Women and girls are still lagging far behind their male peers in the digital realm, according to a new report launched today under the EQUALS Partnership. The report, Taking Stock: Data and Evidence on Gender Equality in Digital Access, Skills and Leadership, highlights the implications of persistent gaps across different facets of digital technologies.
This essay on gender equity and the use of ICTs in education looks at how ICTs are being used by girls and women in the education space in the focus countries. Gender disparity is a critical issue in all focus countries, except perhaps the Maldives and Sri Lanka to an extent. Most countries in the region are characterized by low female literacy levels, lower participation in the labor force, and lower representation in the administrative and political arena.
In Section 1 the evolution of the international debate on gender and information technology is sketched out. Section 2 contrasts the impact of infrastructural and gender-specific constraints on women’s capacity to exploit the potential of the new information and communication technologies in different world regions. The cross-cutting role of gender in determining participation in the information society, and the issues this raises, are explored in Section 3.
Supporting gender equality in the deployment of and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) involves accepting that gender relations and ICTs within any given community are continuously being shaped by one another. There is a growing body of research on gender and ICTs in the developing world. However, little empirical evidence exists on how certain aspects of gender relations can influence the ways that ICTs are perceived and used, framings which can, in turn, reinforce or reshape existing gender norms and practices.
By many measures, 2015 marks a watershed year in the international communitys efforts to advance gender equality. In September, with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN Member States committed to a renewed and more ambitious framework for development. This agenda, with a deadline of 2030, emphasizes inclusion not just as an end in and of itself but as critical to development effectiveness. At the center of this agenda is the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls (SDG 5).
This case study examines the information channels and use of ICTs by men and women farmers around Nakuru and Thika in Kenya. It contributes to a growing body of literature that aims to understand how ICTs can close gender gaps in agriculture and lead to more equitable opportunities for farmers.
The video provides snapshots of the critical issues discussed at the Gender Perspectives on the Information Society: South Asia Pre-WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) Seminar. This seminar took place in Bangalore on 18-19 April 2005. It was organized by IT for Change in partnership with Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era and Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, with support from UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme and UNIFEM.
This study analyses data, surveys, a market sizing model, and expert interviews to report on mobile phone use among women in low- and middle-income countries. The study finds that women are 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than their male counterparts, a figure that rises slightly in the Middle East and Africa and rises to 37% in South Asia.
The rapid global spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and particularly the proliferation of mobile Internet devices, is redefining not only the realms of information and communication, but the very nature of social structures and institutions. This brief argues that the global ‘information society’ or ‘network society’ is not gender neutral – it has different implications for women and men, girls and boys, and for the relationships between them.
