“We want to know how technology and its strategic use reduce inequalities.” That was the question that Queen Letizia raised this Wednesday at an event organized by the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, in which testimonies of how innovation is key to combating digital poverty were known.
Women beneficiaries of microcredits in remote areas of Peru who access their finances thanks to cell phones and advisors who fly their office in a vest with a solar energy charger participated in the event. The Queen, committed to these initiatives that she knows from her cooperation trips, has already given her support on many other occasions to the microcredit system through which small interest-free loans are granted so that vulnerable people without resources can start small businesses.
“There are many people, millions of people, who with a certain application, with geolocation or with the voice recognition of their devices manage to change their lives because they access a microcredit,” said the Queen during her speech at the event.
In her words, the Queen referred to the example of María Jorge Álvarez, a woman from the Peruvian jungle “full of strength and determination who has gotten ahead with her four children with a small business that she started thanks to a microcredit” and also to her advisor, Rony, who “accompanied María in the use of the applications to be able to operate with her entity.” Letizia has praised these projects to make “social exclusion, poverty and inequalities give way to inclusive, sustainable and egalitarian development.”
To attend this event, the Queen has chosen a white blouse with a bow from Carolina Herrera and green pants from Hugo Boss
Closing the digital divide, as was said at the event, means beginning to soften others such as the social, economic or gender divide, which vulnerable people also suffer, especially.
In Latin America, 70 million women do not use mobile internet. Behind these figures hide people with many limitations: they do not have decent housing, they do not have the necessary training, they live in remote areas, they do not have sufficient resources to undertake business and, furthermore, more than half are women. Bringing technology closer is essential for its development.
