ICT Champions

The APC WNSP believes in celebrating and promoting innovation in gender and ICT. We hope that recognition for ICT for social transformation projects will encourage other ICT initiatives, especially regarding women's empowerment. To this aim, we highlight women's experiences in ICTs across the globe, in our Profiles of an ICT Champion, featuring many WNSP members as well as other ICT practitioners. In addition to being avid supporters of the APC Prizes, the APC WNSP in collaboration with the Global Knowledge Partnership has offered two rounds of the Gender and ICT Awards, since 2003. The APC WNSP also plays a role in coordinating the GenARDIS and HARAMBEE grants.

GenARDIS: Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society Small Grants

The GenARDIS Small Grants Fund was initiated in 2002 to support work on gender-related issues in information and communication technologies (ICTs) for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) agricultural and rural development.

The programme was developed in recognition of the constraints and challenges encountered by rural women in ACP countries with respect to ICTs. The challenges include cultural factors that hinder women’s access to ICTs, limited time availability to participate in training and use of ICTs, minimal access to technology such as radios, mobile telephones or computers, and inadequate availability of information in local languages that is relevant to local contexts.

Submissions consist of research programmes, training courses, publications, broadcasts, theatre productions, promotion materials, etc. – whatever need could be addressed by the means available to the many creative grant applicants. All projects focus on innovative use of ICTs by or for rural women to improve the well-being of their families and communities.

For more information about GenARDIS:
"English(English)": http://www.cta.int/about/genardis.htm
"Français(Français)": http://www.cta.int/about/genardisfr.htm

Harambee Small Grants

The Harambee small grants fund supports capacity development and innovation in networks and communities (in, for example, health, education, agriculture, etc.) to facilitate their knowledge sharing, communication and participation. The fund aims to enhance awareness of, and expertise in, processes and technologies in support of collaboration. APC Africa Women member Oreoluwa Somolu's project Blogs for African Women(Blogs for African Women) (BAWo) was one of the six Harambee prize winners.

 

Gender and ICT Awards

The APC WNSP and GKP Gender and ICT Awards 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. ICTs play a growing role in the world's societies, and have the potential to help disadvantaged groups increase their participation in the civic, social, political, and economic processes critical to achieving change. However, women – particularly women in developing countries – don’t benefit from these new technologies, a reflection of the existing unequal power relations in societies as a whole. ICTs can be used to either exacerbate or transform unequal power relations. ICTs cannot create gender equality, or end poverty, but they can be tools for social action and positive social change. The Gender and ICT Awards attempt to showcase examples of such change in its knowledge sharing database of innovative projects, as well as through the 2003 and 2005 award winners.

2005 Award Winner: Pallitathya Help-Line in Bangladesh

The 2005 Gender and ICT Awards focussed on information and communication technology initiatives which promote women's economic empowerment and development in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pallitathya Help-Line project in Bangladesh is based on an original communication system adapted to the needs of rural populations with scarce access to information about health, education, legal procedures or administrative hassles. "Mobile Operator Ladies" regularly visit remote villages and gather questions that villagers formulate. They then perform or request help to research the information and return to the communities for another round of consultations.

What truly makes the Pallitathya Help-Line project stand out is its deliberate incorporation of the economic empowerment of women in its concept and design. As mobile operator ladies, women from the rural communities were consciously given a crucial role as “infomediaries,” increasing their self-worth, their potential to earn, and their knowledge about various issues. Employing women as help desk operators also enhanced their knowledge of issues, considerably improved their communication skills, and provided them with their own income independent from males in the family. Women who availed of the Help-Line service professed a higher self-assessment and realisation of their potential and worth in society, realised increased incomes, and increased authority over spending decisions.

APC WNSP and GKP Gender and ICT Awards