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Volunteerism and the Development of Human Capacity in the Information Society
ABSTRACT: Addressing the key theme: TRAINING
PRESENTATION TITLE: Creating Opportunities for Women in the Information Society: Using the work of ABANTU for Development and the WSIS Gender Caucus as good practice examples
Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are transforming the world in ways that cannot be comprehended. The means in which businesses are being conducted and people are being governed have been altered immeasurably by ICTs. Clearly, the ICTs revolution has occurred, initiating significant implications for all peoples and nations. This revolution has potential for making fundamental changes in all facets of life from the dissemination of information, to health and recreation.
Whilst efforts to review policies governing the flow of information, communication technology and related applications are taking place, gender perspectives have been consistently overlooked. The policy development processes is not participatory so there is no input from the poor and marginalised members of society. The low literacy rates in developing countries, especially among women, have contributed towards their exclusion from actively participating in the information age.
Focusing on Africa, this paper intends to explore how African women are disadvantaged in their role in the Information Society as their level of awareness on technologies related to the information society is still low. The weaknesses in ICT infrastructure and awareness are reinforced by the lack of capable human resource to counter constraints. The high cost of ICT training programmes further aggravate the problem as few African women can afford training in state of the art technology.
The presentation will be geared toward providing both a picture of how women are faring with regard to the provision of ICT training as well as pragmatic information on the pertinent skills and qualities required if African women are to become expert gender equality advocates for the purposes of engaging with policy-makers in arenas such as the WSIS. The paper will detail some of the organisations providing accessible training for women in Africa.
The presentation will also examine how ABANTU for Development and WSIS Gender Caucus use volunteers in their capacity-building programmes citing as examples the recently-held WSIS Gender Caucus Effective Lobbying and Advocacy for Change and Gender Equality in the WSIS Process Training Workshop as well as ICT training workshops that have been organised by ABANTU for Development using volunteers. The paper will also detail the capacity-building programmes that are being planned by the two organisations.
CONTACT:
Nish Matenjwa, Research, Publications & Communications Programme Manager & Logistics Co-ordinator, WSIS Gender Caucus
ABANTU for Development/WSIS Gender Caucus
e-mail: nish@abantu.org & nmatenjwa@genderwsis.org