Final Summary, INSTRAW Virtual Seminars

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Four virtual seminars were held over the period July 1 September 13,
2002. Background papers were prepared for each:

1. Are ICTs Gender Neutral?
Background paper: "Are ICTs Gender Neutral? A gender analysis of six case
studies of multi-donor ICT projects" by Nancy Hafkin

2. Women and ICTs: Enabling and Disabling Environments
Background paper: "Cyberfeminist technological practices: Exploring
possibilities for a women-centered design of technological environments" by
Radhika Gajjala

3. En-gendering Management and Regulation of ICTs
Background paper: "Engendering Management and Regulation of ICTs" by Anita
Anand and Mahesh Uppal.

4. ICTs as Tools for Bridging the Gender Digital Divide and Women's
Empowerment
Background papers:
1) "Empowering Women for Public Policy Advocacy: Looking Behind the
Internet to Enable Citizen Information Systems" by Juliana Martínez and
Katherine Reilly.
2) "The Use of Information and Communication Technologies as a Tool to
Bridge the Gender Digital Gap: A Case on the Use of a Locally-developed
CD-Rom by Rural Women in Uganda" by Rita Mijumbi

Several cross-cutting themes emerged during seminar discussion, reflecting
the connections and intersections between the four topics and the
background papers. They are:

- Social, economic and technological context of women's interaction with ICTs
- Changing ICT policy to make it more women-appropriate
- Statistics and indicators of women's use of ICTs
- Differences and similarities between urban and rural situations
- Reaching women with ICTs

** RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Women and/in Technology

A clear outcome of this discussion is the need for women in developed and
developing countries to talk with each other and compare research,
strategies and situations.

Work needs to be done to determine how to ensure that end-users of policy
or of technology are consistently consulted by designers and policy-makers?

More evaluation of the benefits of ICT projects to all users, including
women, is necessary.

The question needs to be explored whether women are using ICTs as
effectively as they could to address gender biases in the medium, media and
society. More research needs to be done on what kind of technology do women
want, how do we want to use it, and how can we use our imagination and
creativity in forming a cyber-space that is gender-appropriate?

More needs to be done to make the "gendered nature" or results of of policy
visible, including:
- Documenting evidence of how the development process is strengthened by
the greater participation of women and illustrating the consequences of
women's exclusion from the ICT community
- using case studies to show that projects which take into account gender
relations and concerns are more successful than those which did not;
- disseminating findings in ways that are interesting and comprehensible to
others
- raising the visibility of qualitative and feminist researchers, through
presentations and networks
- presenting findings in ways that the audience can understand and relate
to, including using narratives and stories with a personal dimension.

2. Regulation and Telecommunications Policy

While profit remains the primary concern of a commercial enterprise,
regulators should take action to ensure that public funds are targeted to
address the concerns of those, such as the poor and women, who the markets
sometimes do not consider as profitable customers. More research is needed
on developing profitable ways of providing ICTs to the poorest.

Women need to intervene more actively on issues like tariffs and universal
service, for example in lobbying regulators to mandate that there be
free/cheap phone access to rape crisis services or concessional access to
communications for one-parent families.

Communication regulation needs to be based on a larger understanding of
what the key long term issues are, and the social implications of
regulation. Long-term issues include providing connectivity to all groups,
information, education, consumer protection, and resolving market failures.

Women's and gender concerns can be made an integral part of the regulation
agenda if women identify and work actively with the policymakers involved.
To do this they need to develop increased expertise in these sectors. They
should make organising and lobbying for appropriate telecommunication
policies and initiatives a priority, including actively following
developments in governmental, corporate and non-governmental sectors. This
will allow women and other social groups to be able to respond quickly and
effectively, and be taken seriously by governments and regulatory agencies.

Education and content issues must be worked into regulatory and policy issues.

3. Information for Advocacy

Women's groups need to begin producing agendas for changing
information-related policies, based in an understanding of the public
administration information systems behind the information that is produced.

In order for ICTs to empower women, we need to also understand the role of
advocacy in the context of policy formation, including the various actors
participating in policymaking, their interests and agendas.

4. Statistics and Indicators

Collection of sex-disaggregated data on ICTs should be systematically
integrated into national data collection.

The kinds of statistics which are relevant to women's interaction with ICTs
include:
- access to PCs, wireless and other technologies;
- access to credit;
- existence of women-specific technology projects;
- support for teleworking for women;
- legal rights
- socio-economic status,
- participation in national knowledge society,
- gender equity and awareness at local and national levels.
- capacity and skill development,
- education of girls and women at all levels,
- poverty.

5. Women and Effective Use of Technology

More research needs to be done on how different kinds of literacy provide
women (and other groups) with the tools to create technologies that are
suited to their interests, concerns and perspectives. Evaluation needs to
be done on the effectiveness of telecentres in providing information access
to women; and on delivery strategies for ICTs and information.