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APC WNSP Highlights

On the occasion of the APC WNSP 10th Anniversary, some highlights of over 10 years of WNSP work in Gender and ICTs:

  • APC WNSP ran an onsite electronic communication facility to support women's NGOs and women participating in the 1995 UN World Conference. Prior to and during the World Conference on Women, the programme provided information facilitation and onsite training and outreach, and successfully lobbied for the inclusion of women's ICT needs in the formulation of Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action.
  • APC WNSP has played a crucial facilitating role in the creation of several active regional and national women's networking support initiatives such as APC-Africa-Women, Women'sNet (South Africa), Feminismus (Czech Republic), FAMAfrique (Francophone Africa) and Womenshub (Philippines).
  • The programme as a whole, and through its members, has contributed to the development of gender-sensitive training materials in Website development and online women's solidarity as well as guidelines for gender-sensitive outreach and training methodologies.
  • In 1997, the programme implemented "Global Networking for Change," the first formal research and evaluation project to document women's experiences in using ICT for activist-oriented networking. This research surveyed some 700 individual women and women's groups around the world.
  • The programme implemented "Women Working in ICTs," a research study which focused specifically on women as 'workers' in ICTs. This research explores in more depth the experiences of individual women who participated in the design, development and implementation of the APCWNSP's communication initiatives for the 1995 Beijing Conference.
  • Since 1999 we have coordinated with other organizations in Asiain organizing the Women's Electronic Network Training workshop, or WENT. WENT aims to build the capacities of women in the field of information and communication technology and strengthen women's organisations and networks in Asia and the Pacific. WENT has trained 135 women from 19 countries around this region. WENT's participatory approach and focus on ICT training by women, for women has inspired similar training initiatives in other regions of the world including a global WENT training, national WENT-modeled workshops in Korea, Philippines, Malaysia and India and March 2003, APC WNSP in Africa organized the first regional WENT Africa workshop.
  • The programme developed the Gender Evaluation Methodology, a guide to integrating gender analysis into evaluations of initiatives that use ICTs for social change. GEM provides a means for determining whether ICTs are really improving women's lives and gender relations as well as promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader social levels.
  • In 2003, the programme initiated the APC WNSP and GKP Gender and ICT Awards, which aim to honor and bring international recognition to innovative and effective projects by women to use ICTs for the promotion of gender equality and/or women's empowerment. The awards aim to recognise gender and ICT initiatives globally and provide further impetus for others to mainstream gender in the field of ICTs for women's empowerment.