The Gender Dimensions of ICTs
In recent years, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have come to be seen as a universal remedy to the problems of underdevelopment. The international community is increasingly promoting the use of ICTs by marginalized groups as a sure-fire way to ensure their inclusion in the evolving information society and thus in the development of their communities and country. Yet, this unconditional support for ICTs has been accompanied by only sparse analysis of the conditions necessary for such marginalised groups to truly harness the power of ICTs for their own empowerment.
ICTs have only recently emerged on the African continent and especially in the Francophone African region. Women are currently marginal users of ICTs and have had very little participation in formulating the policies, strategies, regulations and norms that are guiding the development of ICT infrastructure in the region. As such, there is a risk that ICTs will ultimately reinforce gender inequalities, rather than become the magic solution that has been touted.
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Women in Francophone Africa are currently marginal users of ICTs - a situation that ENDA is working to change
It is from this context that the Dakar-based ENDA-SYNFEV, the ‘Gender and Development Synergy’ team of the International Organisation for Environment and Development in the Third World, works to support Francophone African women’s groups to use electronic communication tools for the implementation of their own agendas. Their most recent project, ‘ICT Policies and the African Women’s Agenda for Equality, Development and Peace’, aimed to analyse ICT policies in Francophone Africa from a gender perspective through the study of the Senegalese situation. Senegal was one of the first countries in the region to invest in ICTs and so has reasonably well-developed regulations and institutional mechanisms, making an interesting case study for the rest of Francophone Africa.
Following the initial research phase of the project, ENDA-SYNFEV held a national awareness-raising workshop on the gender dimensions of ICT policies in Dakar from 5th-7th of November 2002. Supported by WACC, the workshop was attended by representatives from more than 30 women’s organisations, civil society groups, the media and development cooperation organisations, and covered issues including gender and ICT policies, processes and infrastructure in Senegal, training on using ICTs to advocate for greater participation of women in ICT policy formulation, and issue-based networking.
For several of the participants, the workshop was the first time they had addressed the links between gender, ICTs and policy making, but through the sharing of their knowledge and expertise they were able to analyse the various elements that make up the Senegalese ICT environment.
One of the key challenges that emerged from the workshop discussions is the urgent need to collect data on the gender dimensions of ICTs. Women’s participation in the ICT sector should not be measured simply by the number of telephone users or computer owners, but by the quality of ICT content produced by and for women, their participation in policy making, and their access to information and means of expression. ICTs inherently involve innovation but must also reflect and be informed by existing knowledge.
It is now necessary to develop a political argument presenting the reasons why the ICT sector must be informed by a gender perspective. This plea must be backed up by data to provide evidence of the economic, social and cultural costs of the marginalisation of women in the developing information society. This information will have to be made available not only to decision-makers but also to women and the public at large, notably via the media. In addition, women must inform themselves on the procedures and political processes that guide the development of ICT institutional infrastructure, and for this they need special programmes that take into account the constraints respective to their gender.
This approach repositions women as active participants in society, putting their organisations, views and interests alongside other actors (technicians, politicians, economists, business and the media) who are actively building tomorrow’s information society. It is an approach which is gaining more and more ground in the international development community, but which must now be translated into practice. With this aim, participants at the WACC-supported workshop agreed to create a gender and ICT network, whose first job will be to create a follow-up plan to the workshop.
Ultimately, the conclusions that emerged from the workshop give rise to optimism: civil society in general, and women’s organisations in particular, are organised and active and the institutional infrastructure for ICTs is in place. The potential for a participatory and sustainable development that benefits the marginalised does exist, but it will take much hard work by women’s organisations and others to realise it.
From the French by Marie-Helene Mottin-Sylla, Director of the Synergy, Gender and Development team of ENDA, Senegal.
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