Women’s Development

This summary is part of a research project carried out between March and October 2006 in support of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), one of The Communication Initiative (The CI)'s partners.

Based in Kenya, the East African office of Abantu for Development, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), currently administrates four programmes focussing on training and providing information and advice on mobilising resources towards sustainable development in Africa. This specific project comes under the Gender and ICT (information and communication technology) programming area of Abantu’s work.

According to this case study, the project was initiated in 1999 based on the documented needs of women’s groups and sentiments raised at existing ICT training workshops. It began with a number of training workshops for women’s groups on ICT, awareness-raising seminars for policy makers, and the development of a website. Currently, the project has four programming areas: Training and Capacity Building (TCB), Advocacy Public Awareness and Networking (APAN), Research, Publications and Information (RPI), and the Institutional Development of Abantu.

The primary objectives of the project are to improve African women’s use of and access to the internet, as well as to influence policy makers in order to ensure the inclusion of gender perspectives in the ICT policy making process.

Through the training workshops and seminars, the project developed a strong and focused core group of women across Africa that has helped to accomplish the project objectives. Under the TCB component of the project, four communities from various regions in Kenya were trained on internet and software programme use. Under the PRI component, gender-sensitive guides were produced for use by African women’s organisations. Under the APAN arm of the project, a number of public seminars have been held that have helped to voice African women’s perspectives on ICT legislation and policy development. And, through this project, Abantu has come to realise that ICT is integral for the efficiency and effectiveness of their three other programming areas: Poverty and Gender, Governance and Gender, and Conflict and Gender.

The following outcomes have been observed:

• women's groups in farming, pastoral and slum communities have been trained on internet and basic software programme use;
• some women’s groups who have undergone training have become self-sufficient due to the income generated through the application of their information technology (IT) skills;
• advocacy and information sharing on international issues has been facilitated through enabling women to use the internet;
• an African women's information network has been established;
• gender sensitive ICT guides for African women's organisations have been produced;
• frameworks for critiquing ICT policy and strategies have been developed to ensure that they have a gender perspective; and
• African listservs and information channels have been set up and maintained.

The following challenges were noted:

• Poor technology infrastructure, such as telephone communications and unreliable electricity, has made it challenging for people to access computers;
• Current educational policies place ICT amongst the sciences, an area in which female education is not promoted;
• Conditions in urban slum areas made it difficult to engage the community and establish continuity between training sessions, whereas these challenges were not experienced in rural areas;
• Promotion and awareness of gender and ICT issues is necessary in order to achieve gender-sensitive ICT policies; and
• Collaboration and partnership between like-minded organisations is necessary in order to increase the impact of the programme.

Key factors that have led to poverty reduction outcomes are:

• The integration of ICT into all aspects of Abantu’s work has helped increase their impact on poverty, and to achieve the aims of this particular project;
• The mix of seminars, trainings and booklets has helped extend the reach and impact of the project with regards to promotion and awareness of gender issues; and
• The realisation that literacy is not a prerequisite for ICT utilisation has increased the impact and impetus for working with low income women.

The following lessons were noted:

ICT encompasses all aspects of gender work - Because of the ability of ICT to bring about efficiency and effectiveness in all areas of gender work, it is best practice to incorporate it into existing programmes rather than to run it as a stand alone programme.

Advocacy is most effectively delivered through seminars and workshops - This is because Kenya tends to be an oral society and so written work is seen as less accessible.

Abantu continues to integrate ICT into all areas of their work, through coordinated improvement of ICT infrastructure and capacity building for all staff. Abantu is in the process of establishing four telecentres in Kenya. Finally, they have just begun to integrate ICT into their gender and advocacy work in Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.