The Action plan on Gender and EGovernment in Africa

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The Action plan on Gender and E-Government in
Africa Eskedar Nega Program Officer ISTD/UNECA
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Outline

• Global figures on gender divide
• AISI and Gender challenges
• AISI and Gender opportunities
• Few findings from SCAN
• Engendering NICIs Nigeria Gambia
• Action pillars of the Plan of Action for Gender
  and E-Government in Africa

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Illustrative figures on gender divide

• Global average for women in national parliaments
  is 17.7
• 64 of the world's 774 million illiterate adults
  are women
• In 2007,1.2 billion women around the world worked
  (40 of the world's employed) almost 200
  million or 18.4 per cent more than ten years ago
• Increasing numbers of women are entering the
  workplace but are often confined to less
  productive sectors (non-formal service sector)

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. illustrative figures on gender divide (Contd)

• Women work 2/3rd of the world's working hours,
  produce ½ of the world's food, earn 10 of the
  world's income and own less than 1 of the
  world's property
• The number of unemployed women grew from 70.2 to
  81.6 million over the same period, and in 2007,
  women at the global level still had a higher
  likelihood of being unemployed than men
• When women find employment, they often earn less
  than men
• However, education levels for women continue to
  increase and gender gaps for certain labour
  market indicators are decreasing in many regions
  (Asia)

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Challenges /Gender Divide

• Health
• Women have longer life expectancy, but
• Agriculture
• Rural women account for 50 of agric. labor
  force, produce 99 of the rice, yet most do not
  own land (Gambia)
• Education
• Female enrollment and literacy rates are lower
  than those of males
• Poverty
• Women bear the brunt of poverty they earn less,
  own less, work more, and have least access to
  production resources

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AISI and Gender challenges

• Access
• Education training skills
• Content Language
• Empowerment decision making
• Cultural barriers
• Social and Economical constraints etc.

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AISI and Gender opportunities

• Providing information to enhance lives (e.g.
  increasing productivity, health, and role in the
  community)
• Helping run businesses
• Creating jobs in the IT industry
• Securing resources for women, their families,
  careers, and communities
• Providing women a voice
• Providing women knowledge economy skills

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SCAN/Gender dimension

• Few findings from pilot project
• Mozambique
• only 38 of computer users in the schools were
  female
• overall female usage tends to be less than 50
  percent that of males
• Senegal
• Overall men make up 83 percent of users

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SCAN/ Gender dimension

• Few findings from pilot project
• Ethiopia
• The proportion of IT professionals in the total
  employees of the educational sector is only 3.
• Women professionals account for about 22 of the
  total IT experts.
• The total number of IT students enrolled in the
  tertiary institutions in 2001/02 was 2442, from
  this about 27 were females
• Females constituted only 23 of the IT employees

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Mainstreaming Gender in ICT4D

• Engendering national ICT policy processes
• Measuring Gender Gap/SCAN ICT
• Awareness raising Capacity building media,
  policymakers, parliamentarians, entrepreneurs
  etc.
• Development of sectoral ICT policies and
  applications (E-Government)

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Engendering the NICIs

• Limited awareness among gender focal points, CSOs
  and women on the importance of e-strategies
• Limited participation in consultation processes,
  implementation and evaluation of ICT policies
  plans
• which might result in ICT policies not fully
  reflecting womens needs and aspirations
• Weak implementation mechanisms ? lack of
  monitoring and evaluation of gender aspects
• Lack of awareness on gender among ICT focal points

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NIGERIA NICI/GENDER

• Agriculture
• Use of ICTs to inculcate Gender into all
  agricultural activities
• Ensure women's effective participation in
  emerging knowledge networks
• Use ICTs to build agro-businesses for women

• HRD
• less than 20 of women account for ICT roles and
  represent less that 5 of the total female
  employed population
• women are at the lower rung of the ladder and
  work mostly in telephone centres and as typists

• Private sector development
• Increased enrolment for ICT education by women
• Building ICT capacity in women working in the
  public and private sector
• Active participation of women in the ICT service
  sector and industry
• Increased representation for women in ICT
  decision making
• Participation of women in ICT policy formulation
• Encouraging girls to pursue science and
  technology related studies
• Development of gender specific indicators for ICT
  

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NICI GAMBIA -GENDER

• WSIS Plan-Action Specific Goals
• To remove the gender barriers to ICT education
  and training and promoting equal training
  opportunities in ICT-related fields for women and
  girls.
• To integrate gender perspectives in ICT education
  and increasing the number of women in ICT careers
• To develop gender-sensitive curricula in formal
  and non-formal education for all and enhancing
  communication and media literacy for women with a
  view to building the ICT skills and capacity of
  girls and women

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Gambian ICT4D-2012 PlanGender Mainstreaming

• Department of State for Basic and Secondary
  Education (DOSBE) to commence the implementation
  of the curriculum in schools and training
  institutions on a pilot basis by 2nd Quarter of
  2010.
• DOSBE) to roll-out the curriculum on a national
  basis by 4th Quarter of 2011

• By 2nd Quarter of 2009 Government Department
  responsible for gender, to commission a Project
  Implementation Report (PIR) detailing special
  projects that could be implemented as part of
  this initiative.

• The full-scale implementation of the initiative
  should commerce by 4th Quarter of 2009.

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E-Government Service Delivery

• to enhance access to and delivery of government
  services to benefit citizens
• increasing the effectiveness and transparency of
  governance to better manage a countrys social
  and economic resources for development
• for long-term, organization-wide strategies to
  constantly improve operations will result in
• the efficient and rapid delivery of goods and
  services to citizens, businesses, government
  employees and agencies
• simplification of procedures and streamlining of
  application and approval processes for citizens
  and businesses and
• facilitation of cross-agency coordination and
  collaboration to ensure appropriate and timely
  decision-making.

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The Action Plan on Gender and E-Government

• Under the framework of ePolNet, ECA and CePRC
  organized two workshops in Tunis, Tunisia and
  Maputo, Mozambique on Gender and e-Government
  in June 2006 and March 2007, respectively
• Recommendations developed at these meetings form
  the basis of the Action Plan for Gender and
  e-Government in Africa

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Overall objective

• To provide and use ICTs as tools for
  empowering and benefiting women and men, for full
  inclusion in e-government programming and service
  delivery

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WSIS commitments Gender

• that a gender divide exists as part of the
  digital divide in society and reaffirmation of
  countries commitments to womens empowerment and
  to a gender equality perspective
• the full participation of women in the
  Information Society is necessary to ensure the
  inclusiveness and respect for human rights within
  the Information Society
• all stakeholders are encouraged to support
  womens participation in decision-making
  processes and to contribute to shaping all
  spheres of the Information Society at
  international, regional and national levels"

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The Action Plan on Gender and E-Government

• The need for all stakeholders involved in shaping
  a national ICT policy to ensure the inclusiveness
  of women at all stages of the process
• Awareness and consultation,
• Needs assessment by developing sex-disaggregated
  indicators,
• Shaping/Engendering sector policies and
  imple-mentation plans,
• Mobilization of resources for engendered ICT
  programmes
• Measurement/follow-up/assessment of progress made.

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APGeG - 9 Action pillars

• Encourage and support countries in mainstreaming
  gender in ICT policy and e-government processes
• Encourage and support countries to develop and
  maintain an enabling environment for the
  formulation and implementation of gender
  sensitive e-government policies, including
  appropriate legal, regulatory and institutional
  arrangements
• Encourage and support countries in implementing
  ICT strategies and programmes

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APGeG - 9 Action pillars

• Raising awareness on e-government services
  enhancing the role and participation of women in
  e-government
• Promote capacity building in ICT education,
  training, use and literacy
• Develop gender mainstreaming indicators and
  time-bound target
• Encourage countries to develop infrastructures
  that reach the rural areas
• Promote RD and systems for collecting gender
  disaggregated data
• Promote gender-friendly and local content

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Way Forward- APGeG

• making rural and urban women aware of the rights
  and environment offered to them by e-government
  services
• encouraging the emergence of innovative careers
  for women through e-government activities in
  community call centres.

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Way Forward- APGeG

• Coordinate with and promote collaboration among
  regional initiatives and networks on both gender
  and ICT, such as the Women Parliamentarian's
  network
• Organize regularly ICT and gender forums
• Action Plan on Gender and e-Government to be
  forwarded to governments

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Way Forward- APGeG

• Set up joint ICT gender working groups to plan
  and monitor implementation
• Hold joint meetings to assess progress
• Create gender and ICT networks at the national
  level
• Use ECA/ePolnet Gender and e-Government website
  online platforms for information sharing
• setting up a proper mechanism for broad and
  prompt dissemination of information on gender and
  ICT

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• Thank You!
• enega_at_uneca.org