Evaluation and ICTs

In India, especially rural India, it’s no secret that inequalities between men and women and between castes are deep. Strong traditional and cultural values dictate who has the power, and while government attempts to include gender on the official agenda in traditional sectors like health and education, including gender considerations into rural e-governance in India’s poorest state, Chhattisgarh, has been a challenge for Dr.

En India, especialmente en la India rural, no es ningún secreto que las desigualdades entre hombres y mujeres y entre castas son profundas. Los fuertes valores tradicionales y culturales determinan quién tiene el poder, y mientras el gobierno trata de incluir el género en la agenda oficial en sectores tradicionales como la salud y la educación, la inclusión de las consideraciones de género en el gobierno electrónico rural en el estado más pobre de India, Chhattisgarh, ha sido un reto para la Dra.

While in Africa and Latin America organisations are trying to make telecentres more accommodating to women’s needs, telecentres in the Philippines are attracting far more women than men. How can telecentres be a leveller for women’s and men’s access to the internet given that Filipino men primarily choose commercially-run internet cafes over the more socially-focused telecentres where games and pornography are not allowed?

A study which looked at two rural telecentres using the APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) revealed the reasons behind this self-imposed segregation, how Filipino men and women use the internet differently and why telecentres are seen as mostly female spaces.

Mientras las organizaciones de África y América Latina tratan de lograr que los telecentros respondan mejor a las necesidades de las mujeres, los telecentros de Filipinas atraen un número mucho mayor de mujeres que de hombres. Los hombres prefieren los cibercafés comerciales, ya que los telecentros tienen una función más bien social y están prohibidos los juegos y la pornografía. ¿Podrá esta situación reducir la brecha del acceso de mujeres y hombres a internet?

APC entrevistó a Angelo Juan Ramos de la Fundación Molave, que realizó estudios piloto en dos comunidades rurales diferentes de Filipinas. Su estudio piloto y la adaptación de los materiales de GEM fueron tan exitosos que la metodología se utilizará ahora en cientos de telecentros de todo el país.

“If a boy wants to attend a computer course community members encourage him but if a girl wants to go elders ask her why she wants to complicate her life,” says Dhaka-based Mahmud Hasan. In a country where one in every two males accesses information online yet only three in a hundred Bangladeshi women do, access for schoolgirls is not just about the availability of computers and classes. For girls, it requires the support of the entire community and flexible school schedules as revealed by a study using APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM).

“Si un chico quiere empezar a estudiar computación los miembros de su comunidad lo alientan, pero si se trata de una chica, las personas mayores le preguntan por qué quiere complicarse la vida”, dice Mahmud Hasan, de la ciudad de Dhaka. En un país en el que uno de cada dos hombres y tres de cada cien mujeres acceden a información en internet, el acceso de las niñas tiene poco que ver con la disponibilidad de computadores y clases.

Since January, sectarian strife has ripped through Nigerian communities. “A mass burial took place the day before yesterday and body counts are close to three hundred with over 80% of them women and children,” APC member John Dada told APC. “It is ironic that in the month of the Celebration of Women’s Day, such atrocities are being visited on innocent women and children.” Women are culturally respected as the givers of life and John blames deepening poverty and economic alienation for the cultural reversal but he sees a potential solution.

En la iniciativa de gobernanza electrónica para la India rural, 33% de los bancas están reservados para las mujeres. Mediante el uso de Simputer, los y las dirigentes de los pueblos rurales del Estado de Chhattisgarh pueden participar ahora en el proceso público y comunicarse a distancia mediante el uso de computadores de bajo costo que no requieren alfabetización informática.

In India’s rural e-governance initiative, 33% of local government seats are reserved for women. Rural village heads of Chhattisgarh State – one of India’s poorest— can now participate in the public process and in theory remotely communicate the needs of their villages through the use of a low-cost computer that does not require computer literacy. But women are not taking the active roles that were expected. Using GEM, APC’s gender evaluation methodology, Dr.

The Dominican Republic is the first Latin American country to act on their commitments to involve women in the information society nationwide. This Caribbean island nation of ten million has promised to include a “gender perspective” in every information and communications technology initiative and policy developed by the government from now on. The tool the Dominicans have chosen to design and evaluate all the public policies is the APC gender evaluation methodology (GEM).