huridocs-tech Gender and ICT

From: International Women's Tribune Centre - IWTC <iwtc@iwtc.org>

IWTC Women's GlobalNet #154
Activities and Initiatives of Women Worldwide
By Anne S. Walker and Joy Wang

July 14th, 2000

GENDER AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTS) FOR DEVELOPMENT

This issue of IWTC Women's GlobalNet focuses on policies, plans,
programmes and research in the area of Gender and ICTs for Development.  
It comes on the heels of several important initiatives taken by
international organizations on the question of the importance of ICTs for
development. Here in New York at the UN, from July 5th to 7th, 2000,
ECOSOC (the UN Economic and Social Council) held a High Level Segment of
the 2000 Substantive Session on ICTs for Development. From 7th to 10th
March, 2000, the Global Knowledge II Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
also focused on strategies to bring knowledge and information to the
Global South.

High Level initiatives and activities such as these support the activities
of women's media networks in every world region, the focus of the last two
issues of IWTC Women's GlobalNet.

The following are brief descriptions of some of the initiatives that are
specific to Gender and ICTs for Development.

1) ECOSOC HIGH LEVEL SEGMENT ON ICTs FOR DEVELOPMENT TAKES PLACE AT UNITED
NATIONS, NEW YORK, 5-7 July 2000.

After 3 days of deliberations, a Ministerial Declaration on Information
Technology was passed which stated, among other things, "deep concern that
the potential of information and communication technology for advancing
development, particularly in developing countries, had not been fully
captured" The declaration goes on to call on all members of the
international community "to work cooperatively to bridge the "digital
divide" and to foster "digital opportunity". In addition, the
international community was called upon to: a) urgently promote programmes
that intensify cooperation; b) actively explore new financing for ICT
initiatives; c) devise measures to reduce costs of internet access devices
in developing countries and: d) explore measures to facilitate access to
ICT training. (For a webcast of the entire High Level Segment, go to
<http://www.un.org/webcast/ecosoc2000. You will also find documentation
for the meeting at <http:www.un.org/ecosoc2000).

In a brief intervention on behalf of NGO gender issues, IWTC, speaking for
the Conference of NGOs at the UN, called for the UN to: a) proclaim the
right of democratic and equitable access to information and communication
services, with a focus on access for women and other marginalized groups:
b) set up an ICT Gender Task Force that would bring together departments
and specialized agencies of the UN system, multilateral development
institutions, private industry, foundations, mass media and NGOs,
including women's information and communication networks, to develop an
ICT Gender Action Plan; and c) set up a facility (i.e. fund) to carry out
the ICT Gender Action Plan with monies solicited from private
organizations, foundations and Member States. The facility could leverage
additional resources through matching programmes within countries, and
could be integrated into the Global Knowledge II (Malaysia 2000)
recommendation for a Gender and ICT Replication and Learning Fund.

For the full text of IWTC's intervention, write to: E-mail:  
iwtc@iwtc.org or Fax: (1-212) 661-2704. (Full address at end of bulletin).


1. OUTCOMES OF THE GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE II (GKII) CONFERENCE, KUALA LUMPUR,
MALAYSIA, 7-10 March 2000: A GENDER PRESPECTIVE.

More than a thousand people from 120 countries attended the GKII
Conference Action Summit with the common purpose of hammering out
strategies which will bring information and knowledge to the Global South
and women. The GKII Women's Forum produced an Action Plan that outlined
public-private partnership initiatives and agenda of the Global Knowledge
Partnership (GKP) working groups for the next several years.  GKP working
groups intend to concentrate on the challenges facing women to:  Access,
Empowerment, and Governance.

The GKII Gender Action Plan is a living document and will serve as a 
basis of further discussion and initiatives by governments, women and 
women's groups worldwide.  To find out more, visit GKP's website at:  
http://www.globalknowledge.org/index_main.htm or contact Rosemary 
Kalapurakal at UNIFEM: E-mail: rosemary.kalapurakal@undp.org.

2. ITU (INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS UNION) TASK FORCE ON GENDER 
ISSUES (TFGI). 

The ITU Task Force on Gender Issues was established in 1998 to a) ensure 
that telecommunications services and programmes are widely available 
equally to men and women and b) ensure gender equality within the ITU. 
The task force includes several NGO representatives. 

For more information on the ITU TFGI, contact: Pat Faccin, Secretary, 
Task Force on Gender Issues, ITU, Geneva, Switzerland. E-mail: 
patricia.faccin@itu.int
Tel: (41-22) 730-5489. Fax: (41-22) 730-5778. 

3. RESEARCH, POLICY, ACTION!

A. How Women's International NGOs use web sites in their work:  

Dr. Gillian Youngs from the University of Leicester surveyed 30 NGOs on 
how they use web sites in order to understand the communications role 
that the Internet plays in NGOs' current and future work. These findings 
should help policy makers to be more aware of the contextual and 
practical issues of the web for women's organizations. 

The results of this research will be published in summary form on
Leicester University's "Gender, Communications Technology and
Globalization" website: <http://www.le.ac.uk/cmcr/gtg>.  For more
information, contact:  Dr. Gillian Youngs, Centre for Mass Communication
Research, University of Leicester, LE1 7LT. UK.  Tel/Fax:  (44-116)  
252-3863/3874.  E-mail gy4@le.ac.uk (Gillian Youngs) or mk38@le.ac.uk
(Margarita Kondopoulou).

B. APC (Association for Progressive Communications)'s Africa/FEMNET
research to identify women's electronic networking needs and
opportunities:

After five years of intensive post Beijing online use, this research
assesses what actual impact ICTs have had on women and gender equality in
Africa. The research also helps in understanding how and to what extent
ICTs have helped women's organizations to network with each other and with
governments, including how to lobby, access resources, disseminate
information, and foster organizational growth. The research report,
entitled "Global Networking for Change:  Experiences from the APC Women's
Programme" can be accessed at http://community.web.net/apcwomen.htm.

This research builds on an earlier global outreach project entitled
"African Women Speak Out on the Internet" which gave results from an
electronic survey about the information and communication needs of women
and women's NGOs. This report can be accessed at
<http://flamme.org/documents/apcresearch.htm>.

C. APC research project entitled: "Lessons Learned:  Building Strong
Internet-Based Women's Networks".

This is an 18 month project (October 1999 to March 2001) to create
resources and tools that will assist women's organizations to network more
successfully. This two-pronged research will produce: a) a Women's
Networking Resource Kit and b) an ICT Gender Audit Methodology.

The Women's Networking Resource Kit (due November 2000) will include
lessons learned and case studies of how women's organizations with limited
resources have successfully used ICTs for networking and capacity
building.

The ICT Gender Audit Methodology (due March 2001) will be an ICT project
planner with diagnostic tools to enable newcomers to successfully
implement ICTs in their initiatives.

For further information, visit APC's website at:  
<http://www.apc.women.org> or contact Chat Garcia Ramilo (The Philippines)
at e-mail: <chat@apcwomen.org>.

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