Evaluation and ICTs

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.

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).

La República Dominicana es el primer país de América Latina a cumplir con compromisos acerca de la participación de las mujeres en iniciativas nacionales de las tecnologías de información y comunicación. El Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel) se compromete a “la inclusión de una perspectiva de género” en todos los proyectos TIC como parte de la estrategia nacional para la Sociedad de la Información, la E-dominicana.

In rural Latin America, women are fed up of hearing that they are “too old” to use computers. “ The lives of many women in Latin America have changed significantly in the past few decades. Rural women in their thirties have at least primary school education and know their rights thanks in many cases to community radio,” says APC’s Dafne Sabanes Plou. “They are ready for a place in today’s networked world.”

Treinta y cinco participantes de seis paises latinoamericanos asisten al taller de GEM, metodología de evaluación con perspectiva de género de proyectos TIC, que se realiza en Santo Domingo, del 2 al 4 de noviembre. En su mayoría, representan a las oficinas de la Mujer de sus países, tanto a nivel nacional como provincial.

Los resultados de las evaluaciones de género sobre el uso de las TIC apuntan al hecho de que las mujeres mayores de 35 a menudo se consideran “demasiado viejas” para utilizar las TIC y aprender acerca de la tecnología informática. Esto es especialmente cierto en las zonas rurales de América Latina, donde las mujeres mayores de 35 años se quejan de que sus hijos, en particular, piensan que no son capaces de navegar por internet debido a su edad, y que sería difícil para ellas aprender a enviar correos electrónicos y manejar programas informáticos.

In rural Latin America, women are fed up of hearing that they are “too old” to use computers. “ The lives of many women in Latin America have changed significantly in the past few decades. Rural women in their thirties have at least primary school education and know their rights thanks in many cases to community radio,” says APC’s Dafne Sabanes Plou. “They are ready for a place in today’s networked world.”