovichien said.

This rapid growth and every changing technology make developing nations “even more vulnerable to becoming ‘easy-targets’ to malicious cyberattacks,” she said. “Sustainable, demand-driven capacity building programs are vital for addressing these pressing transboundary issues.”—By Andrea Stone

During her first trips to New York City as part of South Africa’s permanent mission to the United Nations, Moliehi Makumane dreaded lunchtime.

She spent her mornings in meetings at the UN headquarters building where older white men made up the majority in most of the rooms. As a young, black female diplomat focused on cybersecurity, she felt out of place, unable to make meaningful connections, much less find a lunch buddy.

“I’m not walking into a clique of five old white guys and saying, ‘So, how’s it going?” she said. “It was lonely then.”

The world of cyber diplomacy remains woefully out of gender balance, particularly compared to other fields, such as human rights and international development. Over the past 15 years, the UN has established six Groups of Governmental Experts (GGEs) to discuss cybersecurity, and female diplomats have accounted for just 20 percent of the experts.

Makumane, a former delegate to the UN’s Open-Ended Working Group, usually solved her lunch problem by walking back to South Africa’s mission a few blocks away to eat with colleagues from back home. The 33-year-old said more is needed to fix the long-standing problem of gender and race inequity in the diplomatic corps.

“I shouldn’t be the unicorn in this story,” Makumane said recently from her home in Pretoria. “A lot more can and should be done to get more females into this space to do even more than I was able to do.”

Makumane received a much-needed boost when she was chosen for the UN’s Women in International Security and Cyberspace Fellowship, which provided funding and training for female negotiators to travel to New York to develop rules and principles for governments to follow in the perilous world of cybersecurity. The fellowship, which brought together 35 women from mostly underrepresented nations, created a pipeline to send more women into positions of power and created a network that each fellow could lean on.

The fellowship was temporary, however, and Makumane hopes that the problem of female underrepresentation can be solved so that she and others like her can focus instead on the growing threats in the cyberworld.

The world’s most developed nations — “cyberpowers” as Makumane calls them — are so busy figuring out how to weaponize cyberspace that they have largely ignored the desperate need of smaller countries like hers to simply get more people connected to the internet. Makumane also worries that whenever larger countries propose an increase in cybersecurity funding for developing nations, it usually means developing nations are about to get a budget cut in other core developmental areas. “Cyberspace for African countries is for development and that’s all we want it for. We don’t want to have to do offensive capabilities,” she said. “That is all we’re trying to do here: get more people connected, get more people to access services, get food easier, get water easier, digitize our hospitalization systems because we’re still very pen and paper.” —By Alan Gomez

When Mila Francisco first entered the diplomatic corps in her native Chile in 2005, she didn’t feel like she was breaking any glass ceilings.

At the time, women accounted for about half the people graduating from the Diplomatic Academy of Chile so she didn’t view gender equity as a problem. Then, as she rose through the ranks earning top posts in Vienna and Washington, she noticed her male colleagues advancing faster than her female colleagues. Men dominated key international bodies, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, and in topical areas, such as those focused on drugs, defense and cybersecurity.

“There are certain commissions … that have groups that are almost hereditary,” she said.

A 2020 analysis of women in diplomacy backed up what she saw: While women comprise 43 percent of the diplomatic corps from the European Union and G-20 countries, just 25 percent of ambassadors from those nations are women, according to the #SHEcurity Index.

Now a seasoned diplomat and the head of Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ drugs and transnational organized crime unit, Francisco, 46, a leader in the male-dominated field of cybersecurity, is pushing for countries to create regional partnerships to tackle the outsized problem of cybercrime. Using a model first developed to foster peace throughout Latin America, Francisco envisions a series of confidence-building measures that eliminate mistrust between governments so they can address shared problems collectively.

“This region, as demonstrated in the past, has the capacity to agree on principles and practices, between states with a similar vision, which can become standards that others tend to accept,” she wrote in a 2019 article she co-authored in Global Cyber Expertise Magazine. “It is important to build an open, stable, secure, transparent and governable cyberspace in the region, in accordance with international law and with clear rules of responsible behavior.”

She also supports efforts such as the UN’s Women in International Security and Cyberspace Fellowship, where she was one of 35 women from mostly underrepresented countries given funding and training to travel to New York to develop rules and principles for governments to follow in the cybersecurity space. That fellowship helped the women in cybersecurity to develop a network that increased their impact, she said.

High-ranking female diplomats, “have to advance in a way that we cease being a miracle,” she said.

Still, Francisco cautions that forced efforts to equalize the global diplomatic corps could backfire. She says implementing gender quotas would end up causing more harm than good because women would be viewed, and many would view themselves, as being underqualified diplomats who secured their posts through quotas. “They should know that they earned it,” Francisco said.

Francisco’s next post will be a return to Vienna, where she previously served as Chile’s alternative representative to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. She expects to continue her push for international norms in cyberspace. The latest round of negotiations has already raised concerns about whether it adequately protects human rights, privacy and freedom of expression. “For the countries that promote the protection, promotion and defense of human rights and democracy, this is a permanent challenge in this type of negotiation,” she said. —By Alan Gomez

Tupoutua’h Baravilala manages Fiji’s government information technology network, oversees islanders’ digital connections to one another and the outside world, and represents her country at high-level international conferences on cybersecurity. All at age 32.

As acting permanent secretary for communications in Fiji’s Ministry of Communications, Baravilala has a huge job in a tiny country yet, she says, the digital age “has empowered new dynamics of discourse and often-marginalized voices have new and powerful platforms to be heard.”

Nations should engage “on equal footing,” she says. “We are all working to the same end: an open, secure, stable, accessible, and peaceful cyberspace for everyone.”

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Fiji face unique challenges that demand global recognition. “SIDS have limited resources, our infrastructure is vulnerable to worsening climate impacts, and the small scale of our markets creates intense supply chain challenges” for telecommunications technology, she says.

Baravilala, a law graduate of the University of the South Pacific, became interested in cybersecurity during her seven years as a legal officer in Fiji’s Solicitor-General’s office. As more Fijians connected to the internet — 95% are now online — trans-border data theft and damage became a serious concern with implications for the country’s digital transformation and its expansion of government e-services.

Her experience showed “how vital it is that we maintain safe online spaces,” she says. “It’s clear to me that this subject will only become more important as more and more of our interactions shift online. The pandemic has accelerated that trend.”

Indeed, Baravilala recently led Fiji’s rollout of a COVID-19 digital contact tracing app and stood up an online national vaccination registry. Both efforts required that cybersecurity and privacy safeguards be built in from the start.

Fiji’s leaders may have entrusted Baravilala with those critical projects, but the field remains a male-dominated industry. “There’s no excuse for a ‘digital divide’ between men and women,” she says, adding she hopes more young women will pursue STEM subjects and follow her into cybersecurity.

“What’s exciting to me about this industry is its newness,” Baravilala says. “The old boys clubs aren’t so old yet, and that strikes me as an opportunity for gender equity.” —By Andrea Stone

The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace sets out nine common principles (below) to promote responsible behavior for a secure and peaceful cyberspace. In 2020, the government of Canada, Microsoft and the Alliance for Securing Democracy committed to help implement the Paris Call’s third principle on strengthening capacity to protect democratic elections from malicious cyberattacks.  After a series of six workshops with representatives from government, industry and civil society, the partners created Multistakeholder Insights: A Compendium on Countering Election Interference, demonstrating concrete results from a public-private collaboration. Here are six takeaways from the compendium: 

Improving multistakeholder information sharing

Rising cyber threats highlight the need to improve information sharing between the public and private sectors nationally and internationally. By developing a shared language, improving information sharing channels and communicating continually about threats, threat actors and responses, we can enhance our ability to identify, counter and mitigate malicious cyberattacks.

Balancing foreign interference against acceptable state influence

The lack of common framing for “foreign interference” makes it difficult for policymakers to develop standards and guidelines. By adopting clear, globally accepted definitions for terms such as “influence” and “interference,” democracies will be better positioned to determine acceptable and unacceptable state actions in cyberspace.

Countering election interference in a pandemic environment

Crises such as the pandemic create opportunities for election interference by adding logistical complexities to holding an election. To achieve resiliency amid a crisis, election officials must engage in extensive contingency planning by building trust, providing credible information and implementing reliable technology. Governments should seek hybrid approaches that ensure the highest possible participation.

Mitigating and responding to interference in the information environment

The volume of information on the internet creates opportunities for bad actors to spread disinformation. Governments, traditional media, social media platforms, academia and civil social society can counter electoral interference in the information ecosystem by cooperating to provide timely and accurate information. 

Defend, detect, recover: Countering the threat of interference in election infrastructure

Almost all elections now include digital technologies that must be continually assessed for vulnerabilities and protected against interference. Such improvements must be made before, during and after election day as new insights are learned. 

Empowering citizens to build community resilience to counter election interference

Well-informed and engaged citizens form the core of a stable, functioning democracy. Widespread disinformation on social media is eroding trust in legitimate sources of information and must be countered by building civil and digital literacy. Citizens empowered with reliable information are better equipped to reject disinformation.

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The 9 principles

1. Protect individuals and infrastructure

Prevent and recover from malicious cyber activities that threaten or cause significant, indiscriminate or systemic harm to individuals and critical infrastructure.

2. Protect the internet

Prevent activity that intentionally and substantially damages the general availability or integrity of the public core of the internet.

3. Defend electoral processes

Strengthen our capacity to prevent malign interference by foreign actors aimed at undermining electoral processes through malicious cyber activities.

4. Defend intellectual property

Prevent ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sector.

5. Nonproliferation

Develop ways to prevent the proliferation of malicious software and practices intended to cause harm.

6. Lifecycle security

Strengthen the security of digital processes, products and services, throughout their lifecycle and supply chain.

7. Cyber hygiene

Support efforts to strengthen an advanced cyber hygiene for all actors.

8. No private hack back

Take steps to prevent nonstate actors, including the private sector, from hacking back, for their own purposes or those of other nonstate actors.

9. International norms

Promote the widespread acceptance and implementation of international norms of responsible behavior as well as confidence-building measures in cyberspace

By FP Analytics, the independent research division of Foreign Policy magazine, in partnership with World Vision and the World Bank

[Leer este informe de síntesis en español.]

FP Simulations are scenario-based, interactive programs that offer participants a chance to address the challenges of crisis management, diplomacy, and peacebuilding with the same creativity and focus that have traditionally been devoted to war games. On July 16, 2021, the Fostering Resilience in Northern Central America Crisis Simulation brought together global and regional leaders and experts from government, the private sector, academia, and civil society to grapple with the complex political, socio-economic, and environmental factors driving forced migration from three Central American countries—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. While Foreign Policy (FP) has a long history producing simulations and PeaceGames, this was the first simulation intently focused on resilience and capacity-building as means to address complex risks and fragility, adaptively manage crises, and safeguard lives and livelihoods. Following the July simulation, FP hosted the Virtual Dialogue: Fostering Resilience in Northern Central America to examine the insights and recommendations generated from the simulation. The program was developed by FP Analytics, Foreign Policy’s in-house research division, in partnership with World Vision U.S. and the World Bank.

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The Simulation

The scenario was developed through in-depth research and incorporated a range of complex risks contributing to forced migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, including climate-related environmental disasters, further mutation and spread of COVID-19, worsening economic conditions, femicides, and escalating rates of transnational violence. The simulation focused on identifying and mitigating the root causes of forced migration, which consists of a “migratory movement which, although the drivers can be diverse, involves force, compulsion, or coercion.”¹ Forced migration is distinct from regular (or orderly) migration, which “occurs in compliance with the laws of the country of origin, transit, and destination.”²

Like all FP Simulations, this program was designed to facilitate a dynamic level of engagement among diverse stakeholders, with the scenario compelling participants to identify allies and work toward cooperative frameworks to manage immediate crises and foster durable, long-term economic growth. These simulations provide a “safe space” to consider new alliances, coalitions, and conversations across silos and political interests, and aim to reveal possible contingency plans that draw from a diverse pool of expertise, worldviews, and organizational vantage points. Participants were asked to utilize a resilience and adaptive management framework to address these intersecting security, governance, developmental, and humanitarian challenges.

Participants in the July simulation included representatives from governments and international organizations, subject matter experts, and members of civil society from across the region and globally. The participants were assigned and took on the roles of varying stakeholder groups, including Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, the United States, Mexico, Multilateral Development Banks, International Organizations, the private sector, youth and children, and a range of non-governmental, civil society, and faith-based organizations. These roles were included in the simulation given their relevance, level of influence, and distinct capacity to build resilience in the region. Participants were assigned roles that were different from their professional jobs and affiliations, challenging them to think through these issues from another perspective and identify innovative solutions and partnerships that may have eluded them to date.

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The Virtual Dialogue

Following the closed-door simulation, FP convened a virtual dialogue on July 22, 2021, that brought together leaders and experts from government, the private sector, and civil society to discuss the range of complex risks and fragility factors in the region and how these various stakeholders are working to build local capacity, foster multidimensional resilience, and stem forced migration. Speakers explored the policies, funding, and partnerships necessary to build resilience in northern Central America, and reflected on the insights and takeaways of the simulation. Moderated by FP Analytics’ managing director Allison Carlson, the virtual dialogue’s speakers included:

• João Diniz, Regional Leader for Latin America and the Caribbean, World Vision International;
• Mileydi Guilarte, Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID;
• Ricardo Pareja, Head of Sales and Market Development for the Humanitarian & Development Group, Mastercard;
• Edgar Sandoval, President and CEO, World Vision U.S.;
• Luis Suazo, Ambassador of Honduras to the U.S.; and
• Ricardo Zúñiga, Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle, U.S. Department of State.

Participants and speakers conveyed that deterring forced migration will require solutions that raise the capacities of states, the private sector, civil society, and communities to better prevent and absorb major shocks and stress, to positively adapt in the face of changing political, social, economic, and environmental changes. Further, institutions and systems will need to be transformed to address the root causes of crises and stress in the region. Building cross-sector collaboration within the country and at the subregional level are key to strengthening the local capacities that can more effectively manage transnational and compounding risks.

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Addressing Regional Challenges Through a Resilience Framework

Deteriorating socio-economic and security conditions, exacerbated by frequent natural disasters and country governance challenges, among other destabilizing factors, have driven millions of people from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to leave their homes in search of greater stability and prosperity. In 2019, these countries accounted for nearly 50 percent of defensive asylum applicants in the U.S., generating an estimated 500,000 refugees globally and another 250,000 internally displaced people.³⁴ As the pandemic continues into 2021, migrants are arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers. In April 2021, a record 112,000 single adult migrants, arriving predominantly from northern Central America, were taken into custody.⁵ This trend continued to accelerate in the following months. In July 2021, 210,000 migrants crossed the U.S.’s southern border, the highest number recorded in the last 21 years.⁶

Despite successive efforts, governmental and non-governmental efforts are not currently reaching the expected outcomes in addressing the region’s challenges. Development efforts by international actors have likewise failed to adequately address the root causes of forced migration. Relief and development approaches have long focused on meeting basic human needs, promoting economic growth and good governance, but insufficient attention has been paid to the underlying causes of fragility, which produce a wide range of overlapping risks, including those that are related to political, social, economic, environmental, and security dimensions. The simulation and dialogue sought to contribute to an emerging “fragility to resilience” paradigm shift focused on better managing complex risks and crises that disrupt peace and development, a trend that is being increasingly discussed among policymakers and gaining traction in the development community.⁷ The shift to a resilience framework is focused on making complex and compounding risks more visible and fostering greater coping capacities by states and societies as well as international partners to build resilience in the face of fragility. The simulation’s top objective was to foster new ways of thinking and working in the region in order to deepen analysis, collaboration, and insight on resilience solutions.

Themes

The scenario outlined a series of possible events that, if triggered, could exacerbate the political, economic, and humanitarian crisis throughout the region. Although this scenario was fictitious, it was crafted considering known and ongoing vulnerabilities to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and designed to compel participants to think through how they would respond should such events occur. Several key themes were explored during the scenario, including:

1. Environmental Fragility: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as well as certain natural hazards, including drought, hurricanes, and earthquakes.⁸ As temperatures rise, the number of extreme weather events in the region such as droughts and hurricanes is projected to increase.⁹ Climate change’s impact on temperature and wildlife habitat may also have significant health effects for the three Central American countries, including a potential increase in infectious diseases. These health effects will disproportionately impact highly vulnerable populations such as children, women, the elderly, and water-insecure people. To reflect ongoing environmental risks in the region, participants were confronted with the after-effects of a hurricane, a drought impacting the Dry Corridor, and a new variant of COVID-19.

2. Security and Social Fragility: The three countries have long struggled with chronic violence. Decades of civil war and political instability weakened state security structures, enabling the rise of transnational gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Eighteenth Street Gang (Barrio 18). Homicide rates and rates of youth violence in the region were among the world’s highest a decade ago.¹⁰ While homicide rates have been trending downward over the last few years,¹¹ rates of gender-based violence remain some of the highest in Latin America, and lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have further exacerbated violence against women and children in the region, further fueling forced migration.¹² This scenario explicitly encompassed this threat with the inclusion of new transnational criminal organization and escalating rates of violence against women, children, and LGBTQI people.

3. Political and Institutional Fragility: Weak institutional capacity and rule of law, along with other governance challenges, protests and political unrest are deep-rooted issues for the region, stemming from decades of civil war and instability in the 20th century.¹³ The 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International determined that all three countries are in the bottom half of the 180 countries surveyed.¹⁴ Inequality, impunity, and poverty have all grown during the COVID-19 pandemic and have pushed some people to migrate in search of more stable conditions and opportunities, with these factors reflected in the simulation.¹⁵

4. Economic and Social Fragility: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are among the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, ranked below most other Latin American and Caribbean states in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.¹⁶ Due to a large informal sector and economic insecurity, many households are dependent on remittances from abroad, which accounted for nearly 21 percent of the countries’ GDP in 2020, on average.¹⁷¹⁸ Though remittance-giving has since rebounded, these payments sharply fell during the early months of the pandemic.¹⁹ This initial drop in remittances left many households without a safety net when restrictions to contain the COVID-19 pandemic crushed economic activity, particularly in the large informal sectors.²⁰ To keep economies afloat, governments borrowed heavily to support social and health services, and aid delivery was insufficient, partly due to institutional weaknesses.²¹ Growing levels of poverty during the pandemic, alongside recurring environmental crises, have exacerbated food insecurity and chronic malnutrition throughout the region.²² For example, high rates of poverty and frequent drought in Guatemala have left nearly half the population unable to afford basic food staples, resulting in the stunting of nearly half of the country’s children under the age of five.²³ During the scenario, participants were challenged to address a range of economic and social vulnerabilities, including livelihood loss, poverty, food insecurity, deficient telecommunication and transit infrastructure, debt vulnerability, and limited access to health services.

5. The Role of U.S. Engagement: Over the past two decades, the United States has engaged with Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador through foreign assistance and immigration policy to manage irregular flows of migration. The three countries have been significantly affected by these policies, which have changed under each administration. The simulation underscored the need to understand the risks and unintended consequences of external engagements, while continuing to build on the importance of international investments and aid assistance. The simulation and dialogue explored avenues for constructive engagement and information and data-sharing with regional and local entities and how the U.S. can more effectively collaborate and support locally driven capacity-building. 

The Resilience Framework

The continuous multidimensional and dynamic risks described above threaten Central Americans lives and livelihoods. To respond to these risks, simulation participants and speakers participating in the dialogue were encouraged to think through these issues and their proposed solutions in the context of a resilience framework. Resilience is the capacity of a state, society, or system to absorb, adapt, and/or transform in the face of shocks or stress. It requires actors to strengthen the capacities and resources of a system to cope with risks, their root causes, and ensuing crises. This resilience framework can be broken down into three types of capacities:

1. Absorptive Capacity, which is the ability to take protective actions to cope with known shocks and stresses. These include actions taken to anticipate, prevent, mitigate, and absorb specific shocks (such as disasters, conflict, and rapid price fluctuations) or mounting stress (including large-scale unemployment, high sovereign debt, and demographic pressures).

2. Adaptive Capacity, which involves the ability to make intentional adjustments in anticipation of or in response to changing conditions. Interventions to support adaptive capacity seek to improve the flexibility, foresight, and learning of states, systems, households, and communities to adopt positive adaptive strategies in response to longer-term social, economic, and environmental change rather than negative adaptive “last resort” practices, such as irregular migration or meal-skipping.

3. Transformative Capacity, which refers to the capacity to make fundamental changes to address the structural or root causes of risks and vulnerabilities. Transformative capacity involves reforms within governance mechanisms, policies, regulations, infrastructure, community networks, and/or social protection mechanisms.

World Vision has developed a resilience framework for the region based on the organization’s forty years of operations and close working relationships with communities, civil society, the private sector, and public institutions. The framework identifies the multiple fragilities and risks facing the region but also identifies resources for resilience within society, institutions, communities, families, and individuals that can be strengthened through wider-stakeholder partnerships, cross-sector collaborations, and investments. The scenario used this resilience framework to prompt dialogue among participants on entry points for action.

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Central American Resilience

World Vision’s framework to address the root causes of forced migration in the Northern Triangle

SOURCE: WORLD VISION, 2021

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Simulation Summary

The simulation began with a “scene-setter,” which described the environment in which the scenario’s events unfolded. The simulation was structured around three “moves,” each requiring a response or action from participants. After each move, participants broke away from the full group to formulate responses with their team or with other teams (e.g., establishing an alliance or brokering a deal with another team). These consultations were followed by a reflection session guided by the moderator, FP’s editor-in-chief Ravi Agrawal, as well as insights from an expert panel and a group discussion to draw conclusions based on the outcome of the role play. The expert panels encouraged participants to address each move by considering the resilience framework.

Scene Setter–The Aftermath of a Hurricane

The scene begins in the aftermath of a devastating Category 4 hurricane, which made landfall near San Pedro Sula in Honduras and Puerto Barrios and Lago de Izabal in Guatemala. Hurricane Miranda and its after-effects killed 4,200 people across both countries, resulted in widespread internal displacement, and wiped out critical infrastructure and crops. Hundreds of thousands have sought emergency assistance, and nearly 20,000 people have been left homeless. Capitalizing on the devastation and destabilization across the region following the hurricane, a new Nicaraguan criminal enterprise, or mara, called Las Serpientes, expands its network into El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Las Serpientesserves as an intermediary in drug and arms trafficking from South America to North America and Europe. Throughout the region, tensions and gang competition have increased, contributing to a sharp escalation in extortion, kidnappings, and random acts of violence on civilians. Instability and insecurity have been driving migrants from rural areas toward cities within the region for months.

Move 1—Drought in the Dry Corridor and a New COVID-19 Variant

A season after the hurricanes, a drought devastates the Dry Corridor, which spans the three countries. The drought wiped out agricultural production, devastating farmers’ livelihoods and placing thousands of young children at risk of severe malnutrition. As the region struggles to manage the drought, a highly infectious COVID-19 variant spreads quickly throughout Central America. Central American governments reinstate lockdown measures to contain the new strain, forcing businesses and schools to close. The compounding effects of the drought and the pandemic have led to widespread food insecurity. As a result, internal displacement and migration to the United States and Mexico rapidly increase, as people become unable to feed their families or find work due to the drought and COVID-19.

Participants’ Responses             

Following the scene-setter and initial move, several themes emerged. Delegates from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras called for enhanced regional security and intelligence cooperation. The governments called upon the United States and Mexico to assist and fund more formalized regional cooperation, including a Criminal Intelligence Sharing Center. Mexico and the United States, however, prioritized improved border security over regional security cooperation, though both countries did offer to continue working with the three regional governments to address trafficking and smuggling issues.

​​While states focused primarily on security concerns, international organizations and non-governmental organizations sought to address humanitarian, health, and climate change issues facing the region. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, delegates from the Health Coalition and Multilateral Development Banks suggested partnering with national and local governments as well as other strategic partners to help distribute information, vaccines, and medical supplies. Several actions to improve climate change resilience in the region were also recommended by Multilateral Development Banks, including the deployment of climate change insurance, water harvesting and small storage technologies, and technical assistance in agriculture and infrastructure.

Other participants, including teams representing the Private Sector, Disaster Relief and Risk Reduction, and Environmental and Food Security Coalitions turned to drought and hurricane recovery efforts, prioritizing coordinating investments in infrastructure and food security. Recommendations included investments in watershed management and restoration, restoring value chains in the Dry Corridor, micro-insurance, and green energy projects. To improve current and future responses to humanitarian emergencies, participants called for formation of an “emergency logistics cluster,” which would bring together local stakeholders, governments, United Nations humanitarian organizations, and NGOs to strengthen preparedness and technical capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies. Participants from the Private Sector Coalition also promoted their sectors’ unique competency in logistics, data analytics, and distribution, which could be better utilized by regional governments during future humanitarian responses to crises and development planning.

Advisory Panel Responses

The advisory panel urged participants to consider how shocks and stressors from the scene setter and first move could disrupt suggested policies or programs. The panelists noted that policies can create new, unintentional risks in the region; for example, they noted that cash transfer programs or private-sector investment might further issues of corruption and elite capture on the ground. Panelists also emphasized that already-vulnerable populations are the most exposed when interconnected, mutually reinforcing crises occur. Since vulnerable populations tend to be invisible to aid or legal and social protections, panelists encouraged participants to keep individual risk at the forefront when planning their next actions.

Move 2—Civil Unrest and Femicides

Since the pandemic began, gender-based and domestic violence have been on the rise, affecting thousands of women, children, and LGBTQI people. While rates of assaults, femicides, and violence against women and children have increased dramatically, calls to emergency services have decreased due to impunity, stigma, and lack of trust in authorities. Amid rising rates of violence, a wave of civil unrest reverberates across the region as protesters demand increased access to better healthcare, formal job opportunities, and employment protections. In the scenario, protests intensify following the discovery of a political scandal involving wealthy elites bribing elected officials to ignore environmental pollution and human rights violations in factories. In response to growing unrest, the government of Honduras implemented a curfew of 6 p.m. to pre-empt potential violence and sent riot police to clash with protesters.

Participants’ Responses 

The second stage of the simulation prompted state actors to focus primarily on governance, norm and behavior change, and security concerns. In response to rising rates of domestic violence, delegates from Guatemala suggested the organization of a national-level human rights commission, where citizens can report potential rights violations for national investigation. Delegates from Guatemala also emphasized the need to deepen engagement with men to prevent gender-based violence (GBV). Given the faith community’s presence and proven ability to bridge gaps among stakeholders in the region, several participants pointed to the Faith-Based Coalition as uniquely suited to educate and engage men on the implications of gender-based violence. Affordable, safe childcare facilities as well as women-led community gardens were also suggested as priorities to directly address gender-based violence by creating safe spaces for women and to empower women to access formal employment.

One undercurrent through all of the recommendations was the need to build resilience to shocks and stresses in the midst of competing, urgent relief and development needs. Strengthening and building resilience within local systems and networks can help to prevent and manage those shocks and stresses before a crisis so that negative impact from a crisis do not jeopardize developmental gains. These efforts to manage shocks and stresses and promote resilience need to be more multidimensional/holistic to address the complexity of the challenge, like promoting women’s empowerment for “livelihoods resilience” and decreasing gender-based violence. For example, while efforts to empower women can and should be woven into broad programs to improve anything from food security to livelihoods resilience, there may be gaps in responding to civil unrest and gender-based violence more broadly. A more holistic approach to resilience that addresses issues of social cohesion (including women’s empowerment), social connection, and responsive institutions is essential when there are competing needs and priorities.

Advisory Panel Insights

The advisory panel highlighted the importance of investing in social capital—or the norms, networks, and shared values that hold a community together—to build resilience in the region. Social capital can be divided into three major types: bonding, bridging, and linking. “Bonding” social capital strengthens self-help social cohesion and the sharing of assets within like-minded communities. It is a critical source of stability and resilience in the face of a disaster, stress, or shock. The second type is the notion of “bridging” social capital, which involves creating metaphorical “bridges” across disconnected or, in some cases, conflicting communities. Finally, “linking” social capital connects grassroots “bridging” and “bonding” efforts to formalized resources and power.^[24]

Per the panelists, evidence shows that resilience is improved when bonding, bridging, and linking are applied together. Conversely, when the three types of social capital are disjointed, resilience can be undermined; for example, investing only in “bonding” and “bridging” social capital can create a grassroots-level response that ignores longer-term or higher-level needs above the community level. Panelists also asked that participants consider targeting some investments in social capital toward families. Panelists argued that policies and programs that focus on the family unit in a coordinated, intentional way—especially via faith-based organizations—can shape the values of a new generation of Central Americans.

Move 3—Migration North and the Collapse of Remittances

A year after Hurricane Miranda swept through the region, President Joe Biden changes U.S. immigration laws to allow up to 125,000 refugees each fiscal year. News of the changes to immigration law inspires the organization of several migrant caravans made up of tens of thousands of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans. Mexican authorities, concerned with the growing number of caravans headed toward its border with Guatemala, send troops to the border to deter migration through Mexico. Meanwhile, a new study from a major international financial institution estimates that remittances to the region will gradually decline over the next decade as living costs increase, wages remain stagnant, and inflation persists. Falling remittances weaken the consumption of goods and services within the region, reduce already-depleted government revenues, and endanger thousands of small businesses. The dependence of the three economies on remittances limits deficit-financing options, forcing governments to increasingly seek out private capital markets, which tend to have higher interest rates.

Participants’ Responses

In the final move, participants sought to protect the health and safety of those migrating, while also addressing the challenges that migration poses to countries of origin, transit, and destination. To facilitate more orderly migration, delegates from the Faith-Based Coalition urged the United States and Mexico to expand temporary worker programs and develop clearer, more expedient asylum policies and processes. Delegates also urged international organizations to directly deploy COVID-19 vaccines to migrants on the ground. Given the sharp increases in irregular migration, several participants called for improved regional dialogue among governments and local actors, including faith-based actors. Throughout the simulation, the Faith-Based Coalition was noted as uniquely positioned to convene regional discussions around migration as well as other humanitarian challenges.

Acknowledging that regular and irregular migration is partly driven by a lack of economic opportunities in their home communities, participants also sought to grapple with the financing and economic challenges facing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Delegates from the Multilateral Development Bank also emphasized the importance of regional development banks in financing locally significant, smaller-scale infrastructure projects such as dams, which tend to be less attractive to international investors but have large regional impacts. The team representing the banks also supported establishing a financing facility to seed small-scale ventures at the community level to promote private-sector growth.

The importance of internet access and mobile banking was also highlighted by several actors during the move. Delegates from the Private Sector and the Forced Migration Coalitions noted that internet access is vital to connecting people in the region with job opportunities and remittance funding. Finally, to leverage the skills and job training of returnees, the Forced Migration Coalition also recommended that development efforts target language skills and technical competencies to enable people in the region to work via the internet with international companies.

Advisory Panel Insights

To close the simulation, panelists reflected on the solutions proposed during the simulation as well as remaining challenges and opportunities left unaddressed. Panelists encouraged participants to consider the practicality of solutions created during the simulation, given the unique, often elite-centric political settlements made within the three Central American countries. These political settlements pose unique risks to building resilience at the country level and require politically savvy and adaptive approaches by partners to support solutions beyond only technical interventions. Finally, the panel encouraged participants to facilitate partnerships with a variety of stakeholders at the regional, country, and local levels to build resilience.

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Recommendations and Next Steps

The FP Simulation and Virtual Dialogue produced several key takeaways and policy recommendations aimed at addressing the root causes of multidimensional fragility in the northern Central American region, across economic, environmental, social, political, and security dimensions. While most of the recommendations promoted resilience across multiple vulnerabilities, the greatest number of suggested actions addressed economic and personal vulnerability, particularly around securing livelihoods and private-sector investment. The following results and takeaways provide overarching recommendations as well as those that pertain to the three types of resilience capacity—absorptive, adaptive, and transformative—characterizing the resilience framework. The recommendations can be applied at multiple levels, including the individual and family, community, or societal levels.

Overarching Take-Aways and Recommendations

Building resilience requires the identification of complex risks. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras face a constellation of compounding crises that have pushed development and humanitarian aid efforts to focus on meeting immediate needs through service delivery and economic opportunities. However, this needs-based approach has mostly failed to address complex risks and crises as well as their root causes, necessitating a new development and humanitarian approach that focuses on resilience. A resilience approach that identifies complex risks and causes and works to strengthen the absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities within societies is essential to helping the region move beyond current fragility traps. World Vision’s “Hope at Home: Building Resilience in Central America” framework helps to identify major multidimensional risks and vulnerabilities that have been shown to make people vulnerable to forced migration as a negative coping mechanism.²⁵  

International aid efforts should prioritize the development and implementation of country platforms. Participants in the FP Simulation and Virtual Dialogue noted the shortfalls in previous aid and development efforts. Aid and technical assistance have historically been delivered to fragile states through uncoordinated and short-term projects generally in response to crises. Although the United States and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as well as Mexico and the ​​Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), have developed comprehensive aid approaches to the region, these approaches have, to a large degree, been unable to stem forced migration. Expanding engagement in the region requires a new approach to aid architecture, which allows the recipient country to coordinate aid efforts according to its own key development concerns. Country platforms could provide a path to do this by creating government-led coordination bodies that identify development needs and develop targeted programs that are informed and adapted by real-time data and intelligence.²⁶

International organizations and donor countries should thus work with regional governments to develop their own country platforms to help ensure that programs are effectively aligned, and capabilities most efficiently and appropriately deployed. These efforts would establish a center of gravity for governments and partners to agree on shared priorities and mobilize resources to address governance, development, security, and economic challenges. To promote resilience and communication among stakeholders, these platforms would need to be data-driven as well as adaptive to changing environments and ongoing work on the ground. For instance, the government of Honduras developed a Reconstruction and Sustainable Development Plan to respond to the hurricanes Iota and Eta in November 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic.²⁷ This country-led agenda, according to Ambassador Suazo, could be the starting point to bring key stakeholders and international cooperation in country platform mechanisms for advancing country priorities in building resilience in Honduras. In Guatemala, offices like SEGEPLAN, the national office for planning domestic resources and coordination mechanisms for bilateral and multilateral coordination, can serve the role of country coordination platforms to embrace the resilience agenda in-country.

Absorptive Capacity

Emergency services and responses should be coordinated across stakeholders. As noted above, simulation participants recommended activating an “emergency logistics cluster,” which would bring together local stakeholders, governments, and NGOs, and maintaining the cluster during periods without disasters. Such actions could help strengthen “absorptive capacities” in communities through financing more resilient local infrastructure and improving emergency logistics coordination to better prevent, mitigate, and absorb sudden shocks. Participants suggested combating the spread of COVID-19 by setting up a vaccination program, partnering with national and local governments as well as other strategic partners to distribute information and medical supplies, and using major health-focused NGOs to advise countries on how to apply their health protocols. For migrants, participants recommended providing vaccines in the host country to curb the spread of COVID-19. Improving the absorptive and adaptive capacities of migrants—including through improved personal security for migrants along the migratory path—should be a goal for all actors, and particularly for the U.S. and Mexico.

Adaptive Capacity

Adaptive approaches are vital to better understand the underlying political, social, and economic problems that present major risks to societies, systems, and institutions. During the simulation and dialogue, participants and speakers referred to the complexity of fragility dynamics and compounding crises. This complexity is unlikely to be addressed through pre-conceived solutions and rigid types of linear development programming or governance reform. Adaptive approaches, those that continuously iterate, experiment, and learn which policy reforms and programs are working and which are not, are critical to long-term resiliency. The establishment of infrastructure for real-time data collection and information sharing among partners can help facilitate a more adaptative approach. Resilience efforts without politically informed and adaptive approaches will be short-lived and far less effective that those that employ adaptive approaches in response to sudden shocks and immediate stressors.

Collaboration with local partners, especially faith-based organizations, is particularly important for adaptive capacity. Virtual Dialogue speakers and Simulation participants agreed that government, private-sector, and NGO actors investing in the region must develop local partnerships to co-design and monitor interventions. Partnering with local organizations to develop and monitor interventions ensures that programs effectively meet the humanitarian and development needs of the location and allow the program to adapt over time more easily. Faith-based organizations were identified multiple times during the simulation as uniquely positioned to convene regional discussions, coordinate service provision, and facilitate social change, given the legitimacy and trust bestowed upon Catholic and Protestant Churches in the region. Given the number of governments, international organizations, NGOs, and private companies with faith offices or designates, these offices and designates could collaborate and focus on new forms of outreach and engagement with local faith groups and networks to foster resilience in the region.

Simulation participants advocated strongly for mobilizing relevant actors to improve economic and social resilience, based on their existing competencies and comparative advantages. Faith-based and youth-focused organizations were mentioned throughout the simulation as having close connections with individuals and communities.

Further cross-country security cooperation is needed. During the Simulation and Dialogue, government representatives focused primarily on threats to security and governance. In the simulation, participants representing regional governments requested aid and technical assistance to help combat threats to security, including organized crime, human and narco-trafficking, violence, and femicide. Similarly, Ambassador Luis Suazo from Honduras acknowledged in his Virtual Dialogue remarks that violence and corruption would continue in the region without international security cooperation around combating transnational criminal groups. Security cooperation between the U.S. and the region is mostly limited to the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), later recast as part of the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America. The U.S. government budgeted more than $3.6 billion in aid to the Strategy, including CARSI, which funded regional law enforcement, counter-narcotics agencies, and justice systems.²⁸ However, actual security assistance has been limited due to the U.S. government’s withholding of a portion of aid appropriated for FY2017 until Central American governments improved border security, governance, and human rights, and then reprogramming nearly all assistance to the Northern Triangle for FY18, and failing to disburse the majority of funds for FY19 and FY20.²⁹

Simulation participants also emphasized the need for coordinated, regional action on violence, gangs, and drug trafficking issues. One pathway for fostering regional action could be to establish a Central America Criminal Intelligence Sharing Center that would promote ongoing information sharing from an intelligence and law enforcement perspective. The U.S. and Mexico could support the development and operation of such a center, potentially hosting it in Miami. Participants also highlighted the need to clarify asylum policies and evaluate expanding the U.S.’s and Mexico’s temporary migrant worker programs to facilitate orderly economic migration and reduce irregular migration.

Transformative Capacity

Cross-sectoral collaborations are necessary for growth. Building resilient infrastructure and systems to cope with future crises requires multiple actors to work with the private sector to plan, fund, and implement projects and policies. During the Virtual Dialogue and Simulation, participants underscored the role of the private sector in driving economic growth and social resilience. However, significant impediments to forming partnerships between governments and the private sector have limited private investment in the region, with combined foreign direct investment to the three countries at only $2.2 billion in 2019.³⁰ During the Dialogue, Special Envoy Zúñiga specifically  noted the need for new public-private partnership laws in Guatemala, which would significantly increase possibilities for investment within the country. Removing such impediments is vital to increasing international investment in the region. In the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America, the United States acknowledges the private sector as an underutilized partner in the region and emphasizes the current need to leverage private-sector expertise and resources to address the root causes of migration.³¹

The Strategy has so far garnered 12 private-sector partners to invest in the region, including MasterCard and Microsoft.³² These partners, in particular, will be critical to bridging gaps in access to financial services and the internet, with Microsoft promising to expand broadband access to three million rural inhabitants in the region. Broadband penetration in Northern Central America falls short of regional benchmarks, with 57 percent penetration in El Salvador, 41 percent in Guatemala, and 37 percent in Honduras.³³ During the simulation, participants called on the private sector to invest in broadband access, noting its potential to connect individuals with jobs, education, services, and information. Further facilitating private investments in foundational infrastructure, such as Microsoft’s pledged investment in rural broadband access, will be key to accelerating economic growth and opportunity across the region.

Communities and governments can benefit from expanding the formal economy. On average, an estimated 76 percent of workers among the three Northern Triangle countries have informal, often low-paying jobs without a fixed salary or benefits.³⁴ These workers typically do not pay taxes and thus lack access to government pensions and credit from financial institutions. These jobs are also highly vulnerable to shocks and disasters, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which forced governments to implement lockdowns that prevented many informal workers from generating income. Consequently, expanding opportunities in the formal economy is vital to ensuring that basic needs are met at the individual level and that governments are capable of financing social spending. During the simulation, participants recommended that governments seeking to promote formalization offer seed money for new ventures or temporary tax benefits for existing firms to formalize their businesses. Participants also recommended certain active labor market policies, including targeted vocational training for women, young people, would-be migrants, and returnees. 

Good governance is key to effective long-term investments. Governments in the three countries have tried numerous development- or crime-focused interventions and policies to tackle governance issues, but most have failed or backslid in recent years. Simulation participants touched on the need to support good governance initiatives and to develop strong commitments and laws to combat impunity and corruption. At the Virtual Dialogue, speakers representing the U.S. government highlighted good governance as a key condition for minimizing forced migration and improving development outcomes. Governance challenges in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are a “major contributing factor to irregular migration,” according to Special Envoy Ricardo Zúñiga. In his remarks, Zúñiga stated that resilience is a topline goal for the U.S. to respond to the complex risks and crises in the region and that governance reform is a central focus for the U.S. to address these fragility dynamics, since “corruption and weak governance contribute significantly to insecurity and discourage domestic and foreign investment.” However, typical “good governance” approaches are often too technical and focus on transplanting best practices from developed or Western countries.³⁵ Highly complex and entrenched political, institutional, social, environmental, and security fragilities in the region demand an adaptive and politically informed approach to governance reform, continuously experimenting and learning with coalitions and reformers to foster various types of resilience.

The Simulation and Virtual Dialogue brought together regional representatives and experts, many of whom had never met, to think through these complex risks and generate recommendations to build local capacity and resilience more sustainably across El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—by identifying absorptive, adaptive, and transformative approaches. Each of these capacities is interconnected and mutually reinforcing and exists at multiple levels ranging from the individual to the state. By building these resilience capacities at the individual and family, community, and societal levels, individuals and communities can be strengthened and further empowered to withstand crises. Enhancing these capacities can help to ensure broad-based, long-term development and a greater capacity to withstand the shocks, stresses, and uncertainties at the root of forced migration.

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References

¹ IOM (2019) Glossary on Migration. International Migration Law, No. 34. Link: https://publications. iom.int/system/files/pdf/iml_34_glossary.pdf

² Ibid.

³ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. Annual Flow Report–Refugees and Asylees: 2019, September 2020. Link: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2019/refugee_and_asylee_2019.pdf

⁴ UNHCR, Central America Refugee Crisis, Accessed August 15, 2021, Link: https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/central-america/

⁵ The Washington Post, “Huge border influx brings fears of grim summer for migrant deaths,” June 3, 2021. Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/summer-migrant-deaths-southern-border/2021/06/03/a03d7bb8-c3a6-11eb-8c34-f8095f2dc445_story.html

⁶ U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions by Sector. Department of Homeland Security. Accessed August 25, 2021. Link: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions

⁷ Ingram, G. and Papoulidis, J. (2018) “Fragile states and the search for ‘what works.’” Brookings. Link: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/11/08/fragile-states-and-the-search-for-what-works/. OECD (2020) “States of Fragility 2020.” Link: https://www.oecd.org/dac/states-of-fragility-fa5a6770-en.htm

⁸ IOM, WFP (2016) “Hunger Without Borders: The hidden links between Food Insecurity, Violence and Migration in the Northern Triangle of Central America.” Link: https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/hunger-without-borders-hidden-links-between-food-insecurity-violence-and-migration-northern-triangle

⁹ Sigelmann, L. (2019) “The Hidden Driver: Climate Change and Migration in Central America’s Northern Triangle,” Link: https://www.scribd.com/document/424634738/The-Hidden-Driver-Climate-Change-and-Migration-in-Central-America-s-Northern-Triangle

¹⁰ Arnson, C. Et al.(2011) “Organized Crime in Central America: The Northern Triangle.” Wilson Center. Link: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/LAP_single_page.pdf. Fernández, D. (2010) “Policías sin ton ni son.” El Periódico, September 20, 2010. Prensa Libre (2010) “Policías se apropian de dinero durante operativo en Tikal Futura,” October 12, 2010.

¹¹ USAID, UNDP (2021) “Homicides in the year of COVID-19: Central America and the Dominican Republic. ” Link: https://infosegura.org/en/2021/01/21/homicides-in-the-year-of-covid-19-central-america-and-the-dominican-republic-2/

¹² Wolfe, D. (2020) “Northern Triangle: Terrifying to live in, dangerous to leave.” Link: https://www.worldvision. ca/stories/child-protection/northern-triangle

¹³ Bozmoski, M.F., Hernández, C., Rubio, R. and Sadurní, D. (2021) “Combatting corruption in the Northern Triangle: Prioritizing a whole-of-society approach.” Atlantic Council. Link: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/ in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/combatting-corruption-in-the-northern-triangle-prioritizing-a-whole-of-society-approach/#Introduction. Wolfe, D. (2020) “Northern Triangle: Terrifying to live in, dangerous to leave.” Link: https://www.worldvision.ca/stories/child-protection/northern-triangle

¹⁴ Transparency International (2021) “Corruption Perceptions Index.” Link: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/index/nzl

¹⁵ Cheatham, A. (2021) “Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle.” Council on Foreign Relations. Link: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-turbulent-northern-triangle

¹⁶ World Bank. (2021). GDP per capita (current US$): Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank Group. Link: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=ZJ

¹⁷ Cheatham, A. (2021) “Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle.” Council on Foreign Relations. Link: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-turbulent-northern-triangle

¹⁸ The World Bank. “Personal remittances, received (% of GDP) – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras.” Accessed August 25, 2021. Link: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=GT-SV-HN

¹⁹ Noe-Bustamante, L. (Aug. 2020). “Amid COVID-19, remittances to some Latin American nations fell sharply in April, then rebounded.” Pew Research Center. Link: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/31/amid-covid-19-remittances-to-some-latin-american-nations-fell-sharply-in-april-then-rebounded/.

²⁰ Alonso-Gamo, P., Goretti, M., and Ocker, I. (Dec. 2020). “When it Rains it Pours: Pandemic and Natural Disasters Challenge Central America’s Economies.” Link: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/12/15/na121720when-it-rains-it-pours-pandemic-and-natural-disasters-challenge-central-americas-economies.

²¹ ECLAC. (2021). Financing for development in the era of COVID-19 and beyond: Priorities of Latin America and the Caribbean in relation to the financing for development global policy agenda. No. 10 Special Report COVID-19 Link: https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/46711/1/S2100063_en.pdf.

²² Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (2021) “The Northern Triangle of Central America is a Concern that will be raised at The UN Food Systems Summit.” Link: https://iica.int/en/press/news/northern-triangle-central-america-concern-will-be-raised-un-food-systems-summit

²³ World Food Programme. (June 2021). Guatemala Country Brief. World Food Programme. Link: https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000130458/download/?_ga=2.147575927.1719115431.1629219610-1877471204.1629219610

²⁴ OECD (2018) “States of Fragility 2018.” Link: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/states-of-fragility-2018_9789264302075-en?itemId=/content/publication/9789264302075-en&_csp_=f05718374d7db8492bca650b 796707e5&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book.

²⁵ World Vision (2021) “Hope at Home: Building Resilience in Central America.” Link: https://wvusstatic.com/PDFs/Central-America-Resilience-Briefing.pdf.

²⁶ OECD (2020) “States of Fragility 2020.” Link: https://www.oecd.org/dac/states-of-fragility-fa5a6770-en.htm. Papoulidis, J. (2020) “Country Platforms in Fragile States: A New Path for Development Cooperation.” [Blog] Global Delivery Initiative. 

²⁷ The Government of Honduras. (2020) Plan de Reconstrucción y Desarrollo Sostenible de Honduras. Link: http://www.prds.hn/

²⁸ Meyer, P. (November 2019). U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: Policy Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service. Link: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44812.pdf

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ World Bank. (2019). “Foreign direct investment, net inflows (BoP, current US$) – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras.” World Bank Group. Link: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?locations=GT-SV-HN

³¹ The National Security Council. (July 2021). U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America. The White House. Link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Root-Causes-Strategy.pdf

³² The White House. (May 2021). “FACT SHEET: Vice President Harris Launches a Call to Action to the Private Sector to Deepen Investment in the Northern Triangle.” The White House Briefing Room. Link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/27/fact-sheet-vice-president-harris-launches-a-call-to-action-to-the-private-sector-to-deepen-investment-in-the-northern-triangle/

³³ Smith, B. (May 2021). “Answering the call: Microsoft’s support for VP Harris’ initiative to promote economic opportunity in Central America.” Microsoft. Link: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2021/05/27/harris-central-america-digital-skills-call-to-action/

³⁴ ILOSTAT (July 2021). “Share of informal employment by country (in percent), latest year.” International Labour Organisation. Link: https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/# 

³⁵ World Bank Group (2017) “Social Service Delivery in Violent Contexts: Achieving Results Against the Odds.” Link: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/343141497021595501/pdf/116038-WP-PUBLIC-184p-SocialServiceDeliveryinViolentContextsFinal.pdf. World Bank Group (2017) “World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law.” World Bank Group Flagship Report. Link: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2017

This issue brief was produced by FP Analytics, the independent research division of Foreign Policy magazine, and underwritten by Our Secure Future.

Technology increasingly permeates every facet of our lives. The digital economy accounts for nearly 16 percent of global GDP and is growing two-and-a-half times faster than the rest of the world economy.^1,2 Everything from social interactions and politics to business, health care, and education increasingly rely on digital connections, innovation, artificial intelligence, and advanced algorithms. Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated our digital dependence.

According to a recent study by Our Secure Future, the digital ecosystem is reflecting and amplifying gender inequalities in society.³ Addressing these problems requires moving beyond women’s participation, and toward the integration of gender analysis.

Yet half of the world’s population is at a grave disadvantage in this new age. Women and other chronically marginalized groups have long been barred from shaping institutions. Today, they find themselves excluded from technology development and the governance frameworks that are shaping the future. A pervasive digital divide, particularly in the Global South, continues to inhibit women’s ability to design and use technology. According to FP Analytics research undertaken last year, not one of the 111 data governance frameworks under development worldwide had meaningfully taken gender equality into account. The Women, Peace, and Security policy framework offers the private sector and international institutions some solutions.

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What is Women, Peace, and Security?

Women, Peace, and Security, based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 passed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council in October 2000, is a global movement to ensure the full inclusion of women and gender perspectives in building peace and stability around the world. In 2017, the United States adopted the Women, Peace, and Security Act to ensure women’s full participation in peace and security decision-making. And today, 80-plus countries have adopted National Action Plans on Women, Peace, and Security.

This global advocacy effort has been pressing for change in peace and security leadership and processes for more than two decades. Efforts by women and women-led civil society to build peace and be included in peace and security decision-making have been going on for much longer. This agenda has also shown that gender is far more than “women’s issues” that can be brushed aside.⁴ Gender equality is closely correlated with social stability, state security, rule of law, and good governance. Research has demonstrated that the way in which women are treated in a society is a harbinger of that society’s stability and propensity for violence. The WPS framework can be used to examine the human factors in our digital ecosystem more holistically, including gendered dynamics and implications for the future of peace and security.

Attempts to address the underrepresentation of women and marginalized groups, outright discrimination against them, and the range of other issues constraining women’s engagement in the digital ecosystem have been fragmented and siloed to date. Beyond the digital divide and barriers to access, a 2020 global survey⁴ by World Pulse further found that women around the world online face myriad challenges, including privacy concerns, online harassment, and technology-enabled violence, among other problems that have inhibited their full engagement on these platforms. These limitations and the failure of policy frameworks to meaningfully address them carry profound implications for political participation and organizing, economic activity, and security worldwide.

Multilateral action is needed urgently to develop a more comprehensive framework that accepts woman as equal partners in designing new platforms and taking the lead in regulating tech. The good news is that actors across the international community have already adopted a policy framework that applies at international, national, and local levels that is inclusive, promotes human rights in security, and is already being applied globally. The Women, Peace, and Security agenda requires governance frameworks to include a gender perspective to ensure the inclusion of marginalized voices.

Failure to apply a gender lens to these frameworks – such as that set forth by UNSCR 1325 – not only perpetuates the existing social and economic exclusion of women, but also abandons vast opportunities for technological improvement, enhanced business performance and wealth creation. This is not just a problem affecting women and other marginalized groups. At stake is economic growth, security, and basic human rights for the world as a whole.

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Equality in the Digital Ecosystem is an Economic and Business Imperative

Failure to fully achieve gender equality across today’s technology platforms carries significant economic costs that will continue to grow into the future should the aforementioned issues not be remedied. For example, women control an increasing share of wealth in the U.S. and other countries around the world and are the main purchasing decision-makers in households.⁵ Systems that intentionally or unintentionally exclude women and other marginalized groups and fail to account for how they participate online is a significant blind spot for businesses.

Applying a gender perspective would more intentionally take into account the different experiences that women, men, boys, and girls have in varying environments and situations. Understanding and accounting for these differences in policy and technology design would help to ensure that the varying needs, priorities, and values of these groups are more effectively prioritized and reflected in the digital environment. Considering and accounting for these factors from the outset also enables policymakers and technology developers to anticipate the effects these differences can have on the economy and society.

As the digital economy continues to expand and permeate every facet of life, the full participation of women and marginalized groups in the sector can unleash greater opportunities for economic growth worldwide.

Removing Access Barriers is a Critical First Step

Roughly 58 percent of the world’s 7.6 billion people have access to the internet,^6,7 including some 26.6 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) along with 7.2 billion mobile phones. This translates into nearly four IoT-connected devices and a mobile phone for each person on Earth.⁸ These online platforms and mobile devices are increasingly driving economic activity, enhancing efficiency, opening new markets, and reducing transaction costs. These trends are likely to continue, with global smartphone revenue projected to grow 13 percent in 2021⁹ alone.

As the number of devices grows, so, too, does economic opportunity through expanded e-commerce. E-commerce’s share of global retail trade grew from 14 percent in 2019 to 17 percent in 2020¹⁰ and is a trend that has been accelerated amid the stay-at-home response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Women’s ability to participate fully and equitably in the digital economy is essential for future economic growth around the world. Despite the outsized economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, their current and future purchasing power as well as their projected growth in wealth means that even limited barriers to their participation in the digital economy could substantially constrain economic growth and business profits. Ensuring gender equality across digital platforms is not only a matter of human rights and economic opportunity – it’s smart business.

Like other parts of the global digital infrastructure, the digital pillars of the global economy and digital finance have been designed and implemented overwhelmingly by men and are often built without considering the gender-based differences of users. Approximately 1 billion women remain unable to access financial services because of limited access to mobile phones, underdeveloped digital skills, and inappropriate products, among other barriers.¹¹ These gaps pose a direct threat to economic development and the bottom line of companies as digital exclusion and concerns over safety and security online limit women and marginalized groups’ engagement in the new digital economy.

Expanding women’s access to the digital services – including digital financial services – is critical to future economic growth in developing and developed economies alike. Progress is being made, but slowly. Over the past six years, the number of women with an online bank account or mobile money service increased by more 240 million, according to the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), increasing economic activity, savings, financial independence, and resilience.¹² However, much more needs to be done to address the aforementioned barriers and fully harness the potential that digital inclusion and equity offers.

Online Harassment is Adversely Affecting the Bottom Line

Despite the promise, social media platforms are exacerbating many of these issues and undermining the economic and financial gains from digital inclusion. Three-quarters of U.S. adults who have recently experienced some form of online harassment say it took place on social media platforms.¹³ The incidents, which include offensive name-calling and physical threats, disproportionately affect women. Three times as many women under age 35 reported being sexually harassed online (33 percent versus 11 percent) – with the percentage of women of all ages who reported being sexually harassed online doubling since 2017.¹⁴ Nine in 10 women said online violence harms their well-being, and nearly three-quarters expressed concern that online abuse could escalate into offline threats, a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit found.¹⁵ These threats produced significant economic damage in the form of lost work and higher health care costs.

These incidents, which can drive women (and all people) from social media and other tech platforms not only risk safety and security, but businesses’ bottom lines. Businesses of all types frequently use social media to drive business toward their e-commerce platforms, and many major social platforms are transitioning toward becoming e-payment platforms themselves. Facebook, which accounts for two-thirds of the global social media market, now offers e-payment services.¹⁶ In China, Tencent’s WeChat’s billion active users, along with Alibaba’s Alipay, have captured the vast majority of that country’s mobile payment market.¹⁷ However, 20 percent of women report having stopped using social platforms because of online harassment. This translates into real earnings lost for companies trying to use these platforms to drive sales.¹⁸ The social platforms themselves are also losing earnings from diminished participation from women and other marginalized groups on their platforms.

Businesses cannot afford to be gender-blind and lose the growing purchasing power of female consumers. Women constitute more than 38 percent of the global labor force¹⁹ and control 32 percent of the world’s wealth, or around $72 trillion.²⁰ Between 2016 and 2019, women accumulated wealth at a rate of more than 6 percent a year, far outpacing the growth of the broader economy. Over the next three to five years, an added $30 trillion in assets are expected to shift into the hands of U.S. women, according to McKinsey.²¹ That trend is projected to continue in coming years²², even as the gender pay gap is projected to cost the global GDP $28 trillion by 2025.²³

To put women’s economic power in perspective, the $72 trillion in wealth they control is larger than the 2019 GDP of the world’s 23 largest economies combined and 40 percent higher than the combined GDP of the 37 countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).²⁴ In 2017, women in the U.S. alone earned $5.2 trillion²⁵ – double the United Kingdom’s 2020 annual GDP and larger than Japan’s in 2019.²⁶

Today, even a mainstream business publication such as Forbes recognizes the gender-blind spot of businesses: “Gender is the most powerful determinant of how we see the world and everything in it. It’s more significant than age, income, ethnicity, or geography. Gender is often a blind spot for businesses, partially because the subject is not typically addressed in most undergraduate or graduate-level business courses, or the workplace itself.”²⁷

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Disrupting a System that is Built by and for Men

Women’s representation in the tech industry, particularly leadership roles, is stubbornly low – and falling. Women represent a fifth of technical jobs²⁸, and the pipeline to these positions is clogged. In the United States, the number of women undergraduate students in computer science fell from 37 percent in 1985 to just 14 percent in 2014,²⁹ because schools were not able to cultivate an environment able to retain women in the field. Beyond the dismal statistics on women’s participation, the even lower rates of diversity in the tech sector and the future of the digital commons becomes increasingly problematic.

Need to Foster Women’s Development in Tech Careers

In addition to a limited enrollment, women are leaving tech fields more rapidly: Over a 12-year period, women left careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) at two-and-a-half times the rate that they abandoned other career paths.³⁰ Many women cite unfair treatment, a toxic workplace culture, and sexual harassment as causes for their departure.³¹

Women hold just 20 percent of the chief innovation officer jobs at Fortune 500 companies and fill just 11 percent of those posts globally.³² According to a McKinsey Report, only 20 percent of employees in technical roles at major machine-learning companies are women. A UNESCO study found that women account for just 12 percent of artificial intelligence researchers and 6 percent of AI software development professionals.³³

Action Required to Enhance Overall Diversity in Tech

The lack of racial diversity is even more glaring. Black employees constitute just 3.7 percent of the workforce at Google, 3.8 percent at Facebook, and 4.5 percent at Microsoft, with women of color even more underrepresented.³⁴ Black and Hispanic workers face compounding factors, representing just 9 percent and 7 percent of all STEM workers, with those numbers dropping for women identifying in those groups.³⁵ This lack of diversity from top to bottom has resulted in a digital industry designed by and for white men.

The result is overt or unconscious gender and racial biases designed into algorithms. Consider these two illustrative cases:

Efforts by women and people from different identity groups to redesign and drive innovative enterprises are further stymied by an overwhelmingly white and male venture-capital industry. [White] men represent 92 percent of partners at the top 100 firms.⁴² Because tech startups typically require venture capital to get off the ground, male bias can be a powerful barrier to tech startups, particularly those that are women- and minority-owned. Since 2020, only 17 percent of venture-backed companies were founded by women,⁴³ and women have received no more than 3 percent of U.S venture capital funds.⁴⁴ More than half of startups lack women in their leadership teams.⁴⁵ In addition to contributing perspective to design and decision-making, women’s inclusion in tech has been demonstrated to increase business performance and profitability.⁴⁶

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The Digital Commons Must be Secure For Everyone

Women and marginalized groups are experiencing systemic bias and abuse in technology leadership, creation, and use, which plays out in both digital and physical realms, according to analysis by Our Secure Future. A major consequence of a digital ecosystem designed for and by men is that it has become an unsafe platform for women, who often face harassment and threats of violence. According to the EIU, half of women believe the internet is a dangerous place to share their thoughts, a viewpoint that undermines security and social stability by discouraging women’s political and civic engagement.

In addition to the aforementioned levels of gender-based harassment, political conflict in the digital public square is on the rise – 20 percent of Americans say they have been targeted online because of their political beliefs, up from 14 percent in 2017.⁴⁹ This pattern raises security concerns, particularly when conflicts inflamed online spill out onto the streets. Without systems in place to monitor and remove violent language, we have seen how online platforms have allowed recruitment opportunities for international extremist groups such as ISIS to flourish.⁵⁰

The documented targeting of women and minority groups by alt-right extremists on social media platforms has also been a way to test violent tactics on people before moving into the mainstream.⁵¹ In the U.S., digital platforms have accommodated the incitement of domestic violence by QAnon supporters and others who sought to halt the presidential electoral process underway at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.⁵² In addition to examples from the U.S., Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state media smear and discredit female targets and use misogynistic tropes in disinformation campaigns that create fertile ground for harassment and violence.⁵³ State and non-state actors alike are increasingly using digital platforms to encourage and facilitate violent activities – posing hard security and governance challenges that can put everyone at risk.⁵⁴

There are also instances when a failure to include a gender perspective in technological development produced national security vulnerabilities. The fitness tracking app Strava, which monitored individuals’ running routes, posted the routes and the runners’ real-time location online. Activists raised concerns that the app could be used to stalk women. But not until several years later, when security analysts discovered that the app could be used to locate U.S. military bases around the world, was the problem addressed.⁵⁵ This is a poignant example of the interconnectedness of women’s security with broader national security. If Strava had addressed women’s concerns initially, they could have prevented the abuse of the app in undermining the security of the U.S. military.

As online-generated violence escalates, gender perspectives are needed to intercede and reconstruct the system – a major tenet of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. It recognizes that violent conflict affects women, men, girls, and boys differently and calls for women’s full and meaningful participation at all stages of international peace and security decision-making and stresses that when women are included in peacemaking processes, they reach resolutions more quickly and peace endures.⁵⁶ Women’s participation in these peace-building discussions is urgently needed in the digital realm and is an imperative that the aforementioned examples only begin to illuminate.

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Diverse Voices in the [Digital] Public Square Must be Safeguarded and Elevated

As noted above, online abuse discourages women from engaging online – limiting their social and economic interactions, and their ability to participate in politics. This undercuts a key tenet of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, which affirms that political participation by women and women-led civil society is essential for social stability and peace.⁵⁷ Women lawmakers are still three times more likely than their male counterparts to receive comments containing sexually abusive language.⁵⁸ A study of women parliamentarians by the Interparliamentary Union found that more than four in five of these lawmakers had been subjected to psychological violence; nearly half had been threatened with rape, death or kidnapping, and more than 40 percent had been targeted with humiliating or sexually degrading images of themselves spread across social media. These attacks often extend to the politicians’ families.⁵⁹

Numerous women have abandoned their political leadership aspirations out of fear for their own and their family’s safety. While there are no figures on how many women choose not to run for office as a result of online abuse, the Interparliamentary Union survey found that three in five women believe that the main goal of such online harassment is to dissuade them from political participation. Some organizations that encourage women to run for office, such as VoteRunLead, have enacted training on how to deal with online abuse.⁶⁰

“Forty years ago, women took to the streets to challenge attitudes and demand action against harassment on the streets,” said Yvette Cooper, a British Labour member of Parliament for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford. “Today the internet is our streets and public spaces. Yet for some people, online harassment, bullying, misogyny, racism, or homophobia can end up poisoning the internet and stopping them from speaking out.”⁶¹

Indeed, democracy is less representative if half of the population feels social media has made it unsafe to be a political activist. Women journalists who cover politicians also feel threatened. One in three journalists who are women has considered abandoning their profession because of online attacks, and 70 percent have experienced threats, attacks, or harassment, according to the International Women’s Media Foundation.⁶² These trends present real risks to women’s safety and to democracy, which depends on engaged journalists and accountability to maintain public trust.

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Progressive Reforms Can be Formalized and Strengthened

A digital system that excludes women from leadership positions, creates gender-biased technology and discourages women’s participation in politics and the global economy calls out urgently for a broad remedy – one that is backed by international governments, multinational institutions, industry, academia and civil society. That prospect appears possible as international organizations and government regulators around the world, from the United Nations to the European Commission and U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), undertake parallel efforts to apply a gender lens to technology development and application.

The Gender Equality Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality, organized under the auspices of U.N. Women in partnership with the Mexican and French governments, is making modest progress toward this end. This coalition includes the governments of Finland, Chile, Tunisia, Armenia and Rwanda; major tech platforms such as Microsoft and Salesforce; multinational institutions, including UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union; and civil society organizations and foundations, including the Global Fund for Women, Digital Grassroots, and the Rockefeller Foundation.⁶³ Their agreed-upon goals include making digital space safer for women, fast-tracking women’s tech leadership and supporting the entry of women and girls into the tech industry.⁶⁴ Building on efforts like these, or integrating them into a more comprehensive framework, could help level the digital playing field for women worldwide.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains ambitious data-privacy requirements that could guide U.S. regulation and lead to a comprehensive framework. These privacy rules require companies to tell users whether and how their personal data is being collected, used, and held. Users also must be guaranteed the “right to be forgotten.”⁶⁵ Implementing these regulations worldwide would be a powerful step in protecting women from persistent harassment and stalking by making people harder to track online.

While the GDPR has broader applications, the European Commission’s recently proposed Artificial Intelligence Act,⁶⁶ which seeks to establish a legal framework on AI for Europe and inform other frameworks, contains specific provisions limiting “high-risk” uses of AI and would require companies to provide regulators with proof of the companies’ safety and risk assessments and written explanations of how the technology makes decisions. The proposal specifically includes gender, requiring that AI systems conform to all existing EU non-discrimination and gender equality measures – and address discrimination in hiring and issues pertaining to facial recognition software. Penalty guidelines include fines up to $36 million or 6 percent or global revenues, whichever is higher. Unfortunately, these are only guidelines, with each member state able to determine implementation, making it unclear the extent to which the proposal will succeed.

While the EU is taking progressive action, an array of regulatory and legislative measures could shore up U.S. leadership on this issue as well. In late April, the FTC announced⁶⁷ its intent to further address discriminatory and equity issues in companies’ use of AI. The FTC actions target companies that reinforce bias in AI algorithms and could trigger enforcement action if statements to business customers and consumers alike are not truthful, are deceptive, and are not backed by evidence. Gender is explicitly included in recent guidance as a protected class. As referenced in the guidance, if, for example, an AI developer informs a client that their product will provide “100 percent unbiased hiring decisions,” but the underpinning algorithms lacked racial or gender diversity, that might be considered deceptive or discriminatory and lead to an FTC enforcement action.⁶⁸

The most well-known of these is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which shields social media platforms from liability for the content hosted on their sites.⁶⁹ Repealing or reframing this legislation to enable tech giants to be held liable for damages caused by harmful content could be a powerful incentive for tech platforms to better manage their websites. Such a change would create a financial incentive for tech companies to implement systems that prevent such content from being posted in the first place rather than simply removing it once the damage has been done. While the FTC has broad powers to investigate, the commission’s ability to bring cases based on privacy and data security violations – the primary measures used in big-tech enforcement actions – might be limited in light of a April 22, 2021, Supreme Court decision in which the justices unanimously ruled⁷⁰ that the FTC cannot compel companies that engage in “unfair or deceptive acts or practices to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution” – undercutting the commission’s ability to take enforcement action against big tech.

Beyond the FTC, however, the U.S. could take other measures to further ensure women’s digital security, including reauthorizing the U.S. Violence Against Women Act to include provisions dealing with gender-based online harassment. Congress also could consider allocating funds for law enforcement personnel to tackle online abuse and raise awareness about the problem. VAWA legislation could be expanded to include transparency and reporting requirements for tech platforms.⁷¹

Another important legislative vehicle would be including content moderation and transparency reporting requirements in bills regulating social media – particularly for the largest social media companies. Input from tech industry experts could help shape the specifics of what information these social media platforms are required to disclose, how regularly they must disclose it, and what the consequences will be of violating these requirements. If major social media companies are obliged to publicly disclose sufficient detail about how they approach and moderate content, then activists, coalitions, and other global stakeholders can contribute their perspectives to how these companies adapt their approaches to adequately ensure everyone’s safety online. Some tech leaders, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,⁷² have endorsed greater transparency as a positive step – but more action is needed.

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Moving Toward a More Equal Digital Future

The digital revolution has brought much good to our lives. We can connect with one another from anywhere in the world, find our way to any location, confirm the most obscure fact in seconds, and shop for products and services from any place on Earth with the pressing of a finger. AI promises to usher in even greater technological advances to better our lives. Yet embedded design flaws across digital platforms threaten the safety, political participation, and technological input of half of the world’s population. Making our technology gender-inclusive and ensuring that it is safe for all to use will help fulfill the promise of the internet to make the world a more stable, secure, and prosperous place for everyone.

Photos: Getty Images

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