General information
The economic and political marginalization of women, especially in developing countries, is leading to their stunted growth. Gender discrimination in the access to information is hampering sustainable development. It has been substantiated that information and communication technologies (ICT) have a major role to play in bridging this gap. But the gender gap in the digital divide itself is now an increasing concern.
How ICT can support gender empowerment is something that still needs to be discussed and understood. If access to and use of the new technologies is directly linked to social and economic development, then it is essential to ensure that women in developing countries understand the significance of these technologies and use them. If not, lack of access to ICT becomes a significant factor in their further marginalization from the economic, social and political mainstream both within their countries and in the world. Without equal and full participation in ICT use, women will be left out from participating in the global world of the 21st century.
Several conferences and summits held on gender, in particular, the UN World Conferneces on Women, Beijing and Beijing +5, have reaffirmed the need to focus on gender equality issues through ICT use. We will move ahead with their aims and objectives in our discussion, and attempt to provide concrete inputs to the upcoming WSIS 2003.
If you want to join the ongoing debate of a digital gender divide, this is the right place to bring in your perspectives and ideas. This platform will attempt to increase awareness, raise concerns and make our commitments to give a gender perspective to policies and design of development tools. It will circulate information on resources, practices and events on how women globally are being empowered by ICT.
Moderator & contact details
This platform is initiated by Digital Opportunity Channel of OneWorld South Asia in partnership with i4d (information for development), an ICT initiative of the Centre for Spatial Database Management & Solutions based in India.
It is being moderated by Anuradha Dhar, Research Associate, i4d Online. If you face any subscription problem, please contact Anuradha at
anuradha@i4donline.netor Kanti Kumar, Editor, Digital Opportunity Channel at kanti.kumar@oneworld.net.
What do we want to achieve?
We aim to:
- Help stakeholders in the fields of gender and ICT issues exchange ideas and debate issues about the gender issues and implications of ICT applications in development and the opportunities that they offer.
- Provide them with a platform to take their voices to policymakers in order to influence national, regional and global strategies.
In real terms, this would mean that,
- It would be a time-bound, topics-based, objective-oriented discussion channel.
- Each month we would select a topic and that topic would be critically analyzed, would be featured with examples and best practices, would be discussed with challenges and opportunities and would be highlighted with policy implications, preconditions, successes and failures.
- All the discussions will be streamlined in a summary report each month and would be presented to concerned authorities and at various events where agendas are being discussed in the context of gender and ICT, so that these can influence national, regional and global strategies.
What will we discuss?
Among the questions the forum is expected to debate are:
1. Does ICT facilitate gender equality or create a gender bias?
2. What are the progress and challenges in transforming the gender relations in ICT arena?
3. How can the current uneven and unaffordable access to information by women be improved through ICT?
4. How can ICT enhance women's participation in socio-economic and political development leading to a knowledge society?
5. What is the impact of ICT and globalisation on womens work and lives?
6. How will ICT bring in employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for women?
7. What role can NGOs, civil society organizations and other networks play to create equality for women and to disseminate gender-related information?
8. What are the steps to ensure gender concerns in national ICT policies?
Discussion schedule
The discussions which are likely to continue until December 2003 will be broken into time-bound thematic modules. To begin with, we will focus on the following three themes:
- Access to ICTs and their use
- Gender implications of ICTs
- Capacity building & entrepreneurship
Future themes for discussion will be announced subsequently in the forum.
Who should sign up?
This is an open debate, so anyone can join. We welcome all practitioners working in the field of gender and ICT issues, and all those who feel strongly about these issues to participate and shape our discussions towards a meaningful dialogue trying to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on gender.
Members of civil society, activists, NGOs, youth groups, agencies, governments, inter-governmental organisations and the private sector anyone who desires to make a tangible contribution to the outcome of this discussion is welcome to join the forum.
How to join?
Joining this discussion list is very easy! Just visit the sign-up page of this forum and submit your email address
OR,
send a blank email to:
join-GenderICT@dgroups.org
On successful sign-up, you will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Please follow the instructions in the email to activate your subscription. This is a security measure to prevent you from being signed up by someone else.
Once you activate your subscription, you will start receiving mails posted to the discussion list. You can fully participate in the list through emails itself, or through this site.
So, join the community and have your say!
|
