Gender and Information & Communications

Technology
Creating Opportunities Through
Technology

Through programs such as Grameen Phone in

Bangladesh, téléboutiques in Senegal and
Morocco, and phone shops in Ghana, women in
developing countries are discovering new
business opportunities through Information and
Communications Technology (ICT).

ICT enables creation of niche markets that Photo: USAID/Jessica Morse

require low capital investment where women can
often establish or enter into businesses on their
own. In the ICT field, women can provide a
variety of services at multiple skill levels, from
outsourced call or data entry centers to more
training-intensive software engineering and
geographic information system (GIS) jobs.
The women who work at Iraq’s first
independent radio station are
redefining their community’s
understanding of freedom as they
broadcast music and talk shows
championing the rights of women.
Read more >.

Access to Information

ICTs help to empower women by improving their ability to access information,

education, and services, such as market prices for crops, professional development
opportunities, and tools to promote their and their families’ health. ICTs also help
empower women by improving the availability of information important to their lives.

Through technology (alongside and in partnership with other development efforts),

women can have a voice beyond their local community, allowing them to network with
other women around the world and better advocate for greater government
responsiveness and transparency, greater economic opportunity, greater equality, and
greater recognition and protection of their legal and human rights.

Addressing Biases

However, care must be taken that investments in ICT do not exacerbate existing
inequalities. Technology is no different than any other intervention; gender must be taken
into account when developing any program – otherwise, women and girls may be
(unintentionally) excluded, especially if there are deeply held beliefs about technology
being a traditionally male field.

The following are some areas where gender discrimination can inhibit women’s access to
new technology:
 • In many parts of the world, there are still
deep-seated traditional biases against
women and technology. Technology may
be seen as "male", “high status”,
"scientific/mathematical", or "expensive".
Such attitudes can inhibit women from
learning new skills or even accessing
technology. Training materials, times,
locations, and marketing often reflect this
discrimination, assuming that women are
Photo: USAID/Judy Payne
not interested in learning about
technology beyond basic computer usage. Cell phones have become an
increasingly important tool for women,
• Internet public access points such as especially entrepreneurs such as this
telecenters and cybercafés are sometimes Nigerian “phone lady,” pictured above.
not seen as appropriate places for women In addition, women are more likely to
and girls. Women also often have less rent telephone time if the person
free time, especially without their offering them access is another
children with them, and lower levels of woman.
disposable income to use on “extras” such as visiting a cybercafé.

• Many occupations traditionally held by women also do not offer them access to
computers, creating both a lack of training opportunities and of exposure to
technology. Most female small businesses are trade-based, where a computer
would be a very costly investment. Having a computer in an office is still seen as
a mark of status, restricted to senior staff, most of whom are still men.

• Women often access the Internet and computer technology through gatekeepers -
often male family members who use the technology to communicate, send money,
and research information at the direction of women. Even telephone access is
sometimes restricted through a male family member or community member.

• Literacy has become less of an issue with the use of radio, television, film, and
video programming. However, a high percentage of Internet content is still text-
based – especially on cell phones and for low bandwidth environments – and
much of that text is in the major world languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, and
Japanese. Technology information is especially restricted to these top world
languages. Women worldwide still have significantly higher rates of illiteracy,
especially in major world languages.

Capitalizing on Opportunities

However, if women have access to technology within their traditional physical spheres, it
can give them access to critical information for key topics. Women access information on
reproductive and child/family health, government benefits, and schooling information.
Telephony continues to be in high demand, especially for women conducting business or
family affairs. Women use ICTs to organize remittances, manage small businesses, sell
products, and seek new economic opportunities for themselves, their families, and their
communities. And, most importantly, the overall global economy is more and more
reliant on ICTs in everyday life; the exclusion of women from this transition further
disempowers them.

Ways to Improve Access

By understanding the above gender implications of ICT for development, ICTs can
greatly expand the opportunities women and girls have to participate in development
objectives.

Some examples include:

• Cell phones have become an increasingly

important tool for women, especially
women entrepreneurs, who need access
to credit and capital to invest in a cell
phone. Projects such as Grameen Uganda
and Bangladesh ("Village Phone") have
demonstrated that women are more likely
to rent telephone time if the person
offering them access is another woman.

• Newer ICTs can expand the use of Photo: AED

traditional, low literacy, communications The LearnLink project designed a pilot
technology, such as radio and TV – still project to demonstrate how distance
prime communications channels for learning could be applied to improve
broad audiences – by offering content the impact, efficiency, and quality of
reuse or on-demand content via podcasts, the Child Welfare Participant Training
video on demand, or video compact discs Program in Romania.
(VCDs). As more and more cell phones
offer MP3 and MP4 (audio and video) playback capability, users can replay
programs at will, even in areas with no radio/TV coverage.

• When training programs directly target women, training rates increase. CISCO
technology training offered through the Women in Technology training program
was able to train over 2000 women by explicitly targeting and marketing to them.

• Addressing the social and financial barriers that potential female clients face
works to give increased access. The Mali Community Learning and Information
Center (CLIC) project distributed vouchers for free computer time to individual
women and women’s organizations, which they used to obtain basic computer
training, an essential step for the women to become regular telecenter users. The
CLICs also offered “open days,” targeting women specifically by offering content
of interest to women in the area.
 • Addressing gender equity also works to allow women to enjoy the employment
benefits that ICTs can bring. The Programa Para o Futuro ICT training and
employment project for disadvantaged youth in Brazil directly addressed gender
equity in training, interrelations between men and women, and underlying biases
in the workplace.

Also, integrating ICTs into other development activities can extend the impact of those
activities and allow additional benefits. For example:

• Small business training for women should include training on using small
business management tools, such as accounting systems, spreadsheets, and email.
The Macedonia e-BIZ project made gender equity a priority by asking all of its e-
BIZ ICT centers to explicitly target ways to help female entrepreneurs grow their
businesses.

• Using ICTs for distance learning and ongoing training can address the issue of
women being less available for travel or evening/weekend meetings due to
household responsibilities or safety concerns. For example, the Info for Health
project supports the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Implementing Best
Practices Initiative website, which offers peer-to-peer best practice capturing and
exchange and has an extremely active midwifery discussion forum made up of
women primarily from developing countries.

• Low income women have successfully used ICTs to form peer networks through
employment interest groups such as the Self-Employed Women’s Association
(SEWA) in India.