UNESCO IITE and UNESCO-ICHEI Propose Next Phase of Women's AI Leadership Cooperation in the Global South

From 8 to 10 September 2026, Digital Learning Week was held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where UNESCO IITE and UNESCO-ICHEI convened a parallel session on AI and women's leadership in higher education. The Women Leading Change in Africa programme, launched in 2024, has reached more than 3,000 educators across Africa, while Ain Shams University in Egypt reported that over 4,000 faculty members completed micro-certifications, with women accounting for 66%. The two institutes also proposed a next phase, AI-Enabled Empowerment, to extend to Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Arab States, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The event directly concerns AI competency development and women's leadership in higher education, involving faculty micro-certifications, embedding capacity development in institutional policies, and cross-regional knowledge exchange, which can change the conditions for AI adoption and the talent supply in universities. The Egypt case links micro-certifications to academic promotion, providing an institutional incentive for faculty participation in AI training; if the next phase is implemented, it would broaden the supply of gender-responsive AI courses and governance toolkits. The next phase remains a proposal presented at the session, with no confirmed launch or funding arrangements. Universities can reference Egypt's approach of linking AI micro-certifications to academic promotion to design institutional incentives for faculty AI competency development. If the next phase is implemented, universities in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Arab States, and Latin America would gain more gender-responsive AI courses and governance toolkit resources.