Resources

The following resources are related to women, gender and ICTs in Africa and globally. Some reflect the ICT for development sector and are useful reference documents. We've also listed some websites which will be of use to activists.

Rapport annuel 2006 d’APC – l’accès pour tous  
En 2006, le principal axe de travail d’APC a été de garder la question de l’accès à l’internet à l’ordre du jour des événements internationaux.
En 2006, les champs d’action du programme d’appui aux réseaux de femmes d’APC en matière de plaidoyer politique, d’évaluation, de recherche et de formation technique des femmes sont devenus de plus en plus interdépendants, chaque domaine éclairant et renforçant le travail des autres.
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Facture numérique de genre en Afrique francophone  
Le livre « Fracture numérique de genre en Afrique francophone, une inquiétante réalité » rédigé par Marie-Hélène Mottin-Sylla a été traduit en langue anglaise par APC, l’Association pour le Progrès de la Communication. Ce livre parle des disparités de genre dans le secteur des TIC et propose une méthodologie pour mesurer les différents aspects de la fracture numérique de genre.
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VOIP ou l'infrastructure de communication libre  
IT+46 a annoncé la publication d’un guide gratuit sur la Voix sur IP pour aider à l'extension des communications à bas prix aux plus pauvres régions du monde. Le guide s'adresse aux techniciens et aux néophytes. La première partie présente les concepts fondamentaux de la téléphonie sur Internet. Cet ouvrage a été rendu possible grâce au support de l'initiative Acacia du Centre de Recherche pour le Développement International et la contribution de plusieurs traducteurs et correcteurs.
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Politique de TIC : manuel du débutant  
L’information et la communication sont au coeur de la vie et du social. Les gens ont toujours travaillé ensemble en échangeant de l’information et des connaissances par la parole, l’écriture et, plus récemment, par le téléphonie et la radiodiffusion. Le partage de l’information autonomise les individus et les communautés et permet à des sociétés entières de bénéficier de l’expérience de chacun.

Cet ouvrage vise à aider les profanes en la matière à mieux comprendre ces questions de politiques et à permettre aux lecteurs de participer utilement au processus décisionnel. Il est le fruit d’un partenariat conclu entre l’Association pour le progrès des communications, le principal groupe international de la société civile qui traite des questions de politiques de TIC, et la Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, pendant mon mandat à titre de directeur de l’Organisation.

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NGO-in-a-box, the BaseBox  
The BaseBox is a collection of tools for the day to day running of small to medium sized NGOs. Produced by Tactical Tech in association with Women'sNet, the BaseBox aims to make it easier to set up base, find the right software and learn how to use it. Developed by Tactical Tech and Women'sNet, The BaseBox and targeted primarily at activist and advocacy organisations in developing countries the Box contains a set of peer-reviewed Free and Open Source Software tools, with associated guides and tutorials. The edition can be accessed online but it's primary form is as a physical box set of CDs, providing immediate access to all the software tools without the need to download them.

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Knowledge sharing for rural development: challenges, experiences and methods  
The agro-industrial model, far from alleviating hunger in the world, has intensified it. As a sustainable solution, many small farmers are taking up ecological agriculture, and giving new value to their own knowledge. Yet how can they retrieve and share this know-how? How can the input of technical-scientific knowledge enhance it? Also, to that end, what contribution can new information and communications technologies -ICTs-make?

This book looks at these issues, through reflections and concrete
experiences, such as:

* Which knowledge for rural development?
* A knowledge-sharing experience for capacity building processes
* ICTs for building knowledge as an administrative tool
* Knowledge exchange for conservation of life-giving natural resources
* Challenges for schooling in the Brazilian countryside

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Workshop on ICTs, Gender and e-Government  
The main objective of the workshop is to encourage dialogue among ICT and gender experts in countries with the aim of analyzing and evaluating the efforts put in place by African countries to include a gender dimension in e-Government policies and programmes that address the specific needs of African women. It will also try to define a plan of action with the view of introducing and reinforcing the capacities of gender experts in the implementation of ICT policies and sectoral e-Government strategies with a gender dimension. The workshop is expected to come up with a framework for an African Action Plan for ICTs, Gender and e-Government.
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Nairobi Declaration on Women's and Girls' Right to a Remedy and Reparation  
At the International Meeting on Women’s and Girls’ Right to a Remedy and Reparation, held in Nairobi from 19 to 21 March 2007, women’s rights advocates and activists, as well as survivors of sexual violence in situations of conflict, from Africa, Asia, Europe, Central, North and South America, issued the following Declaration:
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Africa After Gender? New essays on how gender works in Africa  
Edited by: Catherine M. Cole, Takyiwaa Manuh and Stephen F.Miescher.

Gender is one of the most productive, dynamic, and vibrant areas of Africanist research today. But what is the meaning of gender in an African context? Why does gender usually connote women? Why has gender
taken hold in Africa when feminism hasn't? Is gender yet another Western construct that has been applied to Africa however ill-suited and riddled with assumptions? Africa After Gender? looks at Africa now that gender has
come into play to consider how the continent, its people, and the term itself have changed. Leading Africanist historians, anthropologists, literary critics, and political scientists move past simple dichotomies, entrenched debates, and polarizing identity politics to present an evolving discourse of gender. They show gender as an applied rather than theoretical tool and discuss themes such as the performance of sexuality, lesbianism, women's political mobilization, the work of gendered NGOs, and the role of masculinity in a gendered world. For activists, students, and scholars, this book reveals a rich and cross-disciplinary view of the status of gender in Africa today.

Contributors are Hussaina J. Abdullah, Nwando Achebe, Susan Andrade, Eileen Boris, Catherine M. Cole, Paulla A. Ebron, Eileen Julien, Lisa A. Lindsay, Adrienne MacIain, Takyiwaa Manuh, Stephan F. Miescher, Helen Mugambi, Gay Seidman, Sylvia Tamale, Bridget Teboh, Lynn M. Thomas, and Nana Wilson-Tagoe.

Catherine M. Cole is Associate Professor of Dramatic Art and Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is author of Ghana's Concert Party Theatre (IUP, 2001).

Takyiwaa Manuh is Professor of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, and serves as Director of the Institute of African Studies.

Stephan F. Miescher is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of Making Men in Ghana (IUP, 2005).

Distribution: worldwide
Publication date: 12/27/2006
Format: paper 336 pages, biblio., index, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
ISBN: 0-253-21877-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-253-21877-3
Related Categories:
African Studies » History
Gender » History
African Studies » Gender
Gender » Theory
Gender » Africa
By Catalog Season » 2006 - Fall

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Show Us the Money: Is Violence Against Women on the HIV&AIDS Funding Agenda?  
The report evaluates the funding streams, policies, and patterns of the major international agencies engaged in responding to the global AIDS epidemic, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; the United Kingdom Department for International Development; the World Bank; and UNAIDS.
The report maintains that while funding for HIV and AIDS programmes has increased dramatically in the past five years, none of the agencies had successfully integrated efforts to address violence against women into their HIV programmes.
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The Global Information Society Watch 2007 report  
The Global Information Society Watch 2007 report - the first in a series of annual reports- looks at state of the field of information and communication technology (ICT) policy at local and global levels and particularly how policy impacts on the lives of people living in developing countries.

Studies of the ICT policy situation in twenty-two countries from four regions are featured: Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda); Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Philippines); Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru); and Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania), with one report from a Western European country (Spain).
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Mapping ICT access in South Africa by Kholadi Tlabela et al  
The current and future capacity of South Africa to generate and sustain access to information and communication technologies (ICT) for its citizens is an important development priority. The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA), launched by government in 2006, identified key factors which are affecting South Africa’s drive to achieve 6% economic growth and to halve unemployment and poverty in South Africa by 2014. One of these factors, is the cost of telecommunications. Together, the cost of telecommunications and the availability of ICT infrastructure will crucially facilitate or frustrate attempts to improve levels of access to ICT.

Although the digital divide is visible in South Africa, the spatial dimensions of the distribution of ICT access in South Africa has not been systematically analysed. This report seeks to explore this important issue by mapping access to ICT, in order to maximise development opportunities, and to facilitate planning.
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Women'sNet Digital Stories for Transformation  
Digital Stories for Transformation is a regular feature of Women'sNet's work. "I have Listened, I Have Heard" is the first edition of a collection of 15 digital stories produce in may and June 2006. The collection of stories accompanies a book for organisations to use in education and training on human rights. The stories centre around real experiences - among the issues covered are: sexual violence, domestic violence, HIV and coming out as a lesbian.
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Intersections - Feminism in Action. A Women'sNet Quarterly Publication  
HerITage: feminist solidarity in the digital age. This issue looks at Digital stories for transfomation - “I have listened, I have heard”, a herstory of Women’sNet, an interview with Justice Yvonne Mokgoro on life, work and heritage as well as many other features.
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Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Policy Support - Gender: Integrated Report of Findings  
We proposed to study the role of gender in free/libre/open source software (F/LOSS) communities because an earlier EC study (Ghosh et al 2002, 2005) revealed a significant discrepancy in the proportion of men to women. It showed that just about 1.5% of F/LOSS community members were female at that time, compared with 28% in proprietary software (NSF 2004). We set out to find reasons behind this bias and make recommendations for actions that might improve the ratio of women to men.
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Giving away secrets: can open source convert the software world?  
PANOS MEDIA TOOLKIT ON ICTS – No.5
For many people in developing countries, commercial software packages are not an option because they are expensive, do not come in local languages and cannot be shared. Yet the fact remains that software – and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) – is becoming increasingly crucial to social and economic development.

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Women in the Information and Communication Technology Sector in South Africa  
This study was commissioned by the Embassy of Finland in South Africa as part of a larger study to investigate mechanisms for stimulating the increased participation of women in high-level ICT skills in South Africa. This report forms Part 2 of three documents and presents a snapshot of the situation of women in high-level Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in South Africa.
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International Journal of Communication  
The International Journal of Communication is an online, multi-media, academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. The International Journal of Communication is an interdisciplinary journal that, while centered in communication, is open and welcoming to contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that meet at the crossroads that is communication study.
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Take Back the Tech  
The root cause of VAW lies in unequal power relations between men and women in almost all facets of life. The field of ICTs faces the same gender disparity. As a result, digital spaces like the internet, broadcast and telecommunications have become defined and developed according to dominant perspectives of masculinities.

This means that VAW that happened in physical spaces like the home and streets, are now also taking new forms and occurring in digital spaces. For example, domestic violence abusers have used tools like spyware and GPS to track and control their partner's mobility.

APC WNSP believes that both ICTs and VAW affect our capacity to completely enjoy our human rights and fundamental freedoms. Our right to move freely without harassment or threats to safety also applies to digital spaces.

This 16-day campaign aims to engage greater participation by all civil society, especially grrls and women ICT-users, to think about this issue in diverse contexts and realities. By calling for all users to reclaim control over technology, we are asking for the right to define, access, use and shape ICTs for its potential to transform power relations, towards a vision and reality of equality.

Read more about this action!
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APC Annual Report: Strategic use of ICTs by civil society and  
In the course of 2002 APC focused its energies primarily in two areas - strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by civil society and engaging civil society in ICT policy processes. The use of ICTs by civil society has been central to APC since our founding and we have been working on ICT policy issues since 2000 when APC members identified ensuring internet rights for civil society as a priority. But in 2002 we started to delve beneath the surface of the challenges our communities confront and instead of responding to the symptoms, find ways to help civil society anticipate and plan for the challenges in their policy environment at home or in their use of ICTs in their workplace.

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ICT Policy for Civil Society training pack  
APC and CTO are proud to announce the release of the "ICT Policy for Civil Society" training pack. The pack includes a curriculum and accompanying materials to build the capacity of civil society organisations to understand and engage policy and regulation related to information and communication technologies (ICTs). The pack includes a curriculum and training modules and materials that can be used for either a five-day course or as stand-alone sessions combined to meet specific training needs.
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Running a National ICT Policy Consultation for WSIS  
The upcoming World Summit on the Information Society is a great learning opportunity for civil society organisations that are new to the ICT policy process to begin to articulate positions and gain valuable experience in lobbying that can be taken back to their home countries. "But How Do We Start Working At National Level?"

The APC guide "FAQ about Conducting a National WSIS Process" outlines the steps to take and key components in organising a national consultation around ICT policy. The "question & answer" format homes in on some of the key questions we have heard people ask about how to organise. The primary target audience is people that are active in using or promoting the use of ICTs in their work, but who have not necessarily been involved in national level policy processes previously.

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Telecentres and the Gender Dimension by Kelby Johnson  
Telecenters have become an important component to development programs that seek to narrow the digital and knowledge divides that exist throughout the world. Despite the proliferation of telecenters throughout Africa, women continue to be cut off from essential info-communication
resources that could improve their lives. This thesis examines the relationship between gender differences, telecenter design and women's accessibility to information and communication technologies (ICTs). By examining how these elements interact in the context of the diffusion model, this thesis suggests that the incorporation of the gender dimension
into telecenter designs can enhance the diffusion of engendered telecenters, thereby increasing women's access to ICTs and improving their ability to contribute to the evolution of Africa's information society.
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Rural women and Access to Land (Recommendations of International Workshop)  
The International Workshop Rural Women and Land took place in Thies, Senegal from 25-27 February 2003. It was organised by the Rural Women National Network of Senegal with the support of the Dimitra project and Enda-Pronat. The main goal was for rural women to speak out and highlight the problems they encounter in regard to accessing cultivable land, natural resources and land acquisition. Rural women, the majority of whom are farmers, are crucial partners in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Nevertheless, their work still remains underestimated and local traditions can often increase discrimination against them.
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Resource Guide - Mobilising Communities to Prevent Domestic Violence: A Resource Guide for Organisations in East and Southern Africa  
Developed by Raising Voices in collaboration with UNIFEM and Action Aid-Uganda, sheds new light on how community-based organisations can design and implement a participatory project to prevent domestic violence. The Resource Guide describes a conceptual framework for preventing domestic violence and provides extensive strategy and activity suggestions for organisations interested in working systematically to affect individual and social change within their communities. Special features in the Resource Guide include: rights-based program ideas and activities; full color examples of learning materials such as posters, games, murals and booklets; a comprehensive community activism course; and, simple, ready to use documentation and monitoring tools.
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Local appropriation of ICTs  
As part of the ongoing research into the potential role of ICTs in rural development, the FAO Communication for Development Group (SDRE) produced the report 'Discovering the "Magic Box": Local appropriation of information and communication technologies (ICTs)'. The main findings of the report concluded that there were few examples of community driven access to ICTs, a scarcity of evaluation studies and a lack of local participation and content generation at the local level.
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Training Tool - A Structured Multimedia Training Kit  
The UNESCO/APC Multimedia Training Kit (MMTK) provides trainers in telecentres, community media organisations, and the development sector with a structured set of materials to help make that jump between new and traditional media or train in a new skill area.

The materials cover a range of multimedia areas like "presenting on radio" and "writing for the web" as well as topics such as "cooperative problem solving". The MMTK is a growing collection, and new topics will be added in the months to come. Materials follow a standard format and so can be used as interchangeable building blocks from which trainers can build up face-to-face training appropriate for their different contexts. So, a trainer running a workshop on information skills for a women's organisation could choose components from the "Searching the Internet" unit and the "Violence Against Women" module and combine them into a single workshop kit.Individuals can also use many of the materials for self-instruction.

All MMTK materials are released under a Creative Commons license which allows their free use and distribution for non-commercial use.
CONTACT: mmtk@apc.org

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Report - Progress of the World's Women 2002: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals. UNIFEM Biennial Report, 2002  
What has been the progress for the world's women in 2002? There has been progress in achieving gender equality and women's empowerment around the world - but the pace is too slow in many regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest levels of achievement, primarily because of a devastating combination of national poverty, conflict and the effects of HIV/AIDS. These are among the findings of Progress of the World's Women 2002, the groundbreaking report on women's empowerment produced by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). This biennial report is the only one of its kind to track the world's commitment to gender equality.
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The One to Watch Radio, New ICTs and Interactivity.  
The chapters in the book show that the injection of the Internet's "digital DNA" is changing the nature of radio. The cases considered here are indicative of the first few steps in this transformation of radio. They offer insight into what the next generation of radio might be like and underscore the significant potential of the combination of radio and new ICTs.

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Vers le Sommet Mondial de la Société de l'Information  
Informations sur les préparatifs engages par les organisations de femmes et de la société civile, et les organisations internationales, en Afrique et dans le monde, dans le cadre de la préparation du Sommet Mondial sur la Société de l'Information
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Internet, se connecter  
Une publication conjointe de l'Institut Africain sur le Genre et Women'snet (Afrique du Sud), destinée à encourager les organisations de femmes agissant sur les questions de genre à utiliser Internet. Version en langue française : Famafrique (ENDA, Sénégal)
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WSIS NGO Gender Strategies Working Group web site  
With nearly all of the planned regional preparatory meetings for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) completed and the Second Preparatory Committee meeting fast approaching, the WSIS NGO Gender Strategies Working Group (WN-GSWG)* considers this a most opportune time for women to begin sharing and discussing our lobbying points and strategies for the Summit.
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Development - Volume 45 Issue 04 - Creating Global Communication  
Development is the Journal of the Society for International Development (SID). Volume 45 Issue 04 - Creating Global Communiation - Development and the new Information and Communication Technologies.
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Information and Communication Technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women.  
The Division for the Advancement of Women, Department for Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, convened an Expert Group Meeting on "Information and Communication Technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women", organized in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the United Nations ICT Task Force Secretariat.
The meeting was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 11 to 14 November 2002. These reports will be used for the upcoming Commission on the Status of Women.
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