Miss Margaret Ama Kyiu of the Development Alternative Services Foundation (DASF) has disclosed that women, especially northern women need to cultivate some attitudinal change to embrace ICTs by showing a more a positive will. She said this at the May session of the Northern ICT4D Series held on Thursday the 28th of May 2009 at the Institute for Local Government Studies.
Speaking on the uses of ICTs, she explained that ICTs facilitate public and private sector activities, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, improve the quality of life for citizens, sharing knowledge and improving access to information, facilitating activities in the business sector.
Miss. Kyiu mentioned that ICTs present direct benefits to women. She mentioned that socially, ICTs can substantially improve lives of women (northern women) by providing learning opportunities (education, research), health care delivery, environmental protection, etc. Economically, it provides increased incomes through increased volumes of trade, less cost of trade, increased productivity, access to market/market information and access to finance. Politically, it provides increased participation in governance both at the local and national levels.
On challenges facing women in the effective utilization of ICTs, Miss Kyiu mentioned the biological and social roles of women in the family and the community as the key barrier. She also mentioned that educationally, there is minimal learning and skills development in ICTs for women and the inability of women to effectively apply ICT knowledge and skills for their own benefits.
Another challenge Miss Kyiu identified as a barrier to women is Technology. She stated that there is limited access to ICTs for women especially in northern Ghana, high cost of the services (acquisition and knowledge) especially in rural areas, lack of good publicity and incentives to attract potential users of ICTs, inability to identify information sources that meet the needs of women, difficulty in finding the right ICT tool(s) to support line of business, poor quality of service - internet and telecommunication services, high cost of maintenance and sustainability and the lack of access to family property or institutional finance thereby making it difficult to engage in self-employment in the ICT sector.
On the way forward, she stated that providing an enabling environment which supports and encourages strategies to promote women’s equal access, creating a regulation and policy environment which supports women’s use of ICTs, developing local content which speaks to women’s concerns and reflects their local knowledge, and which is of value for their daily lives, supporting increased representation of women and girls in scientific and technical education, promoting increased employment in the IT sector for women, the implementation of e-governance strategies which are accessible to women and promote women’s lobbying and advocacy activities.
To conclude, she urged all especially women to see themselves not as passive recipients of information, but as active knowledge and technology developers and sharers.
When he took his turn, Mr. Agbenyo John Stephen of GINKS explained that a series of factors constrain women’s access to ICTs. These include illiteracy and education, time, cost, geographical location of facilities, social and cultural norms and very few female role models.
Mr. Agbenyo disclosed that although IT is a new field, a gendered division of labor has already emerged and this has resulted in women being just end users, taking up low skilled IT jobs, a small percentage of women engaging in maintenance and design of networks, operating systems or software development.
He further explained that various reasons can be assigned to the low female participation in ICTs. He mentioned that teaching methodology used to teach ICT in schools is one of the causes of low female participation. He said ICT teachers rely on boys for technical difficulties while they are quick to take away tasks from girls when they (the girls) face operational/technical difficulties. He charged the Northern Ghana Trainers Group (NGT) of which he is a member to always give women and girls the opportunity to explore and overcome their own challenges.
Mr. Agbenyo also said computer games have been directed to a largely male market. He said these play a significant role in stimulating boys’ interest in computers and in developing their skills and effectively give boys a head start in getting to grips with the complexities of computing. He further mentioned socially constructed roles as another cause of low female participation of women in ICTs.
On the way forward to increase the participation of women in ICTs, Mr. Agbenyo John Stephen urged women to focus their minds on the positives that ICTs can provide them such as economic empowerment and political empowerment.
He concluded by stating that women need to help leapfrog their own participation in ICTs by being a little tough as well as sacrificing time. He also urged role models in the field such as the Dorothy Gordans to be more and more visible so the young ones can look up to them. He urged content providers to produce “Women friendly” user content.
