• how to mainstream gender issues in the OEWG’s work. These topics could then also be discussed in subsequent OEWG meetings, with a view to assessing progress made to date and ways to further address gender considerations in the OEWG’s work. As such, the OEWG could become a forum to exchange best practices on how to address gender issues in international cyber security work, whether at the UN, in States’ domestic cyber security strategies, or elsewhere. States could also be encouraged to report back, during their regular statements at OEWG meetings, and through their responses to the annual survey, on how they are implementing the gender-relevant aspects of the acquis. Gender inclusive stakeholder modalities Canada hopes that the 2021-25 OEWG will adopt more open stakeholder modalities than those adopted at the 2019-21 OEWG, in order to ensure that women and other marginalised excluded constituencies’ voice are heard. In Canada’s view, adopting stakeholder modalities that allow the full participation of all relevant non-State actors (academia, civil society, the private sector and technical community) would result in richer discussions that are more reflective of the broader cyber security community’s views. Many of these organizations have an important role to play in the implementation of the acquis of past GGEs and of the 2019-21 OEWG, including when it comes to the agreed norms of State behaviour in cyberspace. Allowing the full participation of non-State actors would also be helpful when it comes to the OEWG’s discussions on gender issues. Most cyber diplomats are not gender experts. However, some stakeholders from the academic and NGO (especially human rights groups) communities are gender experts, or have relevant experience in this field. Their participation in OEWG deliberations would therefore enrich the OEWG’s discussions on gender issues. It would likely result in the identification of concrete action items that could help address the gender dimensions of cyber security in the OEWG’s work. Collecting gender disaggregated data and undertaking additional research on gender and cyber During the 2019-21 OEWG, Canada identified a research gap when it came to addressing the gender aspects of cyber security. We therefore funded two papers, one by an academic and one by civil society researchers. Since then, other research on this issue has been carried out, including by UNIDIR. Additional research in this area would be beneficial. Its authors could present their work during OEWG sessions or side events on gender issues and their papers could inform the OEWG’s work on gender and cyber security. There is also a need for more data disaggregated by gender, including baseline data. This was a recommendation made in the 2018 SALW PoA report in the small arms context. In the cyber context, the research paper drafted by Brown and Pytlak recommended that “all actors should maintain sex- or gender-disaggregated participation records for all cyber security related work (diplomacy, capacity building, incident response, etc.).” 1 Similarly, UNIDIR’s paper recommended that “international standards organizations, in cooperation with national standards bodies, should identify, and collect data on, the areas where cybersecurity standards have gender effects.” 2 Collecting more such data would be useful to 1 Allison Pytlak and Deborah Brown, Why Gender Matters in International Cyber Security, April 2020, p. 22. 2 Katharine Millar, James Shires, Tatiana Tropina, Gender Approaches to Cyber Security, January 2021, p. 25.