An annotated list of key on-line sources which focus on ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and gender.

Empowerment and Governance through Information and Communication Technologies: women's perspective

http://www.bellanet.org/gkaims/documents/docs/womenandICT.htm?ois=no

Author(s): Vikas Nath (http://members.tripod.com/nvikas) from London School Economics

Date of publication: October 2000

Summary: The paper explores the avenues created by ICT enabled networking processes for women in the areas of empowerment and governance, the hindrances faced in engendering of these processes and goes on to suggest ways to ensure that greater benefits accrue to women in a distributed manner.

Gender analysis of telecentre evaluation methodology

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/19_Gen.html

Author(s):Rebecca Holmes for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 1999

Summary: This document sets out to explore the issue of how gender can be meaningfully integrated into telecentre evaluation methodologies. It is animated by African experience and specifically by South African experience. A lack of time and resources has limited the scope of this document and it is recommended that more of both are put into further investigations of these issues. Specifically in terms of primary research with women and men working as telecentre operators and managers, with women and men in communities serviced by telecentres and an investigation of similarities of these experiences across countries and continents in the developing world.

Gender and the Information Revolution in Africa

http://www.idrc.ca/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=6&Product_ID=471&CATID=15

Author(s): Eva M. Rathgeber and Edith Ofwona Adera (IDRC- http://www.idrc.ca/)

Date of publication: May 2000

Summary: The essays in this book examine the current and potential impact of the ICT explosion in Africa. They focus specifically on gender issues and analyze the extent to which women's needs and preferences are being served. The authors underscore the need for information to be made directly relevant to the needs of rural women, whether in the areas of agriculture, health, microenterprise, or education. They argue that it is not enough for women simply to be passive participants in the development of ICTs in Africa. Women must also be decision-makers and actors in the process of using the new ICTs to accelerate African economic, social, and political development.

Gender, Justice and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/marcelle.htm

Author(s): Gillian M Marcelle

Date of publication: March 2000

Summary: This paper will cover the following issues in summary:-

ICTs --what are they and why are they important

ICTs -- under what conditions do they produce benefits

Challenges and opportunities facing women as ICTs diffuse rapidly

The effects of ICTs on gender relations

Glimmers of hope

Strategies for change

Information communication technologies, poverty and empowerment

http://www.imfundo.org/knowledge/skuse.htm

Author(s): Andrew Skuse, Development Communications, Social Development Department, DFID

Date of publication: June 2000

Summary: Some commentators have suggested that the social and geographic distance between certain sections of the world's population is being rendered meaningless by new information communication technologies (ICTs), though is simultaneously creating an 'information excluded' underclass comprised of the world's poor. Arguments that centre on the dissolution of old development dichotomies such and North and South in favour of the 'fast' and 'slow' resound to the language of empowerment and disempowerment. Increasingly, the 'wired' world is being brought together as the global network economy emerges, though it is at a clear cost to the unconnected.

Rural South African women join information age through telecentres

http://www.lolapress.org/elec1/artenglish/step_e.htm

Author(s): Kgatliso Pleasant Masethlha,Assistant Project Co-ordinator at Vodacom Centre (Wits University, Johannesburg) and Stephanie Gingras, member of NGO ALTERNATIVES, based in Montreal (http://www.alternatives.ca)

Summary: South African women are slowly playing a leading role in the evolution and sharing of new communication technologies. Their involvement has become more apparent in the establishment and running of community based "telecentres".

Strategies for including a Gender Perspective in African Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) Policy

http://www.devmedia.org/documents/Marcelle%2Ehtm

Author(s): Gillian M. Marcelle (United Nations University Institute of New Technologies, Maastricht) for the International Development Research Centre as part of its contribution to the ECA International Conference on African Women and Economic Development.

Date of publication: March 1998

Summary: This paper is concerned with strategies to secure the potential economic benefits of ICTs for all groups in society for as we will show, without a gender perspective, there is no guarantee that potential benefits bypass girls and women. The economic benefits for girls and women in terms of enhanced income generation opportunities, employment and improved quality of life are tremendous, but since technologies are not neutral, we will also be concerned with advocating ICT strategies which reduce and manage the potential for ICTs to lead to economic and social exclusion and to reinforce existing social disparities.

Supporting Women's Use of Information Technologies for Sustainable Development

http://www.wigsat.org/it/womenicts.html

Author(s): Sophia Huyer (Women in Global Science and Technology - http://www.wigsat.org/index.html)

Date of publication: February 18 1997

Summary: The central question of this study concerns African women's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This includes issues of access, the benefits African women experience and can expect to experience from ICTs, and the role they can and do play in the production and dissemination of information.

Other sources and links

Altavista search on ICT and Gender

http://uk.altavista.com/q?pg=q&q=%2Bict+%2Bgender&kl=XX&what=web&mm=1

A list of search results using the search engine Altavista.

Gender and the Digital Divide Seminar Series

http://www.worldbank.org/gender/digitaldivide/

The Gender and the Digital Divide Seminar Series is being sponsored by the Gender and Development and Girl's Education Thematic Groups, and Bridging the Digital Divide through Education Task Force of the World Bank. The series looks at the impact that information and communication technologies (ICT) are having on gender relations and innovative ways that ICTs are being used to overcome gender inequalities and to bridge the digit divide.

Google search on ICT and Gender

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%2Bict+%2Bgender

A list of search results using the search engine Google.

Info21 resources on Gender

http://www.undp.org/info21/sector/s-gender.html

Links from UNDPs (United Nations Development Programme) Info21 resource centre.

Lycos search on ICT and Gender

http://search.lycos.com/main/default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchbox&query=%2Bict+%2Bgender

A list of search results using the search engine Lycos.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) Resources

http://www.sdnp.undp.org/perl/news/articles.pl?do=browse&categories=7

Resources on gender issues in ICT (Information Communication Technologies)

Women and New Technologies

http://www.unifem.undp.org/ec_tech.htm

UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) is working to understand and promote ways in which information communication technologies (ICT) can create new opportunities for women's empowerment.

Women and the Internet

http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/hot/win.htm

Eldis guide to women and the Internet

Yahoo search on ICT and Gender

http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=ict+gender&hc=0&hs=0

A list of search results using the search engine Yahoo.