WB Village Selfhelp Kiosk Pilot Project, Polonnaruwa District, Sri Lanka Photo: Meena Munshi

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WB Village Self-help Kiosk Pilot Project,
Polonnaruwa District, Sri LankaPhoto Meena
Munshi
The World Bank Tokyo Office Videoconference
Seminar Series PIC Tokyo Partnership Program
Vol.1 World Bank's Programs on Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Gender
Equality What Have We Done So Far?
Kayoko Shibata Gender and Development Group
June 22, 2004
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Why do we have so much faith in ICTs when we
discuss gender equality?

• New technologies have laid the foundation
• for new ways of organizing work
• (e.g. telework), employment
• (e.g. call centers), and education
• (e.g. distance education) all of which have
• the potential being women-friendly.
• Asian Women in the Digital Economy Policies for
  Participation,
• Swasti Mitter, 2001

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Yet, the gender digital divide continues to exist

• Source USAID/AED (2001)

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Women as of Internet users, Africa Country

• Women as of users Internet users as
  of population Zambia 37.5 0.0Uganda
  31.5 0.1South Africa 19.0 3.0Ethiopia 13.9
  0.01Senegal 12.0 0.1 Source USAID/AED
  (2001)

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Female Internet users as of total Internet
users, 2002 (Source ITU)
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Female Internet users as of total Internet
users, 2002 (Source ITU)
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What is the World Bank doing?

• Raising awareness through seminars and (October
  2000 current)
• Completed the Engendering ICT Study which
  includes analysis of consideration for gender
  issues in World Bank projects (2002-2003)
• Held seminars which sought to inform participants
  about what gender-aware ICT projects mean, to
  help them identify steps and resources necessary
  to incorporate gender issues into projects as
  well as good practices that use a variety of ICTs
  and technology choices
• Held E-Discussion on ICTs and Gender Equality
  (May 10 June 15, 2004)
• Completing the Engendering ICTs Toolkit this
  summer

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What does Engendering ICT mean?

• Integrating gender into development work, and
  identifying and removing gender disparities in
  the access to and use of ICT.
• The goal is to adapt ICT to the special needs of
  women and girls, and to take advantage of womens
  special knowledge and strong informal networks,
  which may combine electronic with traditional
  communication systems. (e.g. Beijing Womens
  Conference,1995)

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Engendering ICT study

• Responds to call of WB/OED (2002) for better
  integration of gender considerations into the
  design of Bank-supported projects so that both
  men and women are able to access the benefits
  equitably.
• Many Bank-supported projects have an ICT
  component (90).
• To investigate the potential of ICT for promoting
  gender-equitable development in Bank projects.

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Areas examined by study

• Employment both in the formal IT sector and in
  the informal, semi-formal area of micro and small
  enterprises.
• Education to provide a base for using ICT and
  new models of delivery--14 of Bank lending in
  Education is to technology.
• ICT-enabled delivery of social services.
• Using ICT for political empowerment.
• National ICT policies.
• Consideration of gender issues in Bank projects
  cutting across many sectors.

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Chapter 7. Of the study

• Concentrates on analysis of consideration for
  gender issues in World Bank projects.
• Based on desk study of some projectsand
  interviews with TTLs.

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Gender issues in WB ICT projects

• Study broad sample of 200 Bank projects from the
  ICT sector and those with ICT components from
  other sectors to determine extent of inclusion of
  gender issues.
• Nearly half of projects considered gender as an
  element in the overall rationale for the project
• But consideration was often only a mention of
  gender or description of the varying social roles
  of men and women.
• More than half of the projects examined paid no
  attention to gender issues.

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Successful incorporation of gender issues in
World Bank projects examples

• Argentina education project teaching information
  technology in secondary schools and analyzing
  results by sex and class.
• Ghana an agricultural services ICT project that
  targets women farmers for the diffusion of
  information and has a sex-disaggregated database
  of food and agricultural statistics.
• India a project that provides scholarships and
  housing to female students studying information
  technology.
• Macedonia A technology training program aimed at
  at-risk girls and boys from various
  socio-cultural backgrounds and from ethnic groups
  that are underrepresented in the countrys
  education system.

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More best practices projects

• Mexico project seeks to promote equality though
  community-based gender-awareness programs.
  Information is collected and analyzed on the
  basis of gender.
• Mozambique mineral resources information
  management project that addresses gender issues
  in artisanal mining.
• Mozambique higher education project in
  Mozambique that increases Internet access for
  institutions of higher education with a focus on
  gender equity.
• Peru agricultural extension project that selects
  information technology service providers inter
  alia on the basis of their capability to work
  with rural women.
• Tanzania establishment of agricultural extension
  information and communication centers that
  reserve 30 percent of places for women and
  included womens issues in training.

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Recommendations to engender WB ICT projects

• At the initial stage of project development,
  project teams should be made aware of useful
  tools and good practice examples of gender and
  ICT, such as in the toolkit that accompanies the
  study.
• World Bank staff working on operations that
  involve ICT should receive training on gender
  issues in ICTs.

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Engendering ICT Toolkit

• Will help task managers and counterparts to
  better incorporate gender issues into ICT
  projects and provide guidance on how to design
  gender-sensitive ICT interventions.

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Engendering ICT Toolkit is divided into 11 modules

• Checklists
• Country Profiles
• Evaluation Tools
• Good Practice Examples
• Resources on Gender and ICTs Who is doing
  what?

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Many case studies of the World Bank in the
toolkit illustrate the ways in which ICTs can
contribute to empowerment for women.

• i

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For example, Improving technical
education for female students project in
IndiaIndia Third Technician Education
Projectprovides training to Indian workers in
fields that are crucial to economic growth, with
a focus on IT. Women account for about 40 of
students in participating technical institutions,
as well as for a large share of the countrys
high-tech workforce. The project provides
scholarships and housing to female students to
encourage their participation.
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For example, Supporting female farmers in
Ghana Despite the key role that women play in
agriculture, traditions and customs often
restrict their activities and limit their access
to land, technology, training, and credit.
Through the Banks Agricultural Services
Subsector Investment Project, the Directorate for
Women in Agricultural Development has addressed
gender issues
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One of the projects main goals is to develop
cost-effective, demand-driven ICT systems that
generate and disseminate knowledge among female
farmersincreasing their participation in
accelerating agricultural growth to promote food
security, reduce poverty, and conserve natural
resources. The project will also establish a
sex-disaggregated database of food and
agricultural statistics to support
gender-responsive training. The project aims
to raise female enrollments to increase the
number of female extension agents and
agricultural technicians in both the public and
private sectors.
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For example,WB Sri Lanka Rural Poverty Reduction
Program - Village Self-help Telecenter (Kiosk)
Pilot Project

• The project started with three kiosks in 2001 and
  will be scaling up within next six months.
• 50 of workers of each kiosk are women. Kiosks
  were set up to service women needs, by generating
  micro-regional and local economic development
  programs, providing social services, as well as
  child welfare information.

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How will ICTs contribute to womens
entrepreneurships Tortas Peru
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How will ICTs contribute to womens
entrepreneurships Tortas Peru

• Women owned enterprise that uses the Internet to
  reach and service a wider market, selling cakes
  and desserts through their website, targeting the
  2 million Peruvians living outside the country.
• With 3 hour of training, housewife members of the
  network who bake and deliver the cakes learn to
  use e-mail and website, and interact with clients
  through public information booths.

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When a cake is delivereda picture is taken and
sent to the client
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 The Engendering ICT Toolkit has many more
examples of how ICT can contribute to womens
entrepreneurship and economic development,
including Mongolia Telecom where 4,500 workers
are women.
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 Mongolia Telecom increased the share of
managerial positions held by women from 9 to 20
by helping them balance their responsibilities at
home and work and offering them training and
management development programs.
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Our Recent Endeavor E-Discussion on ICTs and
Gender Equality and Outcomes420 participants
register/regionally balanced/rural citizens
participation. Each week, participants were
asked to reflect on a set of questions.
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Key Issues Raised by Participants include

• 1. Language was considered to be a critical
  barrier.
• People who are not fluent in English, for
  example, are
• at a serious disadvantage in using the Internet
  and
• use of the Internet is especially difficult for
  people
• who are fluent only in local languages.
•   

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• 2. There is no single appropriate approach to
  capacity building. Some participants urged that
  efforts should be concentrated in working with
  youth and educated women while others argued that
  this would alienate and further marginalize poor
  women. Instead, they said that ICTs should be
  seen as offering an opportunity to help poor
  illiterate women gain access to information and
  knowledge.
•  

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•  
• 3. It was generally agreed that cultural
  contexts, while different from one place to
  another, are extremely important everywhere and
  any efforts to introduce ICTs to rural
  communities must be made within existing,
  acceptable cultural frameworks. This factor is
  not always taken into consideration by
  international organizations that set up ICT
  projects in rural areas.
•  

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• 4. ICTS have had a substantial impact on the
  quality of work environments and women have been
  affected both positively and negatively. Although
  many women have acquired employment in call
  centers or in other ICT-based firms, there is
  still a tendency for the best-paid and most
  prestigious jobs to be held by men. Moreover, the
  actual number of women who have found good
  employment through outsourcing is relatively
  small and most of them come from elite
  backgrounds.