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Roma Bhattacharjea
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"Given the multidimensionality of womens poverty; this paper claims that in the developing world, womens lack of access to information is often mediated by their human poverty. In this context, the MDGs offer a goal-oriented framework for overcoming monetary and non-monetary aspects of womens poverty."
The digital divide
The central premise for this paper is to state that, in a globalised world, barriers to accessing Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) are a function of human poverty and gender inequality. To put it simply, if we want to extend the benefits of ICTs in a globalised world, we need to understand that womens information, communication, and technology poverty is mediated by other dimensions of her human poverty. I begin by asking several questions: What are the barriers to women workers accessing the benefits of globalisation? What do we mean by gender equality and womens human poverty as opposed to income poverty? How are these inter-related? And, finally, how can ICTs be brought into the discourse on globalisation, gender equality and human poverty and employed in ways that are helpful to these women? This paper seeks to answer these questions and propose strategies and solutions for a transformative research, policy, and governance agenda.
Conceptualising woman workers barriers to accessing the benefits of globalisation
Before we begin to discuss how women can utilise ICTs, we need to examine the forces that prevent them from accessing ICTs in the first place. I begin by looking at the all-pervasive issue of globalisation. Globalisation has opened up a host of opportunities, but it has also marginalised poor women workers in a number of ways. This simple fact is often ignored in development discourse but is, in fact, hugely relevant to achieving such development goals as reduction in human poverty and the extension of ICTs. In most of the developing countries, over 90 per cent of the industries are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), mostly managed by men, but sustained by women workers. Similarly, poor women in developing countries make economic contributions through work in cooperatives, the informal sector, and the unpaid economy. Hence, the well-being of poor women workers is essential to the well-being of the developing nations.
This paper proposes that ignoring the vantage point of poor women workers is problematic and suggests that it is essential to look at development from a bottom-up perspective to determine effective means by which ICTs can help to alleviate poverty and mitigate the negative effects of globalisation. Hence, this paper will operate from the perspective of the poor woman worker and strive to demonstrate that the barriers to gender equality, poverty reduction, and ICTs are overlapping and mutually reinforcing. Likewise, it will show how solutions to gender inequality, human poverty, and information poverty must be integrated.
Barriers to gender equality
Drawing on the work of Professor Amartya Sen and others, the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Gender Equality has suggested that gender equality needs to occur along three domains:
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Equality in human capabilities
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Equality in opportunities, and
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Equality in agency(1)
The capabilities domain refers to basic human abilities as measured through education, health, and nutrition.(2) For example, capabilities might include acquiring the ability to read and write, freedom from infectious diseases, and the ability to eat a nutritious diet. The capability domain is the most fundamental of all the three domains and is necessary for achieving equality in the other two domains.(3) One can think of capabilities, therefore, as the building blocks necessary to lead a fruitful human life.
The opportunities domain is one step removed from the capabilities domain. Opportunities refer to ones ability to exercise the aforementioned capabilities (for example, to use ones education to enter business, to procure land, or to control resources). To extend the analogy, opportunities represent chances to use the aforementioned building blocks to create structures, jobs, homesteads, leisure activities in which ones life is lived.
Finally, agency refers to a persons ability to formulate strategic choices and make decisions that affect important life outcomes.(4) Therefore, equality in the third domain implies the core notion of womens empowerment, the ability of a woman to control her own destiny.(5) Agency is the ability to determine the shape of the aforementioned structures, to dictate how, when, and where they are built.
Taken together, it becomes clear that a deficit in any one aspect of equality precludes gender equality as a whole. Without equality in capabilities, opportunities, and agency, women cannot be said to be on a level playing field with men.
The UNDPs notion of human poverty
Given this understanding of gender equality, we can now begin to make linkages between gender inequality and human poverty. The UNDP distinguishes human poverty from mere income-poverty. The 1997 Human Development Report explains, Poverty can mean more than a lack of what is necessary for material well-being. It can also mean the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development[the ability] to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and the respect of others
Poverty must be addressed in all its dimensions, not income alone.(6)
Poverty is further mediated by factors such as gender inequality, race,
ethnicity, class, rural-urban locations and age.
This view allows us to see that the issue of extending ICTs to women encompasses more than just delivering technologies to a group that does not currently possess them. It involves addressing the structural issues that have prevented women from using ICTs. That is, it involves understanding the linkages between globalisation, gender inequality, womens human poverty, and the digital divide, and seeking integrated solutions to these problems.
Gender inequality, human poverty and the MDGs
The UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a global roadmap for development planning in the 21st century and a framework for the type of integrated solutions mentioned above.
Drawing on UN Declarations from throughout the past several decades, the MDGs provide a shared vision of a much improved world by 2015, [a world] where extreme poverty is cut in half, child mortality is greatly reduced, gender disparities in primary and secondary education are eliminated, women are more empowered, and health and environment indicators improve within a global partnership for development.(7)
Moreover, the MDGs are unique in that they provide quantified, time-bound development goals that can be incorporated into development policy at the regional and national levels. Hence, while being global goals, they are presented in such a way as to provide local ownership to their implementation. In this regard, the MDGs can be harnessed to meet the specific needs of marginalised groups, including the poor female workers.(8)
Moreover, as a policy tool, the MDGs are uniquely suited to promote gender equality. The Goal 3 of the MDGs is specifically targeted at promoting the equality and empowerment of women. However, it must be recognised that this goal does not stand in isolation. The achievement of the other seven MDGs is attendant on the achievement of the targets that Goal 3 outlines. As the World Bank argues, Working for gender equality offers a compelling win-win approach for policy makers and planners towards attaining and implementing the MDGs. Gender equality is both a valuable end in itself and a powerful means for combating human poverty.(9) Hence, returning to ICTs, it is worthwhile to view these entities not only as tools for assisting female workers in SMEs, but also, and more broadly, as tools for attaining the MDGs and reducing womens human poverty.
Roma table
Gender
inequality and the MDGs: a snapshot from South Asia
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A
snapshot of where we are with regard to the
MDGs in South Asia gives us a glimpse of the
gender dimensions of human poverty in the
region. Below I briefly outline where the region stands on each of the
first
seven MDGs.(10)
Goal 1:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Forty Four per cent of the
worlds poor reside in South Asia; approximately 522 million
people live on less
than a dollar a day. Hence, it is highly unlikely that South Asia will be able to halve extreme
poverty by the
target date. Furthermore, while we have some gender-disaggregated data
for
countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, other countries like Bhutan are just starting to collect
poverty data in
general. This makes it difficult to assess the full extent of womens
human
poverty.
Goal 2: Achieve universal
primary education.
In countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, considerable progress has
been made with
respect to primary school enrolment rates. However, the data from India and Nepal
reports a
decline in primary school enrolment rates. Global data shows that as we
go from
primary to tertiary education, the ratio of girls to boys goes down.
The
studycompletion rate, which is adverse for females, reinforces this
negative
trend.
Goal 3: Promote gender equality
and empower women.
South Asia
lags farthest behind as far as the target of eliminating gender
disparities in primary and secondary education is concerned. Across the
region,
40 per cent of the women are literate compared with 65 per cent of men.
In Nepal,
only 20 per cent of
the women are literate. Sri
Lanka
stands out in the
region in this respect because girls enrolment rates exceed those of
boys.
Goal
4:
Reduce child mortality.
The poorest countries in the
region have the least
chance of achieving the targets. Significant gains have been made in India,
where the under-five
mortality rate has fallen by almost half. Other South Asian countries,
however,
are off-track.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health.
There
has been progress in reducing maternal deaths in the
region but this progress has been painfully slow with births attended
by
skilled personnel rising to just 32 per cent in 1998 from the low
starting
point of 29 per cent in 1988.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria and other
diseases.
HIV/AIDS
has emerged as a major development challenge in
many of the countries in the region. Rising rates of HIV/AIDS,
particularly
in Pakistan,
Nepal
and India,
indicate that unless
countries successfully address the issue of sexually transmitted
diseases, in
relevant economic and social sectors, and with well-targeted policies
and
programmes; this goal will not be met.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental
sustainability.
Progress
has been made in South
Asia
on increasing access to safe water and sanitation.
The proportion of people with access to safe water increased from 79
per cent to
87 per cent.
As evident from the above,
gender disparities in health and education are
extremely acute in South Asia. Thus, it would be wise to
broaden the ICTs for development agenda for overcoming
womens human poverty, specifically in the context of attaining the
MDGs. |
Case studies from the Asia Pacific region
Have poor women workers been able to harness the benefits of ICTs in a globalised world? This is a subject of intense debate. Some argue that given the abovementioned gender inequalities in capabilities, opportunities and agency, the impact of globalisation has exacerbated inequalities and poor women have been unable to access the benefits of ICTs.
A recent case study of the Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA)-a cooperative of poor, self-employed, Indian women workers provides an interesting view of liberalisation from a grass-roots perspective. (11)
This study shows that from the vantage point of the poor woman worker economic opportunities created by
liberalisation are highly unequal. Those better endowed, with more access to skills, to markets
with more resources or better links internationally have been able to benefit. For women at the upper-income, more skilled end, the quality as well as opportunities have improved.
For most women workers, however, the quality of employment is poor, without opportunities for skill development and moving up the ladder, and with very low-income returns.(12)
This is true also of the globalised information economy. It is well known that often the information poor are also resource-poor. Thus the study suggests that globalisation has led to loss of existing employment without the creation of new or alternative employment for poor, semi-skilled workers. Mechanisation attendant on technology advances has led to job losses of poor, women workers, especially in labour-intensive sectors. Further, the paper also shows that job creation that has taken place as a result of liberalisation has benefited sectors where traditionally men are employed. In general, the trend observed is the casualisation of female labour, to more homebased work with little or no security or social safety nets.(13)
In response to these problems, SEWA illustrates innovative ways in which ICTs are being used to combat womens poverty. In the case of SEWA, ICTs are being used to increase profitability, through improved access to market information, capital and to upgrade womens skills and train them in communication strategies, management and accounting skills. Further, SEWAs use of ICTs has had a multiplier effect. As SEWA organises poor women into a collective, it is able to develop insurance schemes to protect womens economic and social rights and give women a collective voice(14).
Other organisations have similarly been able to harness the potential of ICTs to combat human poverty and gender inequality. Sri Lanka offers several examples of best practices. The Information Data Bank of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) provides skills training, assistance with contracts, information about labour rights, foreign language training and insurance to poor women workers. Similarly, the Centre for Womens Research (CENWOR) in Sri Lanka uses ICTs to conduct research that connects human poverty, labour and unemployment, forced migration, international law, human rights, education, gender, public health, and legal dimensions of trafficking.15 It is well known that ICTs have a tremendous potential to overcome barriers typically associated with SMEs and growth. These include lack of information regarding the wider market environment (pricing, demands, trends, etc; poor communication between suppliers and markets; poor access to capital, equipment, and raw materials; a shortage of adequately skilled personnel; and a lack of business management expertise. Thus, we have to establish a major research agenda investigating how to maximise opportunities for poor women
workers and SMEs through ICTs and how to overcome different kinds of barriers, building on the innovation of womens businesses all over the world. It is this transformative potential of ICTs that I wish to turn to, to propose an outline research, policy, and e-Governance agenda for womens poverty alleviation.
This agenda draws on a central question raised by the UNs Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and suggests a paradigm shift from current policy initiatives. As the FAO states, There needs to be a move away from looking at technology and asking, `What can we do with this? to looking at
[poor womens needs] and asking `Which technology might help here?(16)
Overcoming womens human poverty using ICTs: a research, policy and e-Governance agenda
We need to address the broader potential of ICTs for addressing and overcoming womens human poverty through a bold research, policy and e-governance agenda, which I will subsequently outline. We know that direct and independent access to information about prices and exchange rates can transform the relationship between poor women producers and middlemen. Connectivity through telephones, radio, television and the Internet can enable the voices of marginalised and excluded citizens to be heard; promoting greater government responsiveness. Most importantly, ICTs have a transformative potential; they can help overcome poor peoples powerlessness and voicelessness, even while structural inequities exist in the distribution of traditional assets such as education, land, capital and trade.(17)
We therefore need a dual approach. First, we need a research, policy and e-governance agenda that will (1) address the barriers faced by poor women and SMEs in accessing the potential of ICTs to overcome poverty, (2) redesign existing strategies for the use of ICTs, and (3) explore new women-specific strategies and mixes of technologies to target womens poverty reduction.(18) Second, we should develop a research, policy, and e-Governance agenda that addresses the question of how national policies and governance institutions need to be reformed, re-focused, and re-aligned with targeted financing to maximise opportunities for women to overcome their gendered poverty and to benefit from ICTs in a globalised world. Research should focus on a new mix of technologies, reforming existing national policies, institutions, and financing and creating new policy and legislative frameworks that could be targeted to maximising opportunities for poor women. This could then be used to network, lobby, and advocate policy and institutional reform and changed resource allocation.
Furthermore, such a research, policy and governance agenda for using ICTs to overcome womens human poverty would help achieve the MDGs in the Asia-Pacific region. This agenda could inform national development strategies of poor countries and target donor assistance of rich countries, using the MDGs and the Millennium Global Compact between the poor and rich countries as a framework.
In order to achieve the MDGs, many countries are currently re-aligning their national poverty reduction strategies and other national policies to focus on pro-poor growth. The MDGs could be a good policy advocacy tool for realigning ICT policies, other national development plans, and attendant financing to focus on ICTs for womens poverty reduction. To take a specific entry point, it could mean intervening through a key policy reform suggested by the 2003 Human Development Report on the MDGs. The suggestion is that we need to support industrial development policy that nurtures entrepreneurial activity and helps diversify the economy from dependence on primary commodity exports. This suggestion includes an active role for SMEs.19 Here I can see a great opportunity for a research, policy and governance agenda on how ICTs can maximise opportunities for SMEs to impact poverty alleviation in general and womens poverty in particular.
Some initiatives in this direction could include:
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Using ICTs for poverty research, policy advocacy, and public awareness campaigns that centrally address womens human poverty, information-poverty, and lack of a collective voice.
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Using ICTs to conduct a country-by-country study of the impact of globalisation on poor women workers. These case studies could create a socio-economic vulnerability profile of women in South Asia.
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Linking existing studies on womens poverty in the Asia-Pacific and other studies that map barriers to ICTs. This in turn could lead to further studies on how the use of ICT programmes and ICT policy could be designed to target and overcome gender-specific barriers.
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Employing ICTs to reduce womens time poverty and increase access to income-generating activities. National ICT policies should target the issue of ICTs as enablers for womens empowerment, and other policies including employment, elecommunications, education, and national development strategies need to focus on facilitating womens access to knowledge, opportunities, and empowerment.
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Using lessons gleaned from the innovative best practices of womens organisations in the Asia-Pacific region to employ ICTs for systematic learning, research, and information dissemination.
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Examining appropriate technologies and mix of technologies to reach the unreached. (For example, downloading from the Internet to community radios etc.)
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Using ICTs for multi-sectoral linkages, connecting different stakeholders and facilitating transnational networks.
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Using ICTs to form different e-communities of practice around womens poverty alleviation and the MDGs. Members could be drawn from a wide cross section of stakeholders, researchers, statisticians, activists, academics, civil society organisations, government officials, policy and decision-makers, donors, legal experts, macroeconomists, poverty experts and media experts. Apart from shared learning, these knowledge communities could facilitate a transformative agenda through creating well-researched, enabling environments for informed policy and governance.
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Using e-Governance solutions to safeguard womens social and economic rights (including reproductive rights).
As we move ahead, our task is to find ways of developing these innovative approaches further and to garner support for them through advocacy, policy reform, and institutional reform. ICTs can be an enabler and facilitator of womens voice and choice through appropriate research, policy, and governance and can contribute towards the accomplishment of the MDGs. However, substantial efforts are required for their potential to be realised in practice.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNDP. This paper would not have been possible without the invaluable research assistance of Lauren Baer, Gender Intern, UNDP Kathmandu SURF and MPhil Student in Development Studies, Oxford University.
Endnotes
1 Caren Grown, Geeta Rao Gupta, and Zahia Khan, Background Paper of the Millennium Project Task Force on Gender Equality, April 2003. See also United Nations Human Development Report, 1995.
2 Grown, 2003.
3 Grown, 2003.
4 Grown, 2003.
5 Based on a review of literature on the definition and measurement of womens empowerment, Malhotra, Schuler and Boender conclude that empowerment is a process that marks change over a period of time and requires that the individual being empowered is involved as a significant agent in that change process. See A. Malhotra, S. Schuler, and C. Boender, Measuring Womens Empowerment as a Variable in International Development, 2002.
6 United Nations Human Development Report, 1997.
7 Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals, The World Bank Gender and Development Group, April 2003.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid
10 I am extremely indebted to my colleague, Dr.Anuradha Seth, Regional Poverty Advisor, South and West Asia, UNDP for sharing with me the overview of Gender and MDGs in South Asia and much else on the gendered face of human poverty in South Asia. All of the data cited below comes from her paper Monitoring of the MDGs through a Gender Lens and Integration of Gender Related Performance Indicators in the PRSP, Experts Meeting on Gender Mainstreaming of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Selected African Countries, Pretoria, South Africa 24-26 March 2003.
11 Renana Jhabvala and Shalini Sinha, Liberalisation and the Woman Worker. Online at http://www.sewa.org/globalisation/pdf/
Liberlization%20and%20Women%20Worker.pdf
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Roma Bhattacharjea, Trafficking and Human Poverty: Using ICTs for a Transformative Research, Policy and Governance Agenda, Presentation at the World Bank seminar: ICTs: A Powerful Tool to Combat Trafficking of Women. Online at http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/B-SPAN/sub_ict_trafficking.htm
16 Adapted from Patricia Norrish, FAO, I998 as cited in Information, Communications Technologies (ICTs) for Sustainable Livelihoods: Preliminary Study, AERDD and IT, April-Nov 1999.
17 Simone Cecchini and Talat Shah, Information and Communications Technology as a Tool for Empowerment, World Bank Empowerment Sourcebook: Tools and Practices, 1 April 2002.
18 For a key discussion of barriers to poor womens use of ICTs and innovative solutions see Andrew Skuse, Information, Communication Technologies, Poverty and Empowerment, Social Department, DFID, July 2001. This study suggests we look at strategies to reach the unwired world or using solar power instead of electricity.
19 United Nations Human Development Report, 2003.
Author: Roma Bhattacharjea worked for UNDP as a Regional Policy Adviser based in Nepal.
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