GENDER-PROOFING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
In the 21st century, more than half the world's population remains disenfranchised from benefits that
developed nations take for granted - including the learning and training available through information
and communications technologies (ICTs). Problems run deeper than a simple lack of access: using a
community centre's computer to view a government information web page on HIV/AIDS is useless if
you can barely read. And in developing countries, women face many cultural and logistical barriers to
their use of ICTs that are often more readily accessible to men.
These disenfranchised women live and work in poverty and poor health conditions, and with
minimal basic education and skills. More than ever, the international community and individual
national governments are realising the full human cost of this disparity through its negative impact on
the economic and social bottom line.
Mandated to foster Commonwealth development through open and distance learning (ODL), the
Commonwealth of Learning has been making a difference to women in developing countries for
more than a decade. COL is currently focussing on identifying and dissolving gender barriers to ICT
- helping to bridge the digital divide for women.
Many women in developing regions remain marginalised or excluded from basic education and life
skills training. Many more are completely illiterate. The few that do enjoy access to basic education are
increasingly finding themselves on the wrong side of a gender-based digital divide. More disturbingly,
initial studies commissioned by COL found very little research that could help governments and
development organisations deal with the issues.
Spurred by a clear need for more relevant information, COL hosted a series of regional expert
symposiums in Barbados, India, New Zealand and Tanzania on gender barriers to ICT use, from 1998
- 2001, in collaboration with the British Council, Canada's International Development Research Centre
(IDRC) and the New Zealand Official Development Assistance (NZODA) programme (now the New
Zealand Agency for International Development, NZAID).
At a final summary meeting on Gender Issues and Barriers to Information and Communications
Technologies, held in Ottawa in June 2002 in partnership with Canada's International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), consultants and delegates from previous symposiums consolidated their
findings and case studies into a synthesis report,
Women and ICTs for Open and Distance Learning: Some
experiences and strategies from the Commonwealth
.
This definitive document is a guide for individuals in governments and organisations working to
ensure women have equal access to ODL and ICT education and training, including COL and its
worldwide network of development and education partners. The report's comprehensive study of
gender barriers to ICT covers Commonwealth Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and includes
suggestions and case studies on how to resolve the issues.
Although specifics are varied by region, some shared threads were low general literacy and ICT
literacy levels; irrelevance of learning material available through ICT and ODL to women's livelihoods;
socio-cultural barriers to women's education; and lack of female policy-makers, trainers and designers
of ODL courses. Suggestion for corrective action include using audiovisual ICTs to circumvent
illiteracy, introducing training relevant to women's traditional fields, conducting ICT awareness and
promotional campaigns, collaboration with local or regional women's organisations and leaders, and
lobbying for clear national policies on gender and development.
The synthesis report will also help inform specific discussion topics at an invitational Forum on
ICTs & Gender: Optimising Opportunities, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August 2003
(
www.globalknowledge.org/gender2003). The forum's many co-organisers include COL, the Global
Knowledge Partnership, the International Telecommunications Union and the Government of
Malaysia's Ministry of Energy, Communications and Multimedia, Ministry of Women and Family
Development and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. Specific topics will
include Confidence and Security in the Use of ICTs, Health and Education, and Entrepreneurship.
Among other gender-related initiatives, COL has trained, and placed digital video cameras in the
hands of, female agricultural extension officers in Ghana; helped develop Women in Development
distance education course modules for non-governmental organisations and developed a Gender
Training Resources Collection (
www.col.org/GenderResources) - a web database of gender mainstreaming
support material - in collaboration with several United Nations organisations and the Commonwealth
Secretariat.
Perhaps "men own all the technology," as a report at the Ottawa meeting from Zambian and Kenyan
delegates suggests, but COL and its partners are working at means of offering women better ways to
use ICT for the development of all.
The synthesis report, regional meeting reports and country presentations are all available on
COL's
web site
.