Title: Application of ICT in Mainstreaming of Gender in The Global Market And Women Entrepreneurship Promotion
1Application of ICT in Mainstreaming of Gender in
The Global Market And Women Entrepreneurship
Promotion
2Introduction
- The emergence of electronic commerce over the
past decade has radically transformed the
economic landscape. For developing countries, the
digital revolution offers unprecedented
opportunities for economic growth and
development, as entrepreneurs from Bangalore to
Guadalajara to Dakar can testify. - Kofi A. Annan
3Introduction
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
are not only a significant factor in the
performance and growth of economies - the
importance of which is continuously growing -,but
they also represent a novel and effective tool to
help advance sustainable human development (SHD).
4Introduction
- The Buenos Aires Declaration on Global
Telecommunication Development for the
Twenty-first Century stated that
telecommunications are an essential component of
political, economic, social, and cultural
development and the basis of the global
information society
5Introduction
- ICTs allow faster delivery and a more adapted
content of technical assistance in a variety of
sectors - ranging from long-distance education,
telemedicine, environmental management to
strengthening of participatory approaches and the
creation of new livelihoods.
6Introduction
- ICTs allow access to information sources
worldwide, promote networking transcending
borders, languages and cultures, foster
empowerment of communities, women, youth and
socially disadvantaged groups, and help spread
knowledge about "best practices" and experience. - ICTs are indispensable to realize the global
information society and the global knowledge
society.
7Introduction
- Women are a vulnerable group throughout the
world, and are targeted e-international and
national efforts to improve their status. Lack of
knowledge is the main reason why women are
considered a vulnerable group. - Having ICT-literate women who use it to advance
in their careers is important to help them keep
up with the global trends and live up to the
international standards.
8Factors hindering women access to ICT
- A series of factors, including literacy and
education, language, time, cost, geographical
location of facilities, social and cultural
norms, and women's computer and information
search and dissemination skills constrain women's
access to information technology.
9Factors hindering women access to ICT
- Science and technology education.
- Womens access to resources is limited due to
biases resulting from the family arbitration
system. - Lack of womens grassroots organizations prevents
their participation in development activities.
10Factors hindering women access to ICT
- Constraints to the preparation and implementation
of appropriate development plans. - Lack of regional gender-desegregated data.
- Absence of womens groups because of cultural
taboos. - Weak collaboration with non-governmental or
private entities.
11Objectives of ICT Applications
- Mainstreaming of gender in global market.
- Economic empowerment of women.
- Women entrepreneurship promotion.
12Mainstreaming of gender in global market
- Access to labor market
- According to the ILO World Employment Report
2001, the greatest potential for job creation
globally is within the core IT sector.
13Economic Violence Against Women
- Definition
- Economic violence against women is the suffering
of women from poverty, deprivation of Job
opportunities her capability to increase her
income her standard of living.
14Economic Violence Against Women
- The unemployment of females in Egypt is 21
against 5 in Males. - 27 of the men headed families are below the line
of poverty while on the other hand 45 of the
women headed house hold are below the line of
poverty. - The average wages for males is 54 L.E. compared
to that of females 37 L.E. which is 69 of the
wages of the males.
15Economic Violence Against Women
- Although there is equal pay for the same job
the labor law does not discriminate in salaries
between males or females in the same job. - Women have access to only 12 of the microloans.
- Women own only 3 of the cultivated land.
16Factors contributing to Economic Violence against
women
- Education
- The tradition culture concentrates on the
education of males as the main supporter of the
family with negligence to womens education
increasing her dependency on the male partner. - Training
- She has less chance to improve her talents
hence qualify for prestigious jobs requiring
certain skills I.T technology. Thus women
contribute 22 of the labor market in the lowest
occupational ladder with medium wages as their
training opportunities are much less than the
male opportunities. - Economic Awareness Women Entrepreneurship
- The promotion of women Entrepreneurship is
closely linked with their economic awareness
their ability to establish their own enterprises
though formal equality exists in the constitution.
17Empowerment through employment of women
- ICT makes the role of time and distance less
significant in organising business and production
related activities. - Women therefore can work from anywhere and at
anytime and raise that extra income to become
more financially independent and empowered.
18Empowerment through employment of women
- Recently, companies like Ford and General
Electrics have moved their back-end operations to
Asia and employ a large number of women workers
having basic information technology and data
management skills. - New areas of employment such as tele-marketing,
medical transcription etc. have also opened up
tremendous job opportunities for women. These
jobs are definitely under-paid and fall at the
lower segment of ICT jobs nevertheless, they are
opening up avenues where none existed before.
19Entrepreneurship Promotion
- Definition of An entrepreneur
- An entrepreneur is essentially a person who is
not only self-employed but generates employment
and income for others through a combination of
efforts requiring zeal and capability to
transform physical, financial, natural and human
resources for production possibilities to extract
the business potential within any situation.
20Entrepreneurship Promotion
- Entrepreneurs should be able to produce
innovative goods and services to suit to the
market demand as well as earn a profit. Besides
the above qualities, women entrepreneurs need to
have additional quality in terms of determination
and tenacity and additional skills in terms to
access to ICT to cope with adverse situations,
which seem to confront the female entrepreneurs
more than their male counterparts in a given
situation.
21Promotion of Womens Entrepreneurship
- It is a means to alleviate womens unemployment
and poverty and also stimulate economic growth. - Womens entrepreneurship promotion aims at
eliminating gender specific barriers which limits
womens capacity to up businesses. These include
inadequate access to information, business
networks as well as the traditional attitude
towards the gender role.
22Entrepreneurship Promotion Objectives
- To contribute to the elaboration of strategies
and policies supporting women in using their
entrepreneurial potential. - To raise awareness among regional decision-makers
concerning the importance of promoting womens
entrepreneurship. - To develop tools such as financing, incubators
and seminars for encouraging potential women
entrepreneurs.
23Entrepreneurship Promotion Objectives
- To set up regional networks supporting womens
entrepreneurship. - To develop training and education that
contributes to creating an entrepreneurship
culture for women. - To contribute in the capacity building and
training of entrepreneur regarding ICT.
24E-commerce and Women Entrepreneurship Promotion
- E-commerce Definition
- Any use of information and communications
technology by a business that helps to improve
its interactions with customers or suppliers. - The definition encompasses both domestic and
international business. SMEs may find beneficial
ways to use e-commerce to enhance relationships
with their domestic customers and suppliers as
well as internationally.
25Creating class of women entrepreneurs
- One of the most powerful applications of ICT in
the domain of knowledge networking is electronic
commerce. Electronic commerce refers not just to
selling of products and services online but to
the promotion of a new class of ICT-savvy women
entrepreneurs in both rural and urban areas. - Women over time have learnt the advantages
offered by ICT and its potential in opening up
windows to the outside world. This has put them
in a greater control over the activities
performed by them- laying the foundation for
entrepreneurship development
26Potential Gains from e-Commerce
- Find new customers and partners and suppliers
domestically and internationally - Serve current and new customers better, hence
offering more value to them - Improve the efficiency of their business
processes - Offer entirely new services and products even
start entirely new businesses.
27Marketing
- Marketing is always an obstacle facing women
entrepreneurship. ICT is crucial for marketing of
products.
28Marketing Agreement
- An agreement was done between Egyptian Federation
of Business and Professional Women (BPW-Egypt),
and the International Federation of Business and
Professional Women (BPWI) to market BPW-Egypt
women products via their website which is
accessible to 50000 members in 100 countries. - Main Obstacle
- All the products to marketed are still not
promoted using ICT tools, even just a CD
catalogue as a marketing tool never existed.
29ICT Benefit For Women Owners Of SMEs
- E-commerce may offer them comparatively more
advantages to find new customers and suppliers
especially in markets they have not easily been
able to reach before either internationally or
regionally. - Access to Information
- The most valuable application is information
accessing to facilitate their business and
generating and disseminating information about
it. Women entrepreneurs globally have said that
access to information, especially market
information, is their first priority in
accelerating the growth of their businesses5.
30Role of Partners of Development in Promoting
Gender Equity in Using IT
31Partners of Development
- Building Partnerships
- It is necessary to involve strategic stakeholders
from both the public and the private sectors. - These could include the government bodies,
corporate firms, financial institutions and the
NGOs. - Fostering corporate partnership in ICT ventures
and raising of venture capital fund for social
development projects becomes an important line of
thought. - This could be done through a plethora of ways
such as ICT based advertisement, using existing
corporate infrastructure for opening of
telecentres, bringing about transfer of technical
expertise from corporate to the development
sector.
32Partners of Development
- Governments.
- Civil Society.
- Private Sector.
33Partners of Development
- Governments
- Education.
- IT Policy.
- Telecommunication Infrastructure.
34A- Governments
- Education
- Girls and women must acquire literacy and basic
education to be able to fully utilize new
technology. - Information technologies could be integrated into
girls' education and women's literacy programs to
expose girls to new technologies at early stages
and allow for much needed integration of these
two program areas.
35A- Governments
- IT Policy
- IT policy must take gender into account to
provide an enabling environment for women, and
gender policy must take account of the
opportunities that IT can bring. - Telecommunication Infrastructure
- The country must have good telecommunications
infrastructure and an enabling environment that
will attract jobs that women can fill.
Requirements for teleworking are computer
literate workers, reliable power supply, and
adequate communication infrastructure5.
36B- Civil Society
- NGOs contribute to the empowerment of women and
development of human resource through - Training.
- Capacity Building.
- Technical Assistance and Support Services.
- Advocacy.
- Project Development.
- Networking.
37B- Civil Society
- Training
- Women outside the formal schooling system and
already in the workforce need access to
technology training to retrain and upgrade skills
as well as to acquire new ones. Such improvement
requires interventions at all levels of
education.
38B- Civil Society
- Capacity Building
- Empowerment of women in the context of knowledge
societies is understood as building the ability
and skills of women to gain insight of actions
and issues in the external environment which
influence them, and to build their capacity to
get involved and voice their concerns in these
external processes, and make informed decisions. - It entails building up of capacities of women to
overcome social and institutional barriers, and
strengthening their participation in the economic
and political processes for an overall
improvement in their quality of lives.
39B- Civil Society
- Technical Assistance and Support services
- Human resource development for system support To
ensure the presence of girls and women among the
technologically trained, campaigns could be
developed to attract and retain women
professionals. - Advocacy
- Strengthening institutional capacity to integrate
gender considerations in policies and programs
and supporting women's equitable access to
training is required to ensure that
telecommunications address women's needs and
concerns more effectively.
40B- Civil Society
- Project Development
- Effective partnerships with NGOs which extend
beyond disaster relief and mitigation to include
a range of project development, implementation
and delivery systems can contribute to the
effectiveness and range of telecommunications
systems. - Many innovative activities and models for
telecommunications networks are being developed
by NGOs which contribute to improved
consultation, human resource development, and
incorporating gender equality considerations. - Programs will have to be designed and put in
place that ensures women's access to the
technologies that can empower them in many
aspects of their lives.
41Civil Society
- Networking
- Networking is crucial to have access to the
global market. - Affiliation to regional and international women
organizations.
42Private Sector
- Should mobilize its resources and invest in the
field of ICT. - Share the social responsibility of the capital in
funding training programs for the uses of ICT for
women Entrepreneurship.
43Conclusion
- Access to the global market
- Information and communication technologies have
enormous potential to link remote communities to
global markets, to make telemedicine and telework
available to communities in need, to democratize
decision-making, to support distance learning.
But if the global community and national policy
makers are not proactive about ensuring that the
benefits of IT are equally available to and
shaped by women and men, we will fail to reap the
full potential of these powerful tools.
44Conclusion
- ICT is a way to alleviate poverty and contribute
to the solution of elimination of economic
violence against women and hindering women access
to the labor market. - Without full participation in the use of
information technology, women are left without
the key to participation in the global world of
the twenty-first century.
45Recommendations
- A brain-storming meeting was held in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, 21-23 November 2003, for the building
of the African Union in 21st century. - It recommended to encourage member states to
promote investments in ICT to enhance the
development of the African private sector. - A project was submitted to the African Union for
economic women empowerment through ICT.
46Recommendations
- During the 2nd Pan AfroArab Congress of Business
and Professional Women held in Cairo, April,
2003, it was recommended to establish an
E-Catalogue gathering the products and services
of women entrepreneurs in the Arab World and
Africa to achieve economic integration in the
region and open international markets which acts
as a marketing tool to empower women
economically.
47Recommendations
- Concentrate on the export of services and
products using ICT. - Establishment of a Databank for Business women,
experts, industries, products, etc.
48Recommendations
- Partners of Development should
- Put a plan of action for increasing of ICT
awareness among women and organizing training
courses for capacity building. - Raise awareness, build vision and advise on
policies to capture information and knowledge for
development. - Promote and build connectivity and necessary
infrastructure for access to information and
development. - Build required human and social capacities and
institutions and provide training and education
to impart requisite skills.
49Recommendations
- Leverage partnerships with the private sector
(they have the know-how), business associations,
teaching institutions, technical schools or any
other associations of SMEs. - Meet with and work with womens professional
associations or other organizations with women
business owners as members.
50Recommendations
- Provide support to several innovative approaches
to e-readiness training by different
organizations and then facilitate the replication
of the successful ones in other areas. - Conduct pilot projects to demonstrate the
feasibility, suitability and impact of ICTs for
sustainable human development (SHD) through
electronic community centres.