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Gender and ICT/Lessons Yet Unlearnt

Issues and Potential Solutions
There are commendable efforts at the grass roots to provide equitable access to ICT for women and girls and minority groups. The term ‘minority’ is used here to represent any group which lacks socio-economic and political voice. Used in this way, the word ‘minority’ then provides us the full extent of a contradiction when it is realized how great in number women and girls are as the poor and the marginalized, yet how silenced and invisible they seem to be. Women and girls are also largely representative of the rural population where infrastructure for ICT is non-existent for most developing countries. Some of the programmes designed for women and girls go a step further in the provision of ICT literacy and actual training, and not just access. However, looking at the current advocacies around the globe on gender in the area of ICT, one will find that the call for equality and equity is persistent and, sadly, consistently ignored to a large extent. Current advocacies apply to basic issues of access, affordability, training, employment, education, health and so on, in addition to more complex issues of information security and freedom of communication, Internet governance, intellectual property rights and free and open source software (Kuga Thas, 2003). Greater attention needs to be paid to micro-level successes and a higher consciousness needs to be cultivated when trying to address gender issues in ICT. This section highlights persistent issues in gender and ICT and some illustrative examples on potential solutions.

Access and Control
Women’s access to new ICTs is most times mistakenly understood to be synonymous with making available an Internet-abled computer for women to use. This is far from true. There are numerous and significant factors that determine whether women can access ICTs - from education, literacy, language and skills to financial resources, cost implications, time constraints, location and socio-cultural norms. Women’s access to ICTs and control over them is not equal to men’s. When considering the way in which ICTs are allocated between women and men (the ‘gendered’ allocation of ICTs), it is important to look at the difference between access and control. ‘Access’ is the opportunity to make use of ICTs meaning not only technology but also information and knowledge, while control refers to the power to decide how ICTs are used, and who has access to them. Women’s access and control (or lack thereof) is dependent on factors such as age, class, gender, geographic location, health, illiteracy, and other socially and economically-determined categories.

Some experiences on the ground do point to the fact that availability of computers alone does not ensure equitable access to both women and men. For example, the National Institute of Information Technology’s Hole in the Wall Project in India installed a computer screen and keypad with an active Internet connection into the wall of a slum or school in three different pilot sites. Through a hidden camera, women monitored who accessed these Holes in the Wall and how. Use was evenly divided between girls and boys at the rural pilot site, but was higher among boys than girls in the urban sites, allegedly because when boys pushed girls aside, girls would withdraw, fearful of the physical threats that might arise from challenging the boys (Mitra Sr., 2001). Particularly, where computer labs are just placed in schools without further monitoring as to how these are accessed by girls and boys, the tendency is for boys to rush for the computers, while girls do not. In Hong Kong SAR, while a growing number of households have computers, it was found that many women are only allowed to touch the computer to clean it. For women, affordability of the technology is a key factor to their access. Innovative experimental measures such as those in India that seek to provide ICT access even though there are no telephones or electricity in the area is worthy of mention. A project has started in Andhra Pradesh, India, using packet switching to route Internet data and telephone calls through the spare capacity of railroad cables to areas presently without telephone service. If successful, it would provide connectivity at rates below those of any other option.

For areas where there is no electricity, the Pondicherry project in India combines power supply from the grid with battery backup and solar power. Pilot projects have been put in place in Mongolia as well as in Chennai, India, and elsewhere using wireless radio modems for transmission of Internet data to remote, sparsely populated areas where there are no landline telephones. Rapid progress is also being made towards the availability of inexpensive Internet access devices that could be installed for public access. The Simputer, being developed for the rural poor by Ashok Jhunjhumwala and Vijay Chandru at the Indian Institute of Science, has attracted a great deal of interest and support. With a market cost of about US$200, the battery-run pocket computer/Internet access device uses free software and features a smart card that could provide a whole village with separate personal accounts on one machine. The developers feel that the availability of the device will spur content development in local languages, a necessity if more women are to be able to access information that addresses their needs. Outside of urban areas, women in developing countries are far less likely to come into contact with ICTs and tend not to perceive a need for them. In some places, this is due to a lack of telephones, electricity and infrastructure. In others, it is because women often control indigenous, traditional and popular forms of media which, many caution, should not be ignored in the rush to embrace computer-facilitated communication. As one woman explains, “for generations, rural women have been active participants in social communication networks using indigenous communication methods for information exchange and knowledge sharing. This rich cultural and creative environment should...be strengthened. The preservation of traditional forms of communication and new IT are not mutually exclusive.” ICTs therefore do not have to be just computers and the Internet. Radio, television, embedded chips, and links between old and new technologies or the combined usage of these are important tools in reaching poor people in developing countries. The Kothmale FM radio station in Sri Lanka combines traditional community radio serving a poor and isolated rural area of Sri Lanka with Internet and computer technology.

For areas where there is no electricity, the Pondicherry project in India combines power supply from the grid with battery backup and solar power. Pilot projects have been put in place in Mongolia as well as in Chennai, India, and elsewhere using wireless radio modems for transmission of Internet data to remote, sparsely populated areas where there are no landline telephones.51 Rapid progress is also being made towards the availability of inexpensive Internet access devices that could be installed for public access. The Simputer, being developed for the rural poor by Ashok Jhunjhumwala and Vijay Chandru at the Indian Institute of Science, has attracted a great deal of interest and support. With a market cost of about US$200, the battery-run pocket computer/Internet access device uses free software and features a smart card that could provide a whole village with separate personal accounts on one machine.52 The developers feel that the availability of the device will spur content development in local languages, a necessity if more women are to be able to access information that addresses their needs. Outside of urban areas, women in developing countries are far less likely to come into contact with ICTs and tend not to perceive a need for them. In some places, this is due to a lack of telephones, electricity and infrastructure. In others, it is because women often control indigenous, traditional and popular forms of media which, many caution, should not be ignored in the rush to embrace computer-facilitated communication. As one woman explains, “for generations, rural women have been active participants in social communication networks using indigenous communication methods for information exchange and knowledge sharing. This rich cultural and creative environment should...be strengthened. The preservation of traditional forms of communication and new IT are not mutually exclusive.”53 ICTs therefore do not have to be just computers and the Internet. Radio, television, embedded chips, and links between old and new technologies or the combined usage of these are important tools in reaching poor people in developing countries. The Kothmale FM radio station in Sri Lanka54 combines traditional community radio serving a poor and isolated rural area of Sri Lanka with Internet and computer technology. centres, of frequently requested information of local interest downloaded from the Internet. Local knowledge in applying ICT in development has been quite an untapped potential.

Education, Training and Skill Development
Education, training and skill development are critical to ICT interventions. Illiteracy rates for women in developing countries are far higher than men. Training methods are often ad hoc, alienating and not customized to women’s needs. Learning practices for women should be extended to women and girls, made gender-sensitive (making training women-specific, ensuring ongoing user support, and mentoring in the communities where women live) and deepened (for women as users, technicians, policy- and change-makers). Training in the use of ICTs by knowledgeable trainers is a serious shortcoming. For the most part, women have little or no previous experience with technology, and many feel confused when confronted with the sudden appearance of computers and the Internet. Merely getting access to the hardware or connecting groups to the Internet without an adequate introduction to what it is and how it works – and in the absence of policies or guidance about usage, etiquette or communication techniques – is proving insufficient to promote intelligent usage (Fontaine, 2000). Who assists with the capacity strengthening also can be an issue, especially if all the technical ‘experts’ are males, and many are young. As one woman explained, “we find that mainly women over 40, who are just learning to use their computers, feel really uneasy when a young boy is the one in charge of hands-on-training.” WENT that began in 1999 as an Asia-Pacific regional training workshop, with strong support from UNESCAP, is one model that integrated a gender perspective into their training approach. WENT aims to build the capacities of women in the field of ICT and strengthen women’s organizations and networks in Asia and the Pacific. The training was purposefully designed to have women ICT practitioners lead in the training as well as the development of the training modules. Jointly managed by APC WNSP and APWINC on behalf of AWORC, WENT is now being replicated at sub-regional and national levels as well as in other regions of the world.

In India, Datamation Foundation works with local non-profit partners including Nari Raksha Samiti (NRS), Prayas, Action India, Nanhi Kali, Katha, Arise and Shine Church International, Deepalaya, Udayan, Help Care Society, Azim Premji Foundation, and the American India Foundation, who offer free or low-cost six to eight month IT training courses to marginalized groups of women, and recruits successful trainees for full-time jobs within the company (Sarkar, 2003). Since the overall goal of the programme is women’s empowerment and personal development, Datamation Foundation also provides life skills training in topics such as healthcare, communication skills, professionalism and work ethics, and knowledge of worker’s and women’s rights. An ongoing mentoring and training system has also been established to ensure the necessary support towards new employees. However, of Datamation’s nearly 2,000 employees, only 35 percent are women, but 85 percent of these women are from disadvantaged backgrounds. In education, at the primary and secondary levels, radio and television are an increasingly important means of reaching the rural poor. In Thailand, for example, educational radio has been utilized to teach mathematics to school children, and for teacher training and other curricula (Kenny, 2001). In such programmes, however, it is important to see if existing patterns of gendered division of labour obstructs access to learning for women and girls. Radio educational programmes that are conducted in a series with little repetition tends to favour learning for men and boys, as women and girls often cannot follow a radio programme diligently enough due to their multiple gender roles and responsibilities of reproductive, productive and community. The timing of when these programmes are held should also be a consideration.

Industry and Labour
In the ICT industry, labour is highly sex-segregated. Women are found in disproportionately high numbers in the lowest paid and least secure jobs. The gender dimension of ICT also affects telework, flexi-time, and work from home arrangements where women have few rights, meagre pay, and no health, social or job securities. A woman’s wage labour outside (or inside) the home as a result of the new technologies does not entail a change in the family division of labour. Men still get out of doing the housework, and women find themselves with dual or triple burdens. Poor working conditions, long hours and monotonous work routines associated with ICTs are often injurious to women’s health. While many countries in Asia scramble for strategies to attract international telework that is currently globally distributed, women too are looking towards these new opportunities to work from the home, in trying to balance their multiple gender roles and responsibilities at the household, in work, and in the larger society. Governments are seriously looking at national policies to enable teleworking on a larger scale. However, such policies must not only consider the practical gender needs of women, but their strategic gender interests. The ‘working conditions’ at the home front needs to be well-defined and be made more conducive for women in terms of protecting their rights as workers (including their right to leisure), and the implementation of such policies should not further perpetuate the general misconception that ‘a woman’s place is in the home’. Nor should such policies contribute further to limiting the mobility of women outside of the home or reduce her independence and self-determination within the home.

While the system provides women with the possibility of managing their homes and earning a living, there is a danger that their contributions to society will remain invisible. It would not change their existing gender inequity in the home or the prevailing stereotypes that domestic work is essentially women’s work. e-Homemakers in Malaysia is one group whose work since 1998 is aimed at supporting women who choose or want to work from home to balance their gender roles and responsibilities, and is currently working in tandem with a similar policy thrust and emphasis of Malaysia’s Ministry of Women and Family Development. For teleworking to help in achieving gender equality in the family, however, both women and men must challenge gender roles and stereotypes and start with the premise of equality between wives and husbands in all aspects of family life – in decision-making, in household work and in family responsibilities. If this is not embedded alongside the promotion of teleworking, all teleworking for women can do at best is to provide an opportunity for women to balance their gender-based roles and responsibilities better, and at worst, be used to justify women’s multiple burdens of having both a family and career life (APC WNSP, 2003).

Content Development and Language
Online content development and language used facilitate knowledge sharing. However, the content that predominates on the Internet and in the new media is northern-ruled, male-dominated, anglophone, and culturally biased. This affects the expansibility and proliferation of knowledge since access and use is limited. Hans-Dieter Evers in his paper on ‘Transition towards a Knowledge Society: Malaysia and Indonesia Compared’ (2002) is convinced that “the treasure trove of knowledge is jealously safeguarded by the powerful industrial nations,” and as a result, today, mega companies who control budgets exceeding those of many governments “increasingly determine what knowledge is created and who will have access to it.” Representation of women’s viewpoints, knowledge and interests remain inadequate. The use of ICTs for pornography and sexual exploitation is another critical dimension of content that can provoke controversial debates around issues of Internet censorship. Language barriers to information access would require the development of more sophisticated applications such as multilingual tools and databases, interfaces for non-Latin alphabets, graphic interfaces for illiterate women and automatic translation software. The approach of the Kothmale FM radio station in Sri Lanka has proven to be capable of overcoming linguistic barriers in using the Internet by non-English speakers (see earlier section on ‘Access and Control’). The radio station adds value to the information by interpreting it into a local context, by broadcasting it in vernacular languages, and by providing a platform for feedback through local discussion and networks of local correspondents. While translation software, even to/from relatively obscure languages, is becoming more easily available, original local language content will certainly go a much longer way to making ICTs relevant to local communities everywhere.

Power and Decision-making
In Nattering on the Net (1996), Dale Spender notes that women’s marginalization from the new communication technologies is “less to do with women and more to do with computers” arguing the computers are the site of wealth, power, and influence. She warns that women cannot afford “to permit white male dominance of these technologies because a very distorted view of the world is created when only one social group, with one set of experiences pronounces on how it will be for all.” ICTs are important tools: for power and control, for making money, for effecting change, and for women’s equality and empowerment. Involvement in the power and decision-making processes of ICT is exclusionary – mostly representing white, wealthy, influential, professional, and English/American-speaking males. Whether at the global or national levels, women are under-represented in all ICT decision-making structures including policy and regulatory institutions, ministries responsible for ICT, boards and senior management of private ICT companies, etc. Deregulation and privatization of the telecommunications industry is making decision-making in this sector less accountable to citizens and local communities, further compounding decision-making and control of resources for women. Gaining access and utilization of ICTs for women serves “to conscientize women in the possibility of changing how the world is shaped and how the world shapes women.” In particular, ICTs have a major role in reducing the vulnerability of the poor – especially to natural disasters and powerlessness. One of the reasons for this is the part that ICTs can play in amplifying the voices of the poor. ICTs bridge the distance between remote communities and service providers – markets, government departments, and aid agencies. They can allow the opinions of the poor and the needs of the poor to be heard.

For example, in India, the women’s rights NGO Sakashi had faced difficulties in lobbying for sexual harassment legislation. With help from international women’s networks provided over the Internet, Sakashi was able to receive advice and technical assistance on legal issues surrounding sexual harassment (Kenny, 2001). As a result, the group succeeded in convincing the Supreme Court to establish sexual harassment guidelines in the workplace and brought the issue within the purview of human rights violations. Another critical way in which poor women can profit greatly from the application of ICTs is having access to government information online, such as land registration through the Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department functioning in Andhra Pradesh, India since 1998. In India, Delhi-based NRS, founded 50 years ago to help women in distress, focuses on promoting the safety and security of women, family welfare, employment, health, and training in job-oriented professions. Under the leadership of Vandana Sharma, NRS established a small computer education centre and volunteers have trained 250 young women, many of them with a history of oppression, in basic computer literacy as well as office software such as Excel, Word, and Power Point. This IT training programme is part of the strategy to enable women who are dowry victims and have a history of harassment and exploitation, to find employment and economic independence. The NRS computer centres not only provide job training, but have also allowed NRS to establish an online complaint system for solving dowry and family dispute issues. Women can confidentially lodge complaints through the system and receive assistance from NRS, the police and government authorities (Sarkar, 2003). Other case studies show how groups use ICTs to uphold women’s rights. For example, Datamation Foundation has initiated a campaign against members of the medical community indulging in selective sex determination tests in India as well as against the selective abortion of female foetuses in contravention of the law and natural justice. Save the Girl Child Campaign uses ICTs innovatively and has a dedicated website for the campaign (http://www.indiafemalefoeticide.org). The website not only covers the regulatory aspects, but also includes a complaint lodging process. This process protects the identity of the complainant as well as provides an effective vehicle for the booking of doctors, maternity homes, ultrasound and radiology clinics. The complaints are retrieved into a database format at Datamation, from where they are handed over to the competent authority for further action at their end. The responses from the authorities are also sent back to Datamation to enable updating of the database within a month’s time, failing which, an automatic reminder for the competent authority gets published. Plans to sensitize people from rural areas on sexselective abortions include the use of Internet radio and Internet video. Staff and volunteers of Datamation Foundation are also taking the Campaign to rural areas using a portable computer mart called a ‘computer thela’. The equipment is taken to the panchayat level for the dissemination of information about the site. More than 750 cases of selective sex-determination tests and consequent illegal abortion of the female foetuses have been registered at the site. The site has been linked to other women’s rights websites across the country such as Nanhi Kali, NRS, Nari Dakshata Samiti etc. to draw enhanced traffic as well as to enable tracking of individual complaints effectively.

Freedom of Expression, Privacy and Security
Privacy, security and Internet rights are other important thematic areas for women. They include having secure online spaces where women feel safe from harassment, enjoy freedom of expression, and have privacy of communication and protection from ‘electronic snooping’. They also include the passage of ICT legislation that can threaten human rights. ICTs facilitate the development and progression of democracy, and when used effectively, can enable women’s political participation, irrespective of their literacy levels, on a much wider scale. However, before the potential of ICTs to do this can be fully achieved, there are already efforts to curb the use of ICTs in this respect.

Trafficking, Pornography and Censorship
The large and growing presence of pornography on the Internet has been used to argue for the need to censor online content by technologically filtering these and tracking down creators and clients of pornographic websites. However, technology that filters content does this on a blanket scale, and includes indiscriminately blocking access to websites that deal with educational and rights-based content on sex, sexuality and other related issues. With the absence of any viable alternatives to control the use of the Internet for trafficking and pornography, many women’s organizations and people in general, tend to demand that the State provide protection and to curtail such use without fully realizing the sociopolitical leverage that the common person can wield through the Internet. However, the response to date, gives governments full reign in over-developing legislation and regulations, much of which is open to wide interpretation in regard to what the State might consider ‘harmful’ or ‘illegal’ (Ramilo, 2002). Depending on extent of political freedoms in a country context, these new legislations and regulations can have serious implications for human rights defenders.

What do Ground-up Experiences Tell Us?
In brief, Ground-up Experiences allow us to implement affirmative measures for women, and non males, in an efficient and respectful manner.

Addressing gender equality means challenging existing social institutions and power dynamics, and therefore explicitly demands the conscious identification and implementation of affirmative measures for women. When men start asking ‘why only women?’ the answer needs to be rooted in the effects of historical and continued discriminations (and its variations) on women and girls. If women are to benefit from ICT interventions, integrating the perspectives and concerns of women is one of the important tasks to be undertaken. Two types of strategies are offered to support this task: top-down and bottomup.

Social change as illustrated by APC WNSP below (Figure 3), includes critical reflection, implying the self and self-transformation. The element of self/self-transformation is a critical element as it relates to the personal self (as individual) and the human self (as social construct), as well as the stakeholders/audience of a particular ICT intervention. The changes that happen to the ‘self’ and how the ‘self’ affects other components are central to the gender analysis of ICT interventions. Like gender, the ‘self’ has different roles and responsibilities that can be evaluated and seen in different ways.

Figure 3: Learning for Social Change

In making an appraisal of a project plan, an evaluator can often see the phenomenon of ‘fade-away’ in the project’s attention to gender issues. In other words, gender issues appear quite prominent in the situation analysis, but gradually fade away as the text progress towards goals, intervention strategies and objectives. It is quite common that the situation analysis boldly admits gender issues at the level of gender discrimination and women’s lack of participation in decision-making. However, as the plan progresses towards describing the interventions, the vocabulary fades away towards matters of welfare and access to factors of production (Longwe, 2002). The point where the plan fades away is a crucial point, not only for project reformulation, but for further analysis as to what it really takes to address gender and ICT issues. The story of SITA-Mitra Mandal illustrates this fade-away phenomenon and other points described above (see Box 12). Ground-up experiences of the application of ICT in development also tell us that the likely impact of project intervention on women and men is often assumed to be equally the same for both. However, it is clearly not. There is a need to not only be people-focused in the design of programmes and projects utilizing ICT in development interventions, but to incorporate a gender perspective within that framework, and place women’s empowerment in the centre of that. Designing development strategies on technology considerations alone does not work. The achievement of gender equality remains a challenge as it is strongly linked to human rights, in particular women’s rights and empowerment. Even where there are constitutional guarantees for women’s rights, these more often than not are insufficient to ensure gender equality, particularly when women have been denied their rights on the basis of culture and tradition, and hence, within these contexts, the denial of women’s rights have traditionally not been seen as discrimination. It is therefore particularly important for the promotion and protection of women’s rights, to establish jurisprudence that can set universal norms and standards, and this is where the strength of the CEDAW Convention comes in. The strength of the CEDAW Convention rests on the international consensus on its mandate of equality and its principles, given that there are 185 ratifications/accessions as at end of October 2006. Such a mandate is a strong counter to claims that equality between women and men should be made relative to culture and tradition. As Rebecca Cook puts it, non-discrimination against women is now a principle of international customary law.

title: Gender and ICT/Lessons Yet Unlearnt


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Gender and ICT/Implications of Integrating a Gender Perspective at National Level

Implications for Policy, Programme and Project – Design, Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring
‘Mainstreaming gender’ is both a technical and a political process which requires transformations in organizational cultures and perspectives, as well as in the goals, structures and resource allocations of governments and NGOs. Mainstreaming incorporates specific gender concerns within institutions, in agenda-setting, policy-making, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Elements in the mainstreaming task include staffing, budgeting, training programmes, policy procedures and guidelines. Experience suggests that increased response to gender issues is linked to the level of ‘fit’ of gender issues with the mandate and procedures of the government, and the capacity of staff members who work on gender concerns to translate their knowledge into agency-specific procedures and programmes.69 Recognizing the needs and perspectives of women in ICT policy can help ensure the active participation of women in policy discussions and lead to the increased contribution of ICT to socio-economic development, and in particular poverty reduction. When women have access to ICT, they can fully engage as decision makers in a variety of productive tasks, including entrepreneurship and management of SMEs.70 Thus, development goals and gender goals can advance at the same time. According to Sonia Jorge, “there need not be any inconsistency, however, between gender-specific objectives and development objectives; on the contrary, it is becoming increasingly apparent that one of the most effective means to provide access to both telephone and advanced ITs to unserved and lower income areas and populations is to encourage the development of micro, small or medium-sized telecommunications businesses owned and managed by women,”71 as shown by the very tangible example of Grameen Phones in Bangladesh.

Most Grameen-provided phones represented the first telecommunications service in the respective villages. In places where the signal is weak, antennas, which serve as an advertisement of availability of public phone services, are mounted on the women’s homes. Despite the imminent arrival of fixed wireless phone service in rural Bangladesh, observers feel that the Grameen village phones will continue to be viable businesses because the fixed wireless will probably target more densely populated areas and because village women have become loyal customers of the women phone operators. Grameen Phones has captured about half of Bangladesh’s cellular phone market. It is planning technological upgrades to phone cards, email messaging, fax and web access through the newly established Grameen Communications, an NGO, which plans to launch an Internet service and has started pilot Internet kiosks.

Importance of Substantive Consultation and Facilitation of Women’s Understanding of the Policy Process
Poor women in developing countries could improve their lives and the lives of their families with the help of ICT. Both the technological solutions and the successful pilot projects, along with tested finance mechanisms, are already in place. However, neither the technological solutions nor the pilot projects yet have sustainable business models that would allow them to be replicated in other regions. The focus needs to turn from small projects to national programmes, supported by national policy commitments. When these national programmes are put into place, women must ensure that they are part of them, and that governments remember that when they talk about reaching the poor in their countries with ICT, women are the majority of those whom they are talking about (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Integrating a Gender Perspective in the Making of a Public Policy

However, it is imperative too that when consulting with women, that not just practical gender needs are expressed and addressed, but also strategic gender interests of women (see section on ‘What’s the Difference Between Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender Interests?’). Consultations with women need to take place not only at the early stages of conceptualization and planning, but also at all stages of monitoring and evaluation. These consultations need to include simplifying development policy processes for women who have never been part of these, to enable their full understanding of the implications of policy development, not just from within the ICT sector, but the social sectors as well. Louise Chamberlain in her paper on ‘Considerations for Gender Advocacy vis-à-vis ICT Policy Strategy’ says that a World Bank study,72 “found that projects with greater focus on poverty reduction were more likely to address gender” (Chamberlain, 2002). However, this e-primer would like to suggest that a greater focus on addressing gender equality and women’s rights, will definitely address poverty reduction. Since no such national programme exists that truly addresses gender inequality issues in all of its forms, it is quite premature to say that the development approach that has been traditionally used is the better approach. In fact, Chamberlain to a certain extent supports this in her paper when she said that the study, “found projects with gender components to be more effective overall, also recognizes that such projects may also reflect better identification of the target population, design and implementation” (Chamberlain, 2002). The making of a public policy, in other words, must include women’s strategic gender interests at the centre of it if resources are to be well optimized. ICT policy generally covers three main areas: telecommunications (especially telephone communications), broadcasting (radio and television) and the Internet. It may be national, regional or international. Each level may have its own decision-making bodies, sometimes making different and even contradictory policies. It is essential that gender issues be considered early in the process of the introduction of ICT in developing countries, as ICT is not gender neutral.73 National level decisions about infrastructure can impact gender and affect women’s opportunities to use new technologies – including decisions about what systems to put in place (at what cost to the consumer?), which suppliers of communications services (will they have universal service obligations?), and where facilities will be located (will they be available in rural areas?) (Hafkin and Taggart, 2001). Many critics dismiss the issue of gender and ICT in developing countries because of the more pressing needs that women in developing countries have for safe water, adequate food, improved health, better education, owning land, etc. It is crucial to begin thinking outside of the ‘either-or’ mentality because ICTs are not, in any way, in opposition to fulfilling women’s basic needs. On the contrary, ICTs will go a very long way in reducing the stark isolation that women face when these basic needs remain unmet or inadequately addressed.

Importance of Recognizing and Adopting International Norms
The process of integrating gender concerns into national ICT policy development processes can be informed by international consensus documents to ensure cross-border interoperable norms/rules and closer cooperation that can assist governments in meeting their commitments. Examples of internationally agreed consensual documents include the Beijing Platform for Action (1995),74 the CEDAW Convention (1979), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and of course, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The CEDAW Convention, for example, obliges States to undertake a series of measures to end all forms of discrimination against women, including to:

 * 1) Incorporate the principle of equality of women and men in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws, and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
 * 2) Establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
 * 3) Ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.

The CEDAW Convention is the only human rights treaty which affirms the reproductive rights of women, and targets culture and tradition as influential forces shaping gender roles and family relations. It affirms women’s rights to acquire, change or retain their nationality and the nationality of their children. It is also the only Convention that affirms the principle of substantive equality.75 The CEDAW Convention promotes the substantive model of equality and consolidates two central approaches to equality. First it stresses the importance of equality of opportunity in terms of women’s entitlements on equal terms with men to the resources of a country. This has to be secured by a framework of laws and policies, and supported by institutions and mechanisms for their operation. However, the CEDAW Convention goes beyond this in emphasizing that the measure of a State’s action to secure the human rights of women and men needs to ensure equality of results. The indicators of State progress, in the eyes of the CEDAW Convention, lie not just in what the State does, but in what the State achieves in terms of real change for women. Article 2 of the CEDAW Convention enjoins the State to ensure the practical realization of rights. Thus the State is obligated to show results, not just stop at frameworks of equality that are strong on paper. Hence, the CEDAW Convention stresses that equality must inform the practice of institutions. The UDHR is the main source of law in terms of fundamental and universal rights. At the international level, the UDHR guarantees the freedom of expression of every individual. Article 5 of the UDHR in particular, provides for the freedom of individuals to communicate and express over all forms of media (including ICT). Conventions and Declarations of the International Labour Organization (ILO) can also be particularly critical to the sustainability of women’s livelihoods. At the international level, the ILO sets standards and provides the basis for justice in the area of employment. The conventions that refer to issues of gender76 are:

 * Declaration on Equality of Opportunity and Treatment for Women Workers (1975). The Declaration stresses that “…all forms of discrimination on the grounds of sex which deny or restrict equality of opportunity and treatment are unacceptable and must be eliminated…”
 * Resolution on Equal Opportunities and Equal Treatment for Women and Men in Employment (1985). The Resolution discusses the need for better conditions of employment, work and life of women.
 * Plan of Action on Equality of Opportunity and Treatment of Women and Men in Employment (1987) which is directed towards ILO policies and strategies. The main objective is to ensure gender mainstreaming within the institution.
 * Resolution concerning ILO Action for Women Workers (1991) which reaffirms the need for joint efforts between government, employers and workers to implement the principle of equality.
 * Equal Remuneration Convention 1951.
 * Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention 1958.
 * Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention 1981.
 * Part-Time Work Convention 1994.
 * Home Work Convention 1996.

It is important to note though that all of these conventions and resolutions need to be understood within the framework and interpretation of women’s rights, women’s empowerment, non-discrimination and substantive equality, as primarily offered by the CEDAW Convention and the Beijing Platform for Action. The chart in Figure 5 draws preliminary reference to international law and perspectives in gender policy. Stage 1 emphasizes the need for countries to work with universal/international norms and practices, and at the same time develop the engendered policy approach at the national level. Also at the initial stages, some government/policy maker sensitization to the issues will be important. There should be a cross border recognition and understanding of the issues and networking of agencies. Subsequently, the approach requires the involvement of stakeholders and women’s groups at a very initial stage to inculcate and develop a deep and responsive consultative process. A central group will assist to identify the resources, make connections and identify current issues. In addition, a national agency will assist to champion the cause of women, and provide leadership. Stage 2 is where full recognition is given to the need for political, social and economic empowerment, and could be included into the mandate/goal of the national champion. In Stage 3, the approach stresses the importance of inter-agency coordination. Within a government perspective, agencies and ministries are tasked with their own priorities and work. This fact may put up communication barriers and/or challenges between organizations. Thus the idea here is that the inter-agency contacts, and working groups must be formed within governments and ministries. The reality is that an engendered policy must have the political clout at the broad inter-agency cooperation and at the highest levels of government, to reach out beyond even the scope and mandate of the ICT regulator even with the mandate of convergence.77 The scope of gender and policy must reach out to civil society, across ministries (horizontally) such as the Ministry of Family Affairs, and vertically, to higher levels of government, such as parliamentarians, and at the ground level – the most pragmatic implementers – authorities, police, etc.

Figure 5: Gender in the Wider Policy Process

Moving the Giant Towards an Inter-agency, Inter-sectoral Approach
Government structures are established in such a way that they do not actually facilitate inter-sectoral approaches and implementation strategies. As a result, collaborative interventions within and across sectors are minimal and fail in tackling issues on multidimensional fronts. Since gender issues are largely seen as the purview of national women machineries, it is important to examine the wider policy environment and political factors underpinning the establishment of national women machineries and their respective roles and functions. As countries shift their policy perspectives, there is the concern that gender issues might be relegated into social programmes viewing women as marginalized and underserved groups. Some of these critical concerns include:78

 * The need to advocate for the incorporation of gender issues in the design of broad economic and sectoral adjustment policies. This requires provision of analytical tools and an information base for determining the gender impact of trade liberalization, structural adjustment, and globalization and the integration of relevant concerns;
 * Mainstreaming of gender in decentralized programmes. As decentralization of government functions becomes the dominant approach to governance, the shift in decision-making and resource allocation locus requires an adaptation to local structure, rules and practices. While decentralization provides an opportunity to make programmes at local levels responsive to gender equity issues and ensures effective local level implementation of gender policies, it also increases accountability for gender equity by equipping local gender units and women’s committees with appropriate tools;
 * Ambiguous mandates. National machineries and focal points have been established but the ambiguous mandates, lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities, and inadequate political support hamper their performance. Clarity in structures, processes and mechanisms needs to be emphasized;
 * Non-achievement of the full participation of women in the decision-making process at the political and administrative levels. In most countries, parliamentary representation of women has been less than 10 percent of the total; and
 * Lack of clear link between action plans and their intended outcomes. There is no logical sequence of activities that will lead to the attainment of gender equality in socio-economic status.

The above concerns show that gender analysis is not a simple process for a ministry to address on its own. Even with the establishment of national women’s ministries, due to the lack of resources79 and lack of history in and mechanisms for substantive collaboration between ministries, governments have been unable to reasonably put in the required constructive thought, leadership, resources and knowledge on the social and cultural dimensions of gender within the specific contexts of a country. In such a scenario, the concept of a dedicated Gender Unit that parallels the importance of the central economic planning unit within government can be instrumental in taking into account many of the issues pertaining to gender and women’s empowerment at the policy levels. A Gender Unit could assist in revising or developing guidelines to remove gender bias and discriminatory results for women, or add new regulations, develop circulars etc. that would better facilitate the achievement of the main goals of concretely addressing gender issues. In addition, a Gender Unit could address the identification of appropriate gender statistics and how to collate these in a country, while working closely with women leaders and civil society through a substantive consultative process. A Gender Unit should be ideally mandated to coordinate an inter-agency and inter-sectoral approach within the country. Such a unit may need to either be placed within the central economic planning unit of a country or at least, have a status that is on par with it. The concept or mechanism such as the Gender Unit is not meant to replace the national women machineries already established nor the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The roles and responsibilities of these are quite distinct, just as the role of the Economic Planning Unit is very distinct from say the Ministry of Agriculture or Rural Development. Nor does the establishment of a Gender Unit discount the need to allocate adequate resources to national women machineries and/or the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (see section on ‘The Need to Strengthen National Women’s Machineries’).

A Gender Unit with participation by other agencies and civil society groups could study the following:
 * Ways to improve government processes towards gender-sensitive policies;
 * Information exchange on issues facing women and ICTs within the country;
 * The relevance of an engendered approach to policy-making; in the area of ICT, especially with regard to Internet policy, and make recommendations to the telecommunications regulator (or Ministry of Communications), and to other Ministries;
 * Ways of applying new technologies to network women’s groups, NGOs and other related organizations;
 * Ways to develop or support relevant content for women;
 * Ways to further support ICT training for women in the region, implement best practices in the use of ICTs in relation to women;
 * Incorporation of women ICT experts for government or ICT projects; and
 * Directory compilation of women ICT experts, and the pooling together of resources nationally and internationally.

With the necessary expertise, information and knowledge concentrated within a Gender Unit, governments would be better able to effect a wider and more substantive consultation with women as well as to concretely integrate a gender perspective throughout all of their agencies and development programmes. It is therefore also critical that if a Gender Unit is indeed established that it receives more than sufficient political support and budgetary allocations.

Gender Concerns in ICT Policy
Nancy Hafkin’s work which identifies the gender aspects in ICT policy is shown in Table 2. In her analysis, Hafkin also borrows from the work of Sonia Jorge. Table 2 clearly shows that addressing gender issues in ICT also requires governments to look at other sectoral policies and how these could adversely impact on a progressive and gender-sensitive national ICT policy. These are issues of training and literacy (basic skills and skills training), issues of human resource and employment (employment schemes, paid and unpaid work in the area of ICT) and other related issues that can impede women’s active and substantive participation – for example, related legal issues that pertain to domestic violence, citizenship, guardianship, workers compensation, marriage/divorce, sexual harassment in the workplace, availability of maternity leave (to international standards/ILO guidelines), availability of paternity leave, ownership of resources particularly land, and even access to high quality and professional legal aid.

The Engendered Policy Process
Addressing gender requires detailed process planning. Gender needs to be taken into account explicitly not only in the content of ICT policy, but also in the process of policy elaboration, implementation, and evaluation (Hafkin and Taggart, 2001). In other words, gender equality goals must shift from being just integrated into public policy pronouncements to actual integration into public policy development and implementation.

Need for Gender-sensitive Indicators and its Definition80
Sex dissegregation of data is only the minimum requirement to help people differentiate the impact of development programmes, policies and projects on women and men and if possible by age, ethnicity, geographical location, etc. Disappointingly, however, in many cases the dissegregation of data by sex has become the only requirement to fulfil when addressing issues of gender equality.81 This should not be so. In dealing with the ‘socialization’ of women and men and the inequalities that manifest as a result of this process, it is essential that suitable gender-sensitive indicators that are both quantitative and qualitative are further developed. Qualitative indicators are particularly valuable when measuring the immeasurable (see Box 13).

Gender-sensitive indicators, as the term suggests, are indicators that track gender-related changes over time. Their value lies in measuring whether gender equality/equity is being achieved through a number of ways. Gender-sensitive indicators take into account that gender roles exist and point to changes in the status and roles of women and men over time. It helps us to see in what ways a project affects gender roles and addresses or disregards gender discrimination. Gender-sensitive indicators should be drawn from the identification of gender issues within the specific context of a project or activity. Many indicators that take gender into consideration such as the Gender

Empowerment Measure, Human and Development Index and Gender Development Index (GDI)82 are useful tools in tracking gender equality/equity. Many of these indicators are based on gender analytical models that have emanated from a feminist analysis of societies, relationships and development. On the other hand, a growing number of gender specialists believe that indicators by themselves are insufficient to capture women’s experience especially in areas such as women’s empowerment or participation. They argue that policy makers need to pay more attention to women’s experience, towards which indicators can be a pointer.83 For example, during the World Conference on Women in 1995, APC WNSP implemented a woman-led initiative that provided Internet access, electronic communications and information services and support to over 30,000 women attending the conference and the NGO forum. Over 40 women from 25 countries and speaking 18 languages worked together to set up and manage a computer networking facility, provided training and user support and facilitated the information flow and advocacy generated by women’s networks. One of the main goals of this initiative was to demonstrate to other women this new technology was appropriate for and could be maintained by women. Three years after this initiative, APC WNSP conducted a study to gather feedback from the women who had worked on this project and explored, in more depth, women’s relationship to and experience of working in ICTs. Among other things this study identified a series of women’s needs in relation to use of ICT. These general needs can be used as a guide for asking questions to determine specific indicators in different environments.

Anecdotal evidence in measuring the gender impact of projects, however, has been severely criticized as being too subjective on ‘just how good the project was’.84 Since they cannot be compounded or synthesized, comparison of different projects and approaches is difficult. As Louise Chamberlain (2002) points out, “in the end, it is more powerful to show that approach A gave an increase in women’s income of 30 percent, whereas approach B only led to a corresponding increase of 10 percent.” The commonly held belief is that quantitative indicators are measurements that stick to hard facts and rigid numbers and there is no question about their validity. Quantitative indicators are also seen as ‘objective and verifiable’ as they point out the number of computers in a workplace, telephones in a community, or computer- and Internet-related training workshops. Quantitative indicators deal with outputs and are easier to define. On the other hand, qualitative indicators are seen as subjective, unreliable and difficult to verify. Qualitative indicators are more difficult to ascertain because these indicators probe into the whys of situations and contexts of actions as well as perceptions of people. However, qualitative indicators are valuable to the evaluation process because projects and initiatives are involved in looking into changes in the lives of communities. Qualitative indicators seek to measure the impact of a project or an initiative and are therefore used to evaluate the long-term effects and benefits. From a gender/feminist perspective, qualitative indicators are particularly useful and important in understanding women’s experiences and perceptions in relation to empowerment and development. For example, the number of women using telecentres becomes more significant when it is supplemented with details of how the information that they find and the links that they make through the Internet have contributed to their sense of independence and empowerment (see Box 14).

Properly developed and interpreted, qualitative indicators can also play a significant role in identifying constraints to implementation and obstacles to success, which would otherwise not be readily apparent. There are techniques such as surveys that can ensure the reliability and validity of qualitative indicators. An important principle to remember is that the use of qualitative indicators can play an important role in the promotion and understanding of stakeholder perspectives, particularly those relating to women,85 and therefore fostering participation. Developing gender-sensitive indicators in a participatory fashion requires a focus on including people’s own indicators of development.86

Guidelines for Setting Gender-sensitive Indicators for ICT Initiatives87
ICT indicators should be linked with the goals and purpose of an organization, an activity or a project. Goals can be long-term or short-term. For example, indicators for computer education projects that aim to provide skills for young people so that they can have better employment opportunities will need to measure the long-term and broader impact in relation to the creation of jobs, the types of jobs available, the number of girls and boys in these courses, the changes in the economic status of young people who become part of these programmes, the other opportunities that open up as a result of these programmes. Considerations that need to be taken into account in setting gender-sensitive indicators for ICT initiatives include:

1. Indicators change during the process of implementation
It is sound practice to define indicators at the beginning of a project or an initiative. This will make it easier to track the progress and to evaluate the outcomes and impact of the projects. However, it is important to keep in mind that indicators can change during the process of project implementation. Indicators that were not anticipated can manifest themselves or become accentuated along the way.

2. Indicators reflect specific realities and experiences
Indicators are determined based on the specific realities and experiences of the stakeholders of any project or initiative. The findings and critical issues identified in the evaluation must reflect the realities of the communities and the analysis should be organic to the community. It is important to recognize the realities of women’s lives when dealing with the performance of people within projects or initiatives. For example, it should be recognized that there are many factors including personal factors that affect women’s performance in and responses to projects and initiatives. If the evaluation framework aims to find out how ICT use changes lives, then the documentation should be done in a manner that respects the integrity of the whole process. Care should be given to translations or interpretations such that complete stories of communities are documented.

3. Technology indicators and gender differences
Gender inequalities are mirrored in the development of access to and use of ICTs. While ICTs can be used as transformative tools that can change power relations between women and men, they can also end up bringing women back to their domesticated status. For example, a number of feminist researches are now interrogating the impact of ICTs for women who are now able to work at home and who may unwittingly be potentially placed in a position to assume additional domestic activities. Indicators should be able to point out if ICTs contribute to empowering or marginalizing women or if ICTs reproduce or transform gender roles. It is also important to be mindful of unintended consequences brought about by projects or initiatives and be aware that ICTs also impact on women who do not have access to it. For example, in a village, women who produce handicrafts were able to market their products better because they were connected. An indirect consequence of this is that those who were not connected became more marginalized. Example 1: Compared to other technologies, ICTs are more open to women, i.e., more women are participating in ICTs. But women are more active on the information and communications aspects rather than on the technology aspect. This is a reflection of the masculine and feminine assumptions. Example 2: There are issues around access to ICTs. Women have access to becoming users of ICTs as information providers. Some have access to training and support either as trainers and recipients of trainings. But women have less access to the technical part of ICT. At some point in ICTs, there is a bottleneck where women have less access than men. Therefore, using the number of women Internet users is not sufficient to determine how women fare as users of ICTs. The theoretical approach for an ICT evaluation tool must look at many issues: women as users, women as information providers, women as trainers, and women as technicians. Example 3: Measuring differential impacts. One can evaluate an ICT project from a gender perspective even though it is an ICT project not meant to work on gender issues. For example, a project that provides computers to school children that does not consider gender can be evaluated from a gender perspective by finding out how the project benefits girls and boys.

Also, the gender gap may contribute to the stated fact that women face many difficulties in the work place. Employers sometime refuse to hire women, customers may underestimate the work a woman may do, or male co-workers may refuse to engage in teamwork with their female co-workers. Negative attitudes like that are mainly directed at women in higher positions than men. Men do not have an issue with women working for them, however they disagree when women are their superiors and hold higher positions. One of the known differences between genders is their work position. Men hold higher and more distinguishable jobs than women which is common worldwide, although this gap is slowly but surely changing. Also, another difference in most areas and societies between genders is the salary gap and how much they make a year. Men are usually paid more than women even if they are doing the same type of jobs, even though laws for equal pay for equal work exist in most places.

Al-Jenaibi, B. (2010). Differences Between Gender Treatments in the Work Force. Cross-Cultural Communication, 6(2), 63-74. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

4. Access indicators
Access means not only access to technology but also access to information and know-how. Access is affected by age, class, gender, race or by one’s socio-economic status. The most basic quantitative indicator of access is the number of women and men who have access to computers, telephones and the Internet. The factors affecting this access are usually the presence or absence of telecommunications and Internet infrastructures. However, quantitative indicators of access are only the starting point. The more significant indicators are often qualitative in nature. These include the quality of access to information that is useful, empowering and relevant for women. It also includes information for women who are not literate and in the appropriate languages. Other important indicators are those that reveal the amount of power and control women have over these resources and knowledge. Some of the questions that will help determine indicators are: Who makes decision about access to technology? Who creates the content? Who has the right to create content and language? How do women use the information they access?

5. ICTs strengthen networking
One of the most valuable advantages of ICT is its potential to strengthen and expand links, networks and networking initiatives. Many of the early studies of women’s use of email have shown that women use new technologies to network with each other. While it is not easy to isolate the impact of networking, a useful indicator of success could be how ICTs helps link women and groups with similar interests who might otherwise not be in contact or how ICTs bring together networks of individuals or groups for promotion and action.

6. ICTs support advocacy and substantive consultation
Advocacy is broadly defined as a process of bringing about change. Many advocacy campaigns are directed at generating policy changes at government, institutions and other levels where policies are made. ICTs are increasingly being used as tools in most advocacy undertaking because of their effectiveness in group communication and interactivity. The outcomes of these campaigns, whether actual policy change occurs, are indicators of the success of the advocacy campaigns and to a certain extent the effectiveness of ICT tools for advocacy. In the short term, it may be possible to gauge if one is making a difference by examining whether the use of ICT tools generates discussion and support for women’s concerns and issues, and catalyzes more action.

7. ICTs promote a non-hierarchical and empowering organizational culture
Access to strategic information can modify the way staff or members relate among themselves and can promote democracy in the organizations. Access can catalyze changes in the power structures of an organization because it enables women to participate more actively in decisionmaking.

8. ICTs should promote democratic communication towards e-governance
ICTs are increasingly being used as necessary and effective ingredients in communications strategies. The potential of these new technologies for participatory and democratic communication and the opening up of new communication spaces are seen as main contributions to social development and transformation. One must be mindful however that these spaces can exclude and alienate women who are less articulate and who may not speak the dominant international languages that are often used in these discussions. Indicators should take account of the means available that enable people/communities to feed their voices into debate and dialogue. The underlying assumption of the use of ICTs for information sharing and communication is that it provides a means for the sharing of knowledge and information directly by those who generate them. The quality rather than the volume or quantity of information generated is more meaningful as an indicator.

While women’s increased participation in communication spaces is an indicator for the positive use of ICTs, it is even more important to measure their role in these spaces. Some of the indicators could be their involvement in the major decisions related to the initiative. This will ensure relevance and meaning – a vital component for any intervention.

The Need to Strengthen National Women’s Machineries
Louise Chamberlain (2002) stresses that gender analysis is an exercise to understand differential impacts of projects or policy design, implementation, and outcomes for women and men. A wider application of gender analysis to ICT projects in the public and private sectors, particularly if they result in quantitative evidence, can bring key gender concerns to the attention of policy makers.88 However, a number of major constraints continue to be faced in gender mainstreaming efforts, as addressing gender inequality

issues are sometimes viewed as an externally imposed political agenda. This is particularly evident when despite the location of national women’s machineries in the highest level of government,89 the lack of political support in terms of clear and strong mandates as well as resource allocation deters the implementation of planned programmes. This results in poor coordination of collaborating units, inability to develop viable policies and vulnerability to change in the political environment.90 If the national women’s machinery is to be effective (for lack of a Gender Unit), a solid constitutional and legal status is crucial, as is a policy that specifies goals, clear lines of institutional responsibility and accountability. These should be supported by definitive planning procedures and a management structure that can transform policy into practice. However, such a structure usually exists in a political and financial vacuum in many countries which inhibits the achievement of demonstrable results. In addition, structure, functions and powers of national machineries may not be congruent, i.e. national machineries have more functions than they could be expected to implement in the light of their structure, powers and resources. While assistance in policy formulation can be a mandate, these bodies are bogged down by other welfare-related activities. Some of the functions are too difficult or inappropriate as they are presently constituted and supported. As part of a distinctive ministry (e.g. planning, social welfare), the unit might be expected to perform functions expected of the ministry per se. At times, there is the tendency to treat gender and women’s issue as separate and stand-alone concerns with plans separate from national and local concerns (e.g. separate plans for gender and women). An isolated focus would deter efforts to mainstream gender in government policy and programmes. There is a need to ensure that gender and women’s issues are not marginalized in government plans and mechanisms, and that procedures for gender planning within sectors are strengthened. Sectoral and local interests and priorities mitigate against cross-cutting gender issues in plans and programmes. Issues that are considered vital by ministries and local agencies may be given priority thus sidetracking gender concerns. This becomes pressing in the light of limited resources under which these agencies operate (see Box 15).

Implications for Technical and Financial Resources
The Regional Meeting of National Machineries for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific: Towards a Forward Looking Agenda held on 12–14 November 2003 in Seoul, Republic of Korea, identifies that the inability to shift from a woman in development paradigm to a gender and development paradigm is partially due to budgetary constraints.91 The failure by national and local leaders to appreciate the concepts and goals of gender equality is a serious deterrent to mainstreaming gender in the bureaucracy. Gender plans are viewed as marginal in budgetary planning. Policy commitments are not thought through to their budget implications. Therefore, it is likely that programmes are under-funded and vulnerable to arbitrary budget reduction. As such, this lack of resources forces national women’s machineries92 to adopt coping strategies, where they end up dealing with one activity at a time, branching into small projects which should be the work of other agencies and use of existing networks (Moser, 1995: p. 125). Hence, assessment of projects and programmes implemented by national women machineries indicates a predominance of welfare-oriented activities (income-generation, microfinance, cooperatives, microcredit).93 The same scenario in all likelihood will be duplicated by the ICT sector if budgetary considerations in policy, programme and project planning to address gender inequalities are not included consciously.

In many countries, national women/gender machineries have been instrumental in shaping national policies and programmes. Of particular importance are developments in incorporating the gender perspective into national and sectoral plans, budgeting, accounting and auditing. Linking gender concerns to budgeting and auditing is an effective means for making governments accountable and for raising planners’ consciousness of the differential impact of budgetary decisions on women and men. In the Philippines, for example, government agencies and departments are enjoined to prepare a budget document disaggregating outlays in terms of impact on both women and men. In Indonesia, the national machinery ensures that the government’s commitment to mainstreaming gender is reflected in national, sectoral and local plans. Addressing gender means addressing the drawbacks in the socialization of women and men which result in discrimination and disempowerment. However, unravelling socialization is a very slow process, and needs to be undertaken at a highly conscientious level. Such demands require sustained funding and deployment of resources at its most optimal level, and attention to effectiveness rather than speed. Such demands may even mean a more purposive outreach rather than a blanket approach to servicing a community. The heavy emphasis of development aid on innovation and immediate sustainability leaves little room to spearhead adaptation, replication and upscaling, let alone room to substantively address gender issues in the area of ICT.

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Gender and ICT/Final Analysis and Conclusion

Vulnerability of the Gender Equality Agenda
In some cases, gains made in integrating a gender perspective and analysis into policies, programmes and projects are a result of the existing global advocacies of gender equality and women’s empowerment advocates and, to a significant extent, donor pressure. However, such gains are more often than not rendered fragile, and extremely vulnerable to changes in their economic, political and social environments. The global social policy agenda now acknowledges that the division between economic policy, on one hand, and concerns for the social well-being of people, on the other, give rise to a false dichotomy that prevents the emergence of coherent policies to address pressing issues: responsive governance, socially friendly economic policies and universal provisioning of social services.95 However, it has also been noted that the translation of this awareness into effective policy and institutional mechanisms is yet to take place.96 The State’s role in social development continue to be the focus of debate, especially as institutions emerge with the potential to offer new services in social sector provisioning. In particular, the potential for partnerships with civil society and the private sector is being viewed as a way of addressing financing and management concerns, as the demands of social welfare provisioning increase and population’s age. An emerging debate focuses on whether social policy should promote universal services under a strong State-based regulatory framework, or whether the role of States should be reduced to preserving the minimal public provisioning of basic services targeted at the most vulnerable sections of society, thus allowing the better-off to secure their needs through private markets for health and education.97 Nations mistakenly think that it costs too much to enable women to access and benefit from opportunities in the private and public spheres – politically, economically and socially. What Nations fail to grasp for all these decades is the simple truth about the burden of dependency. Ensuring that someone remains dependent on you, means you are doubly burdened. You not only look to your own needs, but you have to ensure that other person’s needs are met as well.

Success in integrating gender perspectives will require commitment of financial and human resources, capacity building, top leadership support and a change of agendas, practices and attitudes at all functional levels. It will also be necessary to periodically collect data on gender and ICT trends, impact of ICT on gender equality, women’s participation in the ICT sector, including at decision-making level, and to closely monitor trends over time. The effort will be painstaking but the rewards will be enormous for the advancement and empowerment of the world’s women and their families. Imperative too are transparent, inclusive consultative mechanisms with civil society, particularly women’s rights-based NGOs. More substantial collaborations too need to be forged between governments and NGOs, such as the example of the Women’s Council of Brunei Darussalam, an umbrella organization of women’s organizations with over 2,000 members, has collaborated with government bodies in the establishment of a committee on social issues and in addressing women’s concerns.98

Policy Recommendations for Action
There have been many recommendations put forward especially in the last couple of years addressing gender issues in the area of ICT. These have been made at international, regional, and national fora. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action was the first international policy framework that explicitly mentioned gender issues in relation to ICTs. It recognized that areas of computer technology, satellite and cable television held opportunities for women’s participation in communications.99 The 47th session of the Commission on the Status of Women held on 3–14 March 2003 drew up no less than 24 broad recommendations for action that would contribute to addressing gender.100 The UNESCAP Expert Group Meeting to Review ICT Policies from a Gender Perspective, held on 18–19 December 2001, recognized that current government policies refer mostly to IT rather than ICT, where the latter is normally used to only refer to the issue of convergence of computer, broadcasting and telecommunication technologies. This particular meeting highlighted, among other key strategies for a gender-sensitive ICT policy, the need for all stakeholders to consider the fact that girls tend to leave formal education earlier than boys, and hence IT skill training should be started at an early level of school; and that ICT tools should also be effectively deployed to help mainstream gender. For example, ICTs could be instituted in national machineries to advance the status of women and used to actively and systematically collect and disseminate sex-disaggregated data. The meeting focused its recommendations under the issues of access, capacity building, employment and entrepreneurship as well as what can be done to facilitate an enabling environment for women’s wider and fuller participation.101 In addition, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women Expert Group Meeting on Information and Communication Technologies and Their Impact On and Use as an Instrument for the Advancement and Empowerment of Women, held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 11–14 November 2002, drew up recommendations to each stakeholder, including national women machineries, while underlying the importance of an enabling environment and partnerships for the empowerment of women in all spaces.102

However, WSIS (Phase 1, December 2003), failed to further build on these recommendations and fell short of providing specific directions and action plans to effectively ensure gender justice within the new information society. In the meantime, the guidelines produced by the ITU Task Force for gendersensitive policy-making (see Box 16) can be used either as a checklist of issues to consider when making decisions or to provide ideas on how to mainstream gender in regulatory and licensing agencies.103 If governments are indeed committed to integrating a gender perspective into their national ICT policies towards women’s empowerment within the gender equality framework, then governments would need to:

 * Acknowledge, protect and defend women’s rights in the Information Society;
 * Fully recognize that gender equality, non-discrimination and women’s empowerment are essential prerequisites for equitable and people-centred development in the Information Society;
 * Ensure that ICT governance and policy frameworks enable full and equal participation;
 * Ensure that all ICT initiatives incorporate a gender perspective;
 * Ensure that every woman has the right to affordable access;
 * Ensure that all education and training programmes promote gender awareness;

 * Ensure that women and girls enjoy the right to equal access to educational opportunities in the fields of science and technology;
 * Consult women for their viewpoints, knowledge, experience and concerns in a more substantive manner and make these more visibly integrated into policy-making, programme planning and implementation;
 * Ensure the preservation and promotion of women’s knowledge within the public domain of global knowledge; and
 * Ensure that every woman and girl has the right to communicate and exchange information freely in safe and secure online spaces.

In addition, governments would need to pay special attention to issues of:
 * Diversity in the ownership and control of content and the content itself;
 * Free and open source software, technology development, copyright, trademarks and patents;
 * Global information commons;
 * Privacy and SPAM; and
 * National governance of the Internet.

Table 4 below summarizes the key considerations in mainstreaming gender in the ICT sector.

Final Note: The Right to Communicate
This e-primer asserts that the advocacy for a new information and communication environment should fully integrate gender concerns and women’s advancement. The challenge is to ensure that individuals, communities, nations, and the international community gain access to, and are able to use effectively, the information and knowledge they need to address their development challenges and improve their lives. At the core of this new environment is the democratization of people’s access to information and communication facilities and technological resources. Fifty years ago, the UDHR recognized the right to information as a fundamental human right. The assertion of this right has become even more urgent at a time when technological advancement in the production of information and knowledge is reshaping the organization of our societies globally. Equally important is advocating for the recognition of communication rights as part of human rights. The exercise of our democratic freedoms and the full and equal participation in current economic development is the basis for the assertion of our rights to information and communication. Within this context, fall women’s rights to equal and democratic access to ICTs. Gender equality, non-discrimination and women’s empowerment are essential prerequisites for equitable and people-centred development in the information society. Communication rights counter the current hegemonic ownership structure of national and global information networks. This advocacy is increasingly important to civil society worldwide who have very little voice in the national and international agreements and legislation to technological resources and information.

Rights related to access and use of the Internet and electronic communication infrastructure allows ordinary people to have their voices heard. The Internet has allowed the voices of ordinary citizens and organizations lacking strong financial resources to be heard. With over 200 million users worldwide and an estimated 1 billion users in 2005, the Internet provides a unique public sphere where decisions that shape people’s lives can be freely debated and considered. It allows small groups and individuals, women and men - previously working in isolation from one another - to communicate, network, share information and prepare actions in ways they have never been able to before. ICTs must be made available to all at an affordable cost and the development of infrastructure must ensure that marginalized groups are not further disadvantaged. This should be the strategic starting points for all concerned with gender equality and social transformation. In a globalized world that continuously undermines localized democratic institutions the Internet provides an essential means for defending and extending participatory democracy. The Internet and other ICTs can be used to strengthen diversity and provide a platform for a multitude of voices, a pluralism of ideas and opinions and a place for cross-cultural exchange. However, this can only be true if developments are driven by a desire to preserve and enhance local and regional linguistic diversity and civil society has a voice in the policy formations, which regulate control and ownership of ICTs.


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Gender and ICT/Resources

American Association of University Women (AAUW) http://www.aauw.org The AAUW has a range of research publications on the topic of girls, computers and science.

Arab Women Connect http://www.arabwomenconnect.org An online forum for exchange of news and information on women’s issues and programmes, particularly for women in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Asia Pacific Gender Equality Network (APGEN) An Asian NGO supported by the UN that implements a range of women’s advocacy and development programmes. APGEN has a Science and Technology programme that supports pilot programmes and advocacy related to increasing women’s access to science and technology education and more effective application of IT to poor women.

Asian Women’s Resource Exchange (AWORC) http://www.aworc.org AWORC is an Internet-based women’s information service and network in Asia. It is an initiative geared towards developing cooperative approaches and partnerships in increasing access and exploring applications of new ICTs for women’s empowerment.

Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Networking Support Program (APC WNSP) http://www.apcwomen.org One of the first international non-governmental initiatives to recognize the importance of ICT to women and girls, APC develops training, participatory research, policy, and advocacy in the area of gender and ICT, information facilitation, and regional programme support.

Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) http://www.fawe.org FAWE is a membership organization that brings together African women leaders and policy makers to support women’s and girls’ access to education, including science and technology education, and training.

GenderIT.org http://www.genderit.org GenderIT.org emerged from APC WNSP’s advocacy work in ICTs. The website provides examples of national policy, gender-sensitive language, tools for lobbying, and an understanding of the impact of poor or positive policy.

Institute for Women in Technology (IWT) http://www.iwt.org IWT holds workshops and conferences, develops research, and does outreach to engage industry, academia, government, and communities to imagine, design, create and deploy technologies that have positive impacts on women around the world.

International Women’s Tribune Centre (IWTC) http://www.iwtc.org The Tribune Centre’s website serves women’s activities internationally, with a focus on gender and development. The website links to major non-profit women’s websites.

IT for Change www.ITforChange.net IT for Change has developed considerable expertise on ICT and gender through its work over the past few years in research, advocacy and project implementation. Their commitment to gender is guided by development critiques that argue people-centred development, and the central place in policy frameworks for social justice and equity, and a rights-based understanding of women’s empowerment.

Society for International Development (SID), Women on the Net Project http://www.sidint.org SID’s Women on the Net Project is supported by UNESCO and develops training materials, conducts training workshops, and develops publications devoted to equipping women with skills in using IT and raising awareness of the importance of IT for women’s empowerment.

Synergy Gender and Development (SYNFEV) http://www.enda.sn/indexuk.htm SYNFEV is an entity of Environmental Development Action (ENDA) Third World, a non-profit international organization based in Dakar, Senegal. ENDA-SYNFEV aims at the dynamization of woman and gender components within ENDA’s activities, in partnership with associations, groups and networks active in the same fields.

UNDP-APDIP Resources on Gender and ICT http://www.apdip.net/projects/gender This webpage provides information on UNDP-APDIP’s initiatives related to Gender and ICT, in the areas of policy and project development, awareness and advocacy, and research and development, and includes a collection of useful online resources from publications and articles to videos.

Women in Global Science and Technology (WIGSAT) http://www.wigsat.org WIGSAT supports global networking on critical issues in science and technology for development. Activities include research and advocacy around critical gender, science and technology issues; and ICT related activities with global or South-based initiatives.

Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) http://www.wougnet.org WOUGNET is an NGO initiated in May 2000 by several women’s organizations in Uganda to develop the use of ICTs among women as tools to share information and address issues collectively. WOUGNET aims to promote and support the use of ICTs by women and women’s organizations in Uganda, so that they can take advantage of the opportunities presented by ICTs in order to effectively address national and local problems of sustainable development.

Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) http://www.learningpartnership.org WLP is an international NGO that partners with women’s community-based organizations and NGOs in North Africa and Western Asia to use IT for political participation and empowerment. WLP provides technical assistance and training to its partner organizations to create locally relevant materials (online, radio, video) for advocacy related to women’s rights.

Women’s Net (South Africa) http://womensnet.org.za/ict/ict.htm Women’s Net is a South African-based NGO that serves as an online information portal for data and news on women’s issues in Africa and around the world. Women’s NET also supports programmes devoted to gender and IT in South Africa. The Women’s Net website is a good source for many links to African and regional gender and IT initiatives.

World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) http://www.amarc.org An international NGO whose goal is to support and contribute to the development of community and participatory radio, with an emphasis on women’s participation in community radio, through its Women International Network Initiative.

World Links for Development (WorLD) Program http://poverty2.forumone.com/library/view/14821/ The WorLD Program, supported by the World Bank, provides IT access and training through schools and public access programmes in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Documentation on the programme available through the web notes high female participation.

Tools for Understanding the Intersections of Gender and WSIS http://www.apcwomen.org/policy/resources/index.html#toolsgender

Gender in the Information Society: Emerging issues http://www.apdip.net/news/genderis This publication is a collection of 13 papers developed for a pre-WSIS seminar, produced in partnership with IT for Change and UNIFEM. It showcases perspectives that critique the engagement with new technologies in various development sectors such as governance, media and work. An edited video of the seminar was also produced.

The Beijing Platform for Action Meets WSIS http://www.genderit.org/meetingpoint1.shtml In early 2001, women and women’s groups who had worked together during the Beijing Plus 5 review process began mobilizing to engender the policy-making process for WSIS. This information brief, produced by the International Women’s Tribune Centre, supports that initiative by linking discussions in the preparatory processes of WSIS to the 12 ‘critical areas of concern’ in the Beijing Platform for Action. Each page focuses on a critical area of concern, examples of how women are using ICTs in their programmes, and lobbying efforts by women at the WSIS PrepComs.

Putting Gender on the Agenda of WSIS http://www.genderit.org/wsis/wsis-presentation-asw.ppt Presentation by Anne Walker, International Women’s Tribune Centre, February 2003. Walker’s presentation explains the WSIS preparatory process and the different forces working to shape the WSIS agenda, highlighting the role of the two entities specifically focussed on gender: the multistakeholder Gender Caucus and the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group, from the Civil Society Caucus. The key issues identified by civil society in general and particularly key gender issues are outlined.

APC WNSP: Passage of the Document - Gender and ICT Advocacy through the WSIS process http://www.genderit.org/wsis/wsis_process.shtml The table maps the many meetings – both WSIS and other – in which women have participated and provided input to the ‘Draft Declaration and Action Plan’ for WSIS.

title: Gender and ICT/Resources