Samia Melham continues her reportage on the recent Global Knowledge conference in this article as she focuses on Women and ICT and discusses the development of policies, approaches and success stories in this area globally.
I also participated at a pre-conference event sponsored by the International Task Force on Women (ITF) and ICTs, during which I presented elements of the World Bank Gender Action Plan and our ongoing thinking to mainstream gender in (a) ICT sector analytical work and (b) ICT Lending or investments operations. The conference was sponsored by the GKP secretariat and the Center for Women & Information Technology, CWIT (a center based in Baltimore, which initiated the task force and first international conference in 2005) the group's objective is to increase women's participation in the information society. Evidence has demonstrated that women's participation in the information society in rural communities and developing countries lags behind that of men, causing economic marginalization particularly for poor women with low levels of education. Evidence is also indicating a drop in women's enrollment in Sciences and Technology (S&T) education. This will impact employability for women in today's labor markets, where demand is high for S&T / ICT skills, while supply is still low. By 2010, a leading IT firm estimates 1.2 Million jobs in ICT sector will remain unfilled, due to shortages of skilled labor.
The ITF has achieved significant policy impact in the last 2 years since its inception in 2005 at CWIT's initiative.
It has now attracted an impressive number of leaders from the ICT sector, S&T, academia , multilaterals and private sector . This was very obvious from the composition of the participants at the 2 day session, as we had at all times the executive directors for UNGAID (Global Alliance for ICT and development) and of UNESCO's Information and Communication network. The European Commission was another sponsor, while participation from private sector included Vice president and Director level leaders from HP, Texas Instrument, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc. The bulk of participants were policy makers or academics working on the issue of gender inclusion in the Sciences and Technology agenda with a focus on ICT sector, or NGO/Leaders in community driven initiatives promoting use of ICT for women empowerment and economic development. There was also a smaller set of participants, ranging from social entrepreneurs, venture capital and financiers, funding women entrepreneurs in either ICT ventures, or in traditional industries such as textile, handicraft, agro-business, using ICTs as a tool to improve productivity and increase market share.
There was overall an amazing collection of case studies and stories of impact on the ground that came out from the last two groups (NGOs and Financing facilities), which are all being compiled by the ITF secretariat. The group also reported on significant policy changes related to mainstreaming the issue of women and ICTs in policy decisions, regional or national education strategies, scholarship allocations, graduate programs, funding arrangements and other action-based policies in LAC, East and South Asia, and ECA. It seemed to me that policy improvements were less tangible in the case of MNA, Africa and Central Asia, even though we had some positive policies and steps taken in some countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, UAEs, Ghana, and Uganda.
It would be too long to make a detailed description of the very rich discussions that took place amongst the 60+ participants, all the presentations and reports are being compiled to be published and shared on the ITF web site.
Outcome of the two days revolved mainly about the following action areas for policy makers, donors, private sector and academia, under three main themes:
- Education and Leadership for Sciences and Technology and ICTs : encouraging women's interest at early stages of education chain
- Workforce Policies and Enabling environment for women in ICTs and S&T career tracks, life long learning, coaching, mentoring and job shadowing
- Women Entrepreneurs : Impact of ICTs on growth, outreach, sales, Networking, and general management /financial skills.
Good practices from Europe, Australia, LAC etc. were shared, achievements to date since ITF inception listed, and a long discussion on expanding impact and scaling up followed, as well as different roles needed to achieve the scaling-up.
A thorough discussion followed on the Women and ICT centers being sponsored by ITF : one central coordinating center and 10 regional ones who would be taking the lead in policies and strategies for the region/countries under their jurisdiction. These centers would be working in close cooperation with academia, private sector and policy makers from the center and their own region, under a PPP model.
All participants agreed these centers would be building on existing facilities (academia / center of excellence / etc.) already working on issues of women and ICTs, and that they would be mostly to share resources, knowledge, and train the trainer.
The regional centers would in turn feed and receive knowledge from local centers at the national level, in a continuous feedback loop.
Participants discussed the next three year's strategy with the overall objective of having the centers operational with high quality services, resources, staffing and ownership of agenda and content by 2010. Group discussed completion of activity towards 2010/2011, monitoring socio-economic impact, strategy to pursue over indicators; and ITF's exit strategy.
Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of executive directors of the World Bank or the governments it represents. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work"
For more information, or comments, email: smelhem@worldbank.org