Document(s) 8 of 12

Part 1: Anglophone Africa1

The information age has dramatically increased the potential for sharing information across the globe. However, the promise of the global information society (GIS) is tainted with problems of power, monopoly, and control, so issues of access to information, quality of content, and knowledge-production capacity abound. In terms of information infrastructure, gross inequalities are evident on the African continent. For example, South Africa has more than 90% of the connectivity of the entire continent, but the teledensity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is still less than 1 line per 200 inhabitants, with a poor-quality network still in place (Jensen 1996). To expand on this point, it is worth noting, with Marcelle (1997, p. 2), that

Africa has 12% of the world's population and only 2% of its telephone lines. Over half of all these lines are in the largest cities. There is only one telephone line for every 235 persons in sub-Saharan Africa. The costs of installing and maintaining lines are higher in Africa than in other countries, even when compared to other developing countries, and reliability of services [is] quite poor.

This is particularly problematic on the African continent, where more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas (Kularatne 1997). It appears then that information and the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have to be carefully used to combat existing inequalities in our societies. In the words of Burch (1997, p. 1), "Information technology obviously will not solve the world's problems. But wisely deployed and developed, it has proven to be a powerful tool for promoting social causes." The emphasis on the development of information infrastructure in Africa is quickly shifting from an exclusive concern with technical connectivity to issues of content and the capacity to shape and exploit the new networks.

At a recent AFCOM conference, Derrick Cogburn, Director of the African Regional Programme of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, confidently stated that Africa's connectivity challenges would be resolved in the next 3-5 years (WTC 1997). This bold statement is to a great extent borne out by various initiatives undertaken by donor agencies and foreign companies, such as the Acacia Initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and the AfricaLink initiative of the United States Agency for International Development. To a greater or lesser extent, these initiatives underscore the need to focus efforts on the development of capacity to fully participate in shaping and using "infostructures" for socioeconomic and political development. Implicit in this assertion is the need for Africans to develop both a consciousness and a self-consciousness about the role and value of information in shaping our lives and our continent. Initiatives such as AISI (which was presented to the ECA Conference of Ministers in May 1996 and adopted through Resolution 812) have embraced the need to participate in creating the GIS. Although AISI identifies the importance of improving the quality of life for every African, along with other similar ventures, it still has to shift from policy to practice and realize the opportunities presented by ICTs.

In this part of this chapter, with a focus on anglophone Africa, I discuss the kinds of skills that citizens require to fully participate in the information society and to shape society to improve the quality of life of people as a whole. Special attention is paid to the education of women as a means to ensure that they have equal access to the information society and benefit from it. This chapter considers women's distance from ICTs, as well as the critical role ICTs could play in further subordinating women. Cognizance is also taken of women's general distance from decision-making positions and technical-type positions of employment, both of which are crucial in the formation of the information society. A review is made of the kinds of skills and education women require to bridge these gaps, and recommendations are made on ways to redress the gender imbalances.

At the outset, it should be noted that because the ICT environment is undergoing constant and rapid innovation, discussions of these issues are also permanently shifting and changing. As Braman (1997, p. 16) explained at a recent conference convened to explore issues of ICT education,

The subject of study - effects of the use of information technologies - is constantly changing because the technological environment itself is continuing to change ever-more rapidly and in a qualitative manner. Social, political, economic and cultural effects of the use of new information technologies themselves feed back in to the ways in which technologies are used. Thus some of the effects understood in the past simply no longer work in the same way in today's environment.

Globalization, information infrastructure, and ICTs

Globalization, which includes economic, cultural, and communication shifts, presents the paradox of new forms of imperialism coexisting with the potential for the developing world to use the new ICTs to advance more rapidly and participate fully in shaping development. In the context of global competition, information can be used either to promote development or to perpetuate inequality and subordination. The global information infrastructure, including ICTs, has become the primary means of mediating and attaining information and, it can be argued, power. Information, irrespective of the channels through which it is communicated, is a fundamental resource for development (Kularatne 1997). It is the basis on which people make decisions. It allows people to communicate with others about their lives and to assert their experiences as valid. Indigenous information, usually transmitted through traditional information structures, is highly relevant to people living in indigenous areas. As IDRC's Gender and Information Working Group (GIWG) stated,

Acquiring knowledge is the first step toward change, whether this change be technological, social, economic, cultural, legal, or political. Information is the catalyst, fuel, and product of this process of transformation. Inevitably, information systems - both formal and informal - play a central role in our lives.

IDRC-GIWG (1995, p. 267)

One of the features of the global economy is the perpetuation of inequalities between societies. Social inequality is mirrored within societies, reflecting not only gender disparities vis-à-vis continued oppression of women, but also class disparities among women. With regard to societal discrepancies, much has been said about how the GIS is marking new forms of imperialism, with information continuing to flow from the developed to the developing world but flowing only minimally in the other direction. Thus, despite the rhetoric of partnership and collaboration, it has become evident that if Africa does not claim its contribution to the GIS, it will not achieve the shift from information consumption to knowledge production.

It is now generally accepted that the information infrastructure as a medium is not an end in itself; rather, the messages transmitted through this medium are extremely politically and ideologically loaded. Content has thus become an ever important issue. Within this context, it can be assumed that those who generate knowledge and have the competencies to articulate and spread this knowledge improve their capacity to influence decision-making. An appropriate example of this is Synergie, Genre et Développement (SYNFEV, Synergy, Gender and Development), which promotes sustainable development from a gender perspective. It operates in francophone Africa (Huyer 1997). SYNFEV has set up networks to promote communication for women and is distributing information, including new content developed in women's areas, to interested organizations in Senegal. SYNFEV's experience shows that developing capacity for participation in the information society must include requisite skills to work with information and produce new knowledge.

Many people in Africa are as yet unaffected by ICTs and uninvolved in shaping their use, notwithstanding their lack of access to these technologies. This is why mass programs to prepare people to use ICTs to ensure sustainable development have not, as yet, been implemented. Telecentres and multipurpose community centres are models for bringing the information infrastructure to increasing numbers of people. Telecentres have been described as

a location which facilitates and encourages the provision of a wide variety of public and private information-based goods and services, and which supports local economic or social development.

IDRC (1997, p. 1)

The issue of human-resource development for women is complex. Women are traditionally disadvantaged educationally, and they have historically been in even shorter supply in technically oriented work or study. The problem is further compounded by the fact that women appear to be alienated by ICTs, which are considered part of the male domain. A recent assessment of information literacy among higher-education students found that the female students were less competent in the use of information technologies than the male students (Sayed and Karelse 1997).

It has been argued that environmental literacy, alongside information literacy,

is a pre-condition for sustainable development in all countries. Environmental literacy involves three necessary elements: a strong foundation in relevant local knowledge and experience, including indigenous environmental knowledge; access to appropriate and relevant S&T [scientific and technological] knowledge through informal and formal education; and open communication and access to information with regard to all potential environmental risks and benefits of particular S&T interventions. Women's central role in environmental use and management in developing countries, and their disproportionate lack of access to formal education and to Western S&T expertise, make improving their access to environmental knowledge and information especially important.

Kettel (1995, p. 45)

The importance of information literacy for development

There is much talk these days of learning societies and multiskilled workers. The emphasis is on lifelong learning to feed the ongoing development of our societies. Human capital is the most valuable asset in the GIS, owing to the rapidly advancing shift to knowledge economies, in which resources created through "brain power are increasingly more valuable in wealth creation than natural resources" and in which value is created with information (Lipani 1996, p. 4, my italics). The emphasis on learning and information is enforced by the fact that information and knowledge are dynamic entities in constant states of flux and growth. According to Lenox and Walker (1993, p. 312), "there is more information in a single edition of the New York Times than a man or woman in the sixteenth century had to process in the whole of his or her life."

The volume of information people need to process is overwhelming, and this often leads to information overload. To learn for life, therefore, people need the ability to navigate a range of information systems, vehicles, and highways, and they need the skills to work with information critically. As a result, information skills have become key survival and competitive weapons in the global marketplace; for the purposes of this chapter, skills should be seen to include knowledge and values (Babb and Skinner 1997). In a highly technological society in which businesses are more information focused, smart workers will be required to navigate their way through a vast array of information resources and to use information critically to be productive and to make informed decisions.

It is this condition - a much greater appreciation of the economic significance of knowledge and learning and of the value of a skilled workforce and smart workers - that has focused attention on learning cultures. The demand to have smart workers is, however, precisely the kind of requirement that the GIS imposes with little regard for its contribution to development.

One of the implications of the demand for a skilled workforce is the need to develop flexible learning cultures. Legacies of authoritarianism and rote learning have severely undermined and depressed citizens, so the challenge to provide high-quality education in a framework of lifelong learning seems great. In keeping with this challenge, information literacy features prominently on agendas for educational transformation. This prominence arises not only from a desire to develop the capacity for lifelong learning but also from a commitment to develop an information society to improve the quality of life for our people and enable them to participate in shaping the GIS. It is believed that information literacy both delivers the kinds of skills needed for the GIS and helps learners develop the consciousness and self-consciousness needed to

• Take cognizance of their experience as an information resource; and

• Exercise their critical faculties in deciding how to articulate this experience with the world at large so that they influence globalization.

Information literacy teaches people how to learn, thus enabling lifelong learning. As Lenox and Walker (1993, p. 322) argued, "in the decades ahead, those who cannot read, write and think as well as analyse, evaluate and use information resources effectively, will be an endangered species." However, this begs the question, What kinds of information and knowledge are being produced And what distinguishes one from another?

Types of knowledge systems

Various types of knowledge have been identified, including disciplinary, or formal knowledge, which is derived through investigations in particular disciplines (often at institutions of higher learning); and tacit knowledge, which is embodied in people, accumulated through personal experience and acquisition, and influenced, obviously, by a range of sociocultural factors.

Knowledge produced at institutions of higher learning, especially scientific knowledge, has been highly gendered and has presented itself as being the "truth." As this type of knowledge increasingly faces charges of inappropriateness and unaccountability,

institutions will in particular also need to be able critically to evaluate whether, as is often claimed in transformation debates, certain bodies of knowledge in a discipline are global (usually referring to aspects of a discipline that relate to Western society and values) while others are local and therefore presumably of lower intellectual status.

Ekong and Cloete (1997, p. 5)

In explaining the difference between knowledge and information, the Office of International Assessment of the National Research Council suggested that

the National Knowledge System of a country comprises those institutions that control and regulate the flow and use of knowledge in the economy and society, together with linkages among them and with the outside world. Information may be thought of as a transmissible form of knowledge, having a similar relation to knowledge as currency has to wealth: a medium of trade. Information and experience both contribute to knowledge. Knowledge itself goes beyond transmissible information to embrace codified knowledge, embodied knowledge and tacit knowledge and skills.

NRC (1996)

Despite these commentaries on knowledge and the oft-cited slogan "information [or knowledge] is power," knowledge bearers do not necessarily have automatic access to power. Although women are prominent producers of knowledge in the developing world (a fact to which many authors have attested), this has not automatically improved their sociopolitical or economic standing (Rathgeber 1995; UNCSTD-GWG 1995; Huyer 1997). Thus, although women hold significant power vis-à-vis their acquisition of knowledge and their generation of technology based on this experience, significant numbers of women are not in classical positions of power, decision-making positions of political structures, or advisory positions in companies. This challenges the notion that knowledge is power. The notion of power is itself admittedly relative. The power these women do have derives from their knowledge, which enables them to use resources and live. When new technologies or commerce dislocates this knowledge, these women depend increasingly on others for their survival.

Indigenous knowledge systems usually embody complex systems of planning and understanding that differ from systems in Western industrialized nations. According to Appleton et al. (1995, p. 57), whereas

the generation of science and technology is directly linked to centralised control over the distribution of information, information in local knowledge systems is the common property of integrated social groups.

women's knowledge systems tend to be holistic and multidimensional, the introduction of agricultural technologies usually results in "resource fragmentation undermining the position of women … the woman's role becomes more and more that of a labourer as she loses her control over production and access to resources.

Appleton et al. (1995, p. 59)

Before considering ways to use ICTs to advance the position of women, I examine, in the following section, women's educational experience in Africa. African women's lack of educational opportunities is a fundamental obstacle to their participation in the information society and their use of ICTs.

Barriers to schooling and social participation for women

The gendered nature of society means that women and men perform distinct roles and functions, which leads them, at some level, to have different experiences, generate different knowledge, and articulate different information needs. This kind of gender differentiation has often led to women's subordination such that the practical interests of women

are congruent with deeply held beliefs about women's roles in various aspects of their lives. These beliefs, or ideologies, are embedded in cultural practices, religious beliefs and practices, and other aspects of our society.

Wolpe et al. (1997, p. 23)

Various factors account for these discrepancies, including the following:

• Social conditioning and gender stereotyping,

• Lack of government resources to support education for all,

• In some cultures, a national bias favouring the education of boys over that of girls,

• Parental preference favouring education of boys over girls resulting in young girls assuming family and household responsibilities early in their lives,

• Curricula and textbooks containing gender-biased language and failing to promote woman role models for girls,

• In some countries, girls' schools are under-resourced with laboratories and equipment compared to boys' schools.

UNCSTD-GWG (1995, p. 7)

The problem is further compounded by the view that at co-ed schools, the boys receive a better quality education than the girls. Wolpe (1988) issued a word of caution in this regard and argued that various factors, such as class, race, and classroom control, influence the practice of teachers and that although the argument might hold for the more elite schools in the United Kingdom, it is not necessarily the norm for all schools. There is no doubting or disputing, though, that education plays a prominent role in the "domestication" of girls, that girls are, generally speaking, poorly positioned for educational opportunities beyond schooling, and that their "lesser" social status is reinforced by social values and traditional attitudes that limit women.

These arguments have clear implications for the nature of the training women receive in the use of ICTs. It appears that there is a need to move beyond the notion of gender sensitivity in training and embrace the underlying principle of gender equity. In other words, women and girls need to have the same educational opportunities as men and boys. At a more subtle level, though, a distinction is drawn between gender equity and gender equality. According to Ramphele (1995, p. 6²),

Equality is non-negotiable with respect to the rights of citizens before the law. All citizens - men and women - have to be treated equally. But equal treatment in all cases, in a society scarred by discrimination, also has the potential of reinforcing inequity.
     Equity, on the other hand, is more contextually defined and can mean both equal treatment and preferential treatment. For example, women as bearers of children have certain demands made on their time and bodies. They need preferential treatment to allow them to cope with biological demands. Maternity leave, flexi-time at work, flexible career advancement and so forth are essential. Failure to effect these preferential treatments would perpetuate the under representation of women in the workplace, particularly in the skilled professions.

Equally importantly, the problem of women's education has to be addressed at the level of schooling itself. Attempts to establish gender equity in training must be spread. Experiences in this area suggest the following (EOGS 1996):

• Emphasize values, knowledge, and skills, as this attracts more girls;

• Offer optional areas of study, as this allows boys and girls to pursue activities of particular interest to them;

• Demonstrate the fantastic and spectacular features of technology;

•  Relate projects to the real world, beyond the school and domestic contexts;

• Place problems in context to avoid abstraction;

• Avoid diffusion of the subject; and

• Seek feedback from students as a means of evaluation.

The new ICTs: learning and development opportunities

Recent work has indicated that the new ICTs are blurring divisions between certain historically demarcated areas of work. These technologies not only create the opportunity to flatten hierarchical organizations (or at least introduce a level of democratic participation for everyone who has access to them) but also blur the boundaries between traditionally compartmentalized disciplines, allowing learners to approach their work and similar phenomena from different perspectives. In addition, they allow global communities of scholars to share paradigms, experiences, and concepts, thus generating new knowledge that is neither discipline specific nor necessarily formal. Partnerships between remote villages and highly urban areas are also possible.

It has been argued that access to information and ICTs improves people's opportunities to fully participate in society. Human-resource development to enable people to use the new technologies is clearly a prerequisite for realizing their value. As argued above, women's schooling and social status generally underprepare them to use the new ICTs. It is imperative therefore to ensure that women receive the kind of education and training that will prepare them to fully participate in ICT environments.

Some issues must be addressed to ensure that women are able to use ICTs for development. It must be noted that women's concerns are hardly represented in policy at the macrosocial level. This is not surprising, as women are seldom found in positions of power that formulate policy (Marcelle 1997). In any attempt to redress the imbalances, it is also imperative for schools to encourage girls to pursue S&T training. Policy is also needed to guide this practice.

A number of factors should be considered in developing any training program to support women's use of ICTs (Huyer 1997):

• High rates of illiteracy among African women constitute the first obstacle to their use of ICTs;

• Language issues are intensified for women, as they have less time, money, and opportunity to learn English - the dominant language of ICTs - and few of the existing information and training documents have been translated into other languages; and

• Women have less access to basic computer-literacy courses, let alone advanced computer training.

• The information environment (the message) - The type of information needed, how accessible it is, and whether it is gender sensitive; and

• Enabling technologies (the medium) - The availability, adaptability, and user-friendliness of the technologies used in information systems.

 ICTs and the production of knowledge

Women in Africa produce not only new knowledge of agricultural systems but also some of the new technologies used. However, a number of competencies are needed to take advantage of the new ICTs:

• Women require training to enable them to develop information systems and to use these to gain access to information about similar work and initiatives and to disseminate the knowledge and information they themselves produce.

• Women also require training on how to use their knowledge to influence decision-making so they are better protected and receive greater regard for their social contribution and status. This implies training for content development, including how to publish and how to use experiences from other information systems (not only content, but also technical lessons). As Braman (1997, p. 17) argued, the distinction between technology and content is blurring:

People training to become specialists in developing content, whether as film producers, journalists, or web page designers, do need to know something about the technologies they are working with. Conversely, those who design, build and maintain the technological infrastructure need to know something about the social effects of the use of those technologies - that is, what kinds of content are carried and what happens when content of different types flows.

This appears to underscore the need for a multiskilled workforce. One must also take into account, however, the earlier arguments about the importance of respecting and comprehending the nature of local knowledge systems, their structures, their ethos, and their modes of production.

• More information-technology people are required to work with women's groups. Ideally, women should be trained for these positions, through which they can ensure that more information systems and networks are developed by women and serve the interests of women.


This kind of training is the focus of Women'sNet, a network set up to promote gender-sensitive ICT training, that is, to develop technological skills among women. Its objective is to "empower women through skills training to harness an important networking and information resource" (SANGONeT 1996, p. 5³).

In addition to the obvious hardware and software skills, some less spoken of but equally critical ICT competencies are needed to advance the position of women. These include the complex skills of information literacy, which link the new technologies to the growing framework of lifelong learning and the concept of a learning society.

Information literacy has been variously described and defined. One such working definition was developed in South Africa in an attempt to take account of issues such as prior learning and to link information literacy to knowledge production. The concept, based on inputs from a range of informants, reads as follows: "information literacy refers to the ability of learners to access, use and evaluate information from different sources, in order to enhance learning, solve problems and generate new knowledge" (Sayed and Karelse 1997, p. 2). Although largely premised on the new ICTs, information literacy is best developed through contextual learning. Although the concept encapsulates the ICTs and imparts this training as a matter of course, it applies equally to contexts without the new ICTs. Being self-conscious of the ways we use, process, and generate information and knowledge is equally relevant in settings with or without the new ICTs. In other words, awareness of the value of information itself is crucial. Women must develop an understanding of, and confidence in, their own information and knowledge systems to derive a sense of their own power.

Information-literacy education can demystify both information and information technology. When people become aware of themselves and their role in producing information and knowledge, they can challenge models of learners - in any context - as empty vessels into which information is poured, and, it is hoped, these models will give way to a recognition of every person's role in constructing meaning and reality.

The challenge of information-literacy education is to encourage curiosity and critical thinking, as well as reflexivity. Education has by and large been consumer oriented, concentrating more on selling products and degrees than on processes of learning, but it is these processes that are currently regarded as crucial. To achieve a shift to a learner-centred culture, learners must become more aware of how they learn individually and collectively; how they use information to solve problems and generate and communicate new knowledge; and how these processes affect knowledge systems. Training programs should generate such awareness so that women become not only technically competitive but also truly informed about how they can use their experience - their information and knowledge - to improve their position in society.

Managing ICTs

As noted earlier, few women are in senior positions of authority, decision-making, and policy-making. Training programs must redress this legacy of gender imbalance by training women specifically for senior management positions so that the women in such positions can integrate women's concerns into policy, as well as act as role models for girls, which is a crucial component of resocialization. Not just girls, but all people, need to acknowledge and come to appreciate the value of having women in these positions.

When using or introducing the new ICTs, organizations or social groups must be completely conscious of what they are using the new technologies for and how they would like the ICTs to work for them. This does not mean that there could be a blueprint for how the ICTs should be used, as their introduction may generate unpredictable ripple effects. It is, however, a call for the consciousness needed to direct the use of the technologies, attend to the new needs they spawn, and facilitate any changes the organization may wish to make. Leadership, collective or otherwise, is of paramount importance to ensure that the use of ICTs is people driven and empowering for the organization or social group as a whole.

Women's experiences with ICTs

Various initiatives have used the new ICTs to advance the position of women. Before I make recommendations about the ways ICTs are presently used to this end, I briefly outline some of these initiatives below.

Women's Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications

The Women's Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has operated for most of this decade (1990s) and has made tremendous strides in bringing ICTs to women and in exploring ways for women to use global information systems. It has facilitated women's access to and use of ICTs across the globe and thereby advanced women's networking. It has not only supported women online - providing help and mentoring facilities - but also conducted a survey to assess progress and to find out what lessons have been learned and what ICT-related needs have been expressed by women. The following are some of its findings (APC 1999):

• Obstacles to access are mainly cost and a lack of training;

• Women desire training opportunities, gender- and culture-sensitive training programs and materials, and mentoring programs;

• Women make increasing daily use of ICTs, mainly e-mail, to communicate and find information;

• Women make less, but nonetheless substantial, use of search engines and the web to access and post information;

• Women repackage information for "unconnected" groups and in this way ensure the flow of information; and

• High-level endorsement for women's use of ICTs is important, as are female role models.

Agencia Latinoamericana de Información

The Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI, Latin American agency for information), an Ecuador-based organization, promotes the use of electronic networks among mainly rural, indigenous, and women's organizations. ALAI, operating since the late 1970s, promotes women's access to ICTs and encourages critical and strategic use of these resources. It gender-sensitive training programs to encourage and enable women to get involved in the decision-making processes shaping the GIS and the adoption of ICTs. ALAI has also attempted to demystify technology by promoting ICTs as tools to be used to advance an organization's causes. It has not limited itself to online technologies, though, and like the APC Women's Programme (with which it works closely), it repackages information for people without Internet access. ALAI's work has had a ripple effect throughout Latin America, affecting many other women's organizations, many of which are electronically active, developing web pages, and meeting the challenges of the information explosion (Burch 1997).

Women'sNet

Women'sNet is a joint project of SANGONeT (a network of South African nongovernmental organizations [NGOs]) and the Commission on Gender Equality, which are both based in South Africa. Women'sNet aims to improve women's access to and use of ICTs to promote gender equality. Women'sNet makes information on developments in gender-equality policy and global practice accessible to governments, policymakers, and women in general. In addition, the project learns from the experiences of similar initiatives, and it offers gender- and culture-sensitive training to women from NGOs and women's organizations. Women'sNet is also interested in empowering South African women to use the new technologies and information effectively to meet their own needs and objectives. Like ALAI, it wishes to demystify ICTs and provide ongoing support and training for women.

The project also aims to network (as is the historic custom among women's groups) with other groups electronically and to engender an ICT culture. Women'sNet strives to ensure that a gender perspective generally informs ICT policy so that gender is institutionalized in this newly developing area early on. SANGONeT already has close ties with the APC Women's Programme, and these ties will be strengthened through Women'sNet, which could deliver services beyond the borders of South Africa.

Using the ICTs to advance the position of women

A call for citizens to get involved in shaping the GIS is coming from a range of quarters. This call is all too easily converted into pressure to become electronically connected and active so as to promote the sharing and flow of information. One of the agendas advancing these interests is concerned with developing new markets for products from the developed world, especially the West. To combat the one-way flow of information, the developing world has to not only market its own knowledge more assertively but also encourage its citizens to critically evaluate the information flooding its markets and become conscious of reasons for adopting the new ICTs. More importantly, women, who are, generally speaking, more disadvantaged in the developing world, must develop these capacities.

Training programs can impart two categories of needed skills. The first category consists of the more easily taught and possibly more transferable technical skills, such as keyboarding, e-mailing, searching, and certain networking and hardware skills. The second, more difficult category of skills relates to the world of information: identifying needs and locating, using, evaluating, processing, and generating information. People seem to learn these competencies, or "literacies," more easily in the context of undertaking meaningful assignments or tasks.

A further aspect of using ICTs for women's purposes is gender sensitivity. To ensure equitable access to educational programs, women's time and availability for training should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, development planners should introduce ICTs in organizations and locations where women are involved so that the ICTs become an accessible part of their lives. Telecentres must take women's access into account and provide spaces that cater to the needs of women.

Developing women's capacities and information literacies

Globalization focuses attention on human-resource development, but the process of globalization must be people driven. As argued above, women have for numerous reasons been marginalized from many aspects of S&T. However, women's experience and knowledge are needed to ensure the holistic development of the GIS.

Many initiatives that aim to educate and train women in the adoption and use of the new ICTs are developing gender- and culture-sensitive approaches and support materials. These initiatives are also advancing a women's collaborative of technical expertise, mentors, and "buddies" to ensure that women have ongoing access to initial and follow-up training. These programs by and large address the tangible skills needed to use ICTs: an understanding of the ICT environment; and working with e-mail, search engines, hypertext markup language, and the web. They impart networking and hardware competencies to varying degrees, and to some extent they consider issues of locating and accessing information. They are only beginning to become engaged with the more complex task of developing a critical-learning and information culture.

Although some programs provide training in accessing information from a variety of sources and channels, few deal with the difficult area of helping learners understand and articulate their information problems and needs. This aspect of information handling is crucial to enable people to decide what information is appropriate to their needs. It also helps individuals and groups become conscious of their needs and of how they are different from or similar to the needs of others.

Training programs seldom cover the more difficult task of critically evaluating information sources, either because trainers consider it "fuzzy" or too difficult or the pressure to deliver other aspects of training is greater. Consciousness and self-consciousness about information are obviously fundamental to shaping both the ICTs themselves and the ways we use them. These abilities clearly cannot wait until the second phase of training but ought to be integrated, in some way, into initial programs and further developed in intermediate and advanced programs. It is important to present them even in initial programs so that these competencies are included in the more "basic" skills and so that people keep them in the foreground of their consciousness and, from the outset, think critically about ICTs as tools to advance social causes.

Training of this nature should ensure that women are equipped to occupy decision-making positions and to inform policy. Without doubt, if women are to benefit from ICTs, then women must be centrally involved in the strategic choices about how to introduce ICTs and what training should accompany their use. Women should also make decisions about content development. This is another area of ICT management in which women need to develop skills.

Gender audits and assessments of women's information needs

Many have called for gender audits, which take into account the fact that women's positions and information needs are different from men's. The Gender Working Group of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development endorsed this suggestion, arguing that

the concept of gender differentiation underpins the conviction that "science and technology for development" must systematically and purposefully recognise the gender-specific nature of development and respond to the concerns, needs and aspirations of both women and men appropriately and equitably.

UNCSTD-GWG (1995, p. 3)

It should be noted, though, that the articulation of needs is not always straightforward. People often have needs they are unaware of or fail to express. An assessment of women's information needs should therefore go some way to making people aware of the issue of need and make them aware of their own information needs that are in flux. Women's groups should also ensure that support is provided for women to move beyond articulating their information needs to addressing these needs. Investigations and audits of this nature should identify not only areas of training but also training opportunities.

The role of the private sector

The private sector clearly has a significant contribution to make to the development of the African information infrastructure. As noted earlier, most of the investments in this infrastructure have been made by donor agencies and foreign companies. The private sector should not only see this as its social responsibility but also realize that it is in its interest to help create an informed and skilled citizenry. A skilled resource base clearly makes a more valuable contribution to economic growth than an impoverished and uneducated one. A recent study undertaken in South Africa on the private sector's role in developing the information infrastructure reported the following:

The concept of the sustainable electronic learning centre is based on the premise that if this centre can be shown to be cost-effective and relevant to the private sector, the costs to extend the concept into under-privileged communities will be reduced. This will occur for two reasons:

• The content costs will have been borne by the private sector;
• The communication costs, to extend the connectivity of the learning network into the under-privileged areas, because of shorter distances will be reduced.

IDRC (1997, p. 1)

The private sector can contribute in other ways to the development of an information infrastructure in Africa. As argued previously, women need role models in the ICT sector. The role of the private sector is therefore not limited to providing training opportunities for women but may also include ensuring that, through whatever strategies, women occupy decision-making positions in companies.

The private sector, through its research and development (R&D) offices, should also assist with the gender audits and the assessments of women's information needs. Most importantly, though, these offices should learn about the contributions that local communities and knowledge systems make to development. The involvement of private-sector R&D offices in community development programs should be informed by an understanding that economic growth has to be coupled with sustainable development and that as long as women are oppressed and marginalized, development is not going to improve the quality of life in general. The private sector's involvement in telecentres and training initiatives must also be accountable, ensuring that female representatives from the relevant groups are involved in directing these initiatives and that the initiatives themselves are accountable to the communities they aim to serve.

Conclusions

This part of this chapter has argued that women should be involved in every sphere in which the new ICTs are used for social development. I have expressed the concern that ICTs are not necessarily of the same value to each group involved in knowledge production and that ICTs can be used negatively to subordinate and further marginalize women from decision-making power. Thus, although women can use ICTs to communicate, network, and share their ideas and find in these technologies support and strength for their struggles, they have to manage ICTs as tools that, like other technologies, can either perpetuate divides or strengthen social ties.

It has been argued that women have to be involved from the outset in decisions concerning the adoption of the new ICTs and be centrally engaged in developing information systems, both initially and throughout the processes of change, so that their needs and interests are always integrated into systems. Capacity development is the primary area of need for women, who are historically and presently disadvantaged in their access to education and levels of education. However, education in the use of ICTs has to concentrate not only on technical skills but also on empowering women to think critically about the ICTs, information, and its role and value in meeting their requirements. In addition, education must give women the capacity to assume management positions in the information sector. Critical consciousness and self-consciousness must be encouraged to ensure that women value their own experiences and opinions in evaluating information and generating knowledge. Women must have confidence in themselves and their local knowledge systems if they are to participate fully in shaping the GIS and making it work for them and their groups.

Part 2: Francophone Africa4

It is becoming easier and easier to selectively access and circulate information, owing to progress made in computers, telecommunications, and audiovisual and multimedia. Information (be it theoretical or practical) may now come from anywhere on the planet and on any topic. ICTs comprise the whole array of technologies for capturing, processing, and accessing information.

This is the era of ICTs, and Africa should insist on being more than a consumer. She needs to spread her knowledge, develop it, and participate in the development and production of ICTs. She needs to contribute her own content, drawn from her own cultures, and use the new ICTs to meet her own specific needs. To do this, she must use all her human resources. She should prepare her children, both boys and girls, to master ICTs.

Today, children in developed countries and even those in the capitals of developing countries are discovering and using ICTs without asking any questions. ICTS are just there as part of their environment. These children are unaware of the power of these new technologies. They are acting exactly as their parents and grandparents did when they encountered domestic appliances and television, that is, just using them, consuming them as a natural part of the environment.

But what do we observe in reality? I have carried out experiments and found that boys are more interested in technology than girls. For a period of more than 2 months, a computer was set up in a classroom with four pupils (two girls and two boys). They were given an initiation lesson, and they all mastered the keyboard and the basic programs within the first few days.

At the beginning, the girls used the machine for word processing and games; they learned how to play "solitaire," a card game, along with the boys. They also learned to design cards and draft electronic messages to send to their friends abroad. They mastered the computer commands perfectly and could do whatever they wanted. But what upset me was that the girls never took the initiative to use the computer, even when they were free, not even to try to understand the new programs I brought them or to play among themselves.

By contrast, the boys wanted to be at the computers all the time. They were fascinated, especially with the games. They also liked to draft and design. However, what brought them to the computer most often were the games. And what type of games? Nothing but violent games, virtual destruction of stuff and human lives. The girls were not at all attracted to these games; on the contrary, they considered them repulsive and a reason to avoid the computer.

At a less technologically advanced level, in a less homely atmosphere, such as the socioeducative centres, the girls are usually directed to socioprofessional activities (tailoring, knitting, cookery, etc.) that do not even involve traditional technologies (television, computer). They make no use of the latest communication techniques, either to exchange ideas and know-how with communities elsewhere or to spread the products of their activities.

At schools, one notices more boys than girls in the technical disciplines. However, when girls venture into technical studies, they perform as well as the boys, if not better. In the physical technologies (building, maintenance, and repair of domestic appliances, mechanics, etc.), girls constitute a minority in the training programs. Given this situation, the principal objective of this study was to develop strategies to encourage African (particularly, Senegalese) women to involve themselves fully and without prejudice in the use, management, and production of ICTs and thereby draw maximum benefits from them for themselves and their society. Other objectives were

• To detect the causes of disparities between women and men in the mastery of ICTs, both in formal and nonformal education; and

• To propose ideas, methodologies, and means to change this situation by emphasizing

• Production and validation of various types of knowledge, potential use of ICTs in establishing local know-how, and the preparation of specific data for the information needs of diverse groups of women,

 
• Identification of the capacities needed to produce, use, and manage ICTs,

 
• Preparation of methodologies and training materials of interest to women, and

 
• Study of perspectives on the mechanisms and methodologies for making ICTs available, with the involvement of the private sector.

• Collection of reliable data on the socioprofessional characteristics of women, their constraints and difficulties, and their legitimate aspirations in S&T, based on a survey (see the questionnaire in Annex 1), interviews, and documentary research;

• Analysis of collected data to identify predominant elements of daily (socioprofessional) activities of women, thus bringing out the specific centres of interest;

• Analysis of success factors for women in ICTs;

•  Use of these success factors and listed interests as a basis for tackling other important issues in human socioeconomic development and for proposing methodologies to encourage women to use ICTs;

• Recommendation of methodologies to produce and validate diverse types of knowledge with ICTs; and

• Recommendation of methodologies to develop educational programs and teaching materials to interest girls in S&T, especially ICTs, from an early age.

• The annual report of the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa (UNESCO-ROEA 1996) and UNESCO's (1996) Statistical Directory;

• A report of the Senegalese Delegation for Scientific and Technical Affairs (DSTA) on the S&T potential of Senegal;

• A questionnaire survey (see Annex 1), based on a sample of 100 people (52 women and 48 men), all Senegalese, with levels of education varying from primary to postgraduate (it should be emphasized that, in the view of the researcher, the men based their responses on the impact they thought they would have, as fathers, on girls' education and choice of jobs); and

• Personal experiences of women who were highly educated professionals and occupied senior positions.

To encourage women to take an interest in ICTs, it is important to attract them by addressing their needs. We therefore need to identify their specific needs in their sociocultural environment and respond to these needs through educational programs, textbooks, computer teaching programs, games, etc.

Sociocultural environment

Although women generally cannot avoid being agents of socioeconomic development, their needs are different from men's. As a result of their roles as mothers, educationalists, and custodians of family values (especially in African society), women generally focus on concrete issues in their daily lives. Their concerns are management of the home and the education of children; at the same time, they are constantly contributing to the development of society in general. The major objective of the socioeconomic activities of a country is the well-being of its people, and women as much as men are actors in this endeavour.

My personal experience and the experience of many women of my generation and level of education provide patent examples. We are female engineers, architects, economists, doctors, police officers, teachers, researchers, etc. We are all senior people in the professional world, but we each have our own households, husbands, and children. As senior professional women, we accomplish our duties appropriately, find personal satisfaction in doing our jobs, and enjoy the respect of our colleagues. We have the same attitude in meeting family responsibilities, which keeps us always occupied in doing something. One thing is certain: women in this position have an incredible capacity for accumulating duties and, what is more, managing to perform them marvellously well. The results of the survey conducted to study women's needs in life in general bring out the same preoccupations, such as aesthetic and functional management of the home, children's education, and personal development through sport, reading, conversation, and parlour games (Scrabble, chess, cards, etc.).

Statistics show that in educational institutions, women are registered in less-technical departments and often become teachers or health professionals. Perhaps they feel predisposed to these disciplines by their role as educationalists and dedicated helpers. Or they may feel that teaching gives them more free time to attend to their primary occupation or that practicing as health professionals outside their homes enables them to assist needy people.

The UNESCO-ROEA (1996) report indicated that, in Senegal, only 34% of those enrolled in technical and professional education were women, about half the number of men. A close scrutiny of the UNESCO (1996) Statistical Directory on S&T potential provided no specific statistics on the number of women working in S&T in Africa because three-quarters of African countries (among them Senegal) hardly gave any data on women in the section on the "Number of Scientists, Engineers and Technicians Employed in Research and Experimental Development, with the Corresponding Number of Women." An indication of how much smaller the women's presence is can be seen in the two categories targeted: the women constituted slightly more than 15% of engineering scientists and 21% of technicians (UNESCO 1996). The DSTA's 1994 pilot project on S&T potential involved 216 Senegalese S&T workers and indicated that women constituted only 14% of this group.

Does the physical condition of women, especially those of child-bearing age, constitute a handicap in certain activities? The reply to this question is "no," as all depends, according to the informants, on a woman's will to succeed in a given activity, whether technical, sporting, or purely intellectual. Paradoxically, the survey conducted at the end of December 1997 revealed that 31% of the people interviewed thought for the same reasons that women should take up teaching or work in the health profession. Only 43% would have liked them to undertake studies in technology, especially in computers, which they considered a profession of the future (indicating a real awareness of technical matters in general).

Why then are more women not involved in technical studies? Why don't they use new technologies, especially ICTs, as much as men do? The sociocultural framework has confined the African woman to her role of housewife, and the teaching programs, tools, and methods for children's education in general and those for girls in particular are also greatly responsible for the underrepresentation of women in the S&T branches of study.

Educational programs

The teaching instruments we use at schools contribute to confining women and men to certain distinct roles. The same sociocultural values prevail in the books and scholarly manuals, defining and separating male and female roles from an early age. Even the books and manuals we receive from the West follow the same patterns. For instance, the English textbook we used presented “mummy” as the guardian angel who should take care of everybody in the household.

Examples used in ordinary books and generally in S&T workbooks rarely depict the surroundings in which women evolve or apply to their usual activities. One example of this is the 1993 textbook, Practical Training Technological Education Teachers Book: Stages 2 and 3, of the Senegalese National Institute for Study and Action for the Development of Education (NISADE). Of its 11 modules, only 6 contain examples of women’s activities, and these concern agriculture (watering), painting (dyeing), livestock rearing (caring for and selling chickens), health (housecleaning, cooking, washing), use of electricity (maintaining a gas cooker, making a Ban ak suuf cooker from granite and sand), and provision of water. Examples for boys appear in 11 modules, and 5 of these modules are exclusively meant for them. These are the modules on mechanics, carpentry, masonry, fishing, and management. Out of the 167 illustrations, only 20 depict girls. Yet, NISADE is the body that attaches maximum importance to gender equity in the development of educational syllabuses in Senegal. Indeed, it has made considerable efforts. But one feels that the gender division of labour and the depiction of the respective needs of girls and boys derive from the heritage of our sociocultural values.

With the advent of ICTs, the new educational tools based on these show the same pattern, as they are principally conceived by men, who only perpetuate what they have learned. Even for amusement, they create the violent electronic games they enjoy, which women in general fail to appreciate. Yet, games are methods of cognitive development that women also need for their training.

Women are therefore left out of the circuit, although they are always interested in methods and means to improve their society through management of the immediate environment. Yet, the principal objectives of S&T are family well-being, a more convivial society, ease in meeting one’s needs, and continuous improvement in the quality of life. Who better than women can contribute to this enterprise? Women need to be involved in developing curriculums and textbooks and in high-level decision-making.

The next section provides, for the purposes of discussion, a number of ideas and suggestions for having all areas of education consider women without prejudice.
 

How do we encourage women to be more involved in the world of the new ICTs?

The following are proposed ideas, methodologies, and means of encouraging women to be more involved in the production, use, and management of ICTs. These are arranged in stages of implementation.
 

Validation of know-how; potential application of ICTs and preparation of
data specific to the information needs of diverse groups of women

A campaign on the Internet might call for potential actors to engage in this project. This would lead to the creation of sites and electronic reservoirs with specific information on given subjects. Women would contribute effectively to these sites.

Historically, women have an important heritage. Among the numerous Senegalese heroes are many women who have played important roles in the history of the country, such as Yacine Boubou of Cayor, Alioune Sitoe Diatta of Casamance, Ndiémbett Mbodj and the women of Nder du Oualo, and Mame Diara Bousso of Saloum. We can make important use of these women’s stories to promote the values they exemplify.

One of the greatest needs of women is the continual nutrition of children, right from birth. Internet sites should be used to disseminate new recipes for children’s nutrition, with variations based on locally available products. The research findings of the Institute of Food Technology would be an important contribution.

In the medical field, rural women have special knowledge of plants and other substance for treatment of sterility, vaginal infections, ulcers, diabetes, rheumatism, mental diseases, etc., and modern researchers are studying this knowledge with a view to making it more widely available. Dr Gbodouso, for example, runs the PROMETRA project of the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Medicines, within the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technology of Senegal. Dr Gbodouso is working with the women of Fatick (the saltigués) and the women of Rufisque for the cure of mental illnesses. Women’s special knowledge in this area should be in a database accessible to other people in the world. Black Americans are studying and using the saltigués findings.

Women like to talk about their interests, exchange ideas, and, more still, help and participate. A site for meetings and the exchange of confidences should be created to enable women to communicate among themselves. Certainly, such communication would be easier at the local level, using national languages. However, for communication between regions with different languages, one should think of having accompanying measures and technical means to enable simultaneous translation.

To produce and validate various types of knowledge, one needs to create and tap Internet sites. Once the contents have been identified for sites on African history, fashion (tailoring, hairdressing, etc.), eating habits, traditional medicine, hobbies (music, dance, etc.), art (goldsmith’s trade, painting, dyeing, pottery, weaving), etc., their installation would require the following steps:

• Data collection from recorded interviews (sound), photography, film, documentary research, cassette or CD music, etc.;

• Selection of programs and materials to capture, store, and process data to be put on the Internet:

• Materials for collection of diverse types of data (video cameras, tape recorders, cameras),
• Database-management programs for processing all types of data (text, sound, video, image, graphic, and spatial) and for accessing them through the Internet,
• Computer materials to capture, store, and process data (one would need a powerful multimedia computer equipped with connection devices for peripherals to process all these types of data — at least two large-capacity hard disks [the second being a security backup], a photo scanner, videocassette player, audiocassette player, CD ROM player, etc., and, especially, a high central-memory capacity), and
• A modem and a telephone line;
• Capture of data by computer;

• Data validation, with the involvement of the authors;

• Thematic-data processing, by sectors of activity;

• Development of web pages; and

• Installation of the web pages on the Internet through an Internet access server.

Once the site is operational, it needs to be publicized through the media. Women should also update the information (additions, modifications, elimination of obsolete data), and for this, they need the capacity to produce, use, and manage ICTs.

Identification of capacities needed to produce, use, and manage ICTs

Production of ICTs — The producer of ICTs should have the necessary training, that of a high-level technician (engineer) in computer technology or telecommunications. The future producer must, therefore, from the onset of his or her training, master the scientific concepts needed for this profession, at whatever level the preparation starts. Higher education may be unnecessary for first-level technicians, who mount and maintain equipment. Therefore, young girls and women with a secondary education can easily enter training programs for first-level technicians. Preuniversity or university training, preferably in the sciences, is a prerequisite for higher level technicians and engineers.

To be involved in the production of ICTs, women would also need to meet professional requirements, that is, possess the required training. Yet, it has been remarked that women are a minority in the S&T branches at all levels. Thus, we will need other ways and means for training and interesting them in the sciences.

Use of ICTs — Anyone literate can use ICTs. In fact, illiterate people can use voice commands to operate highly developed ICTs. Therefore, no barrier impedes women’s use of ICTs other than a lack of interest or sensitization due to the impact of the sociocultural environment on their activities. We need to tackle this problem at the root, meaning that at an early age children should see behavioural changes in their educators (parents and teachers), and even then new teaching methods and tools (books, manuals, computer tools, television, etc.) are a must.

Management of ICTs — The profile of the ICT manager corresponds exactly to that of the producer of these technologies at the various management levels. His or her work involves managing a whole information network, allowing or blocking access to certain users. She or he updates (creates, adds, modifies, eliminates) information to be communicated. Because ICT management is subtended by the latest computer programs, the ICT manager must possess the basic notions of these programs. The ICT manager should ensure that no blockage of the information system arises from material defects or computer program errors. The ICT manager should be a senior technician with a good mastery of computers. Here, too, women need to have the same profiles as men to carry out these tasks.

What is the secret of the women already working with ICTs in Senegal?

One way to encourage women to be more interested in S&T training would be to show them examples of women in the world of ICTs. Talks with women, as well as the findings of the survey, revealed the following success factors:

• Personal determination (women with an interest in ICTs all affirmed their determination to succeed in this field);

• Aspiration to a better life, as ICTs are a field in which workers are generally well paid;

• The desire to prove that women can be just as effective as men in this area;

• The influence of the environment from an early age, either by parents working in the ICT field or by a technologically well-equipped learning environment; and

• Admiration for women who have succeeded in the ICT field in other countries, as seen in the media.

Preparation of methodologies and training materials that encourage women

Attitudes are changing, thanks to information circulated by the media (radio, television) on the advantages of training for women. Girls’ literacy and schooling programs have also greatly contributed to these changes. Such information or sensitization should be beefed up to reach the remotest zones, especially the rural areas. The best methods for doing this would involve the people themselves in the information, sensitization, and training activities.

School heads in the rural areas can encourage awareness among pupils’ mothers. For example, in a predominantly rural Senegalese region (Diourbel), the headmistress of a primary school brought together the mothers of the pupils to discuss the school’s daily problems. She managed to convince the mothers to undertake tailoring, dyeing, and similar activities to meet the school’s needs. In this manner, she made them more interested in their children’s schooling. If the aim of this headmistress had been to involve mothers in developing the syllabus for practical work and textbooks to attract girls to technical training, she would have certainly achieved her objective.

The best way to develop methodologies and training materials more encouraging to women would be to start with the biggest possible information campaign to sensitize women to the jobs in the ICT industry that are within their reach. The potential actors (educators, journalists, technicians, parents) should form committees to reflect on topics, images, and slogans to be broadcast through the media with the support of radio and television companies. Intellectual and nonintellectual women and youth should play an important role in this campaign. The youth would be the most effective agents for determining the centres of interest and the instruments for training in the use and mastery of ICTs.

Educational planners should tame computers and multimedia for use as early as primary school, by emphasizing their suitability for educational projects and providing systematic training for teachers. As financial constraints would prevent the equipping of every school, clubs grouping schools could be attached to a centre well equipped in material (ICTs) and human resources. Well-equipped socioeducative centres might further facilitate young women’s access to ICTs.

Educators should make a greater effort to ensure that school teaching materials suggest other socioprofessional activities to girls, in addition to those usually reserved for them. For instance, girls are attracted to reading, tailoring, music, and meetings at family ceremonies. Today, it is perfectly possible to think of electronic games for girls preparing to study design, drafting, creation of abstract microworlds (virtual learning environments) based on family life or show business, recipes designed to teach quantification, etc. These materials would enable girls to develop their individual initiative and creativity.

One needs also to think of texts on women’s emancipation and of women’s role in creating ICT learning. Books and science textbooks should also use examples drawn from women’s usual activities to make the lessons more attractive, more familiar, to girls. These methods would interest them in the S&T disciplines and prepare them for training in the production and management of ICTs.

On the issue of teaching materials (books, textbooks, educational computer programs), the findings of the survey decry the high costs and unsuitability of a good number of these, given African countries’ purchasing power and sociocultural preoccupations. Africans are consumers, rather than producers, of the new tools (especially educational computer programs), which we get from the West. Another problem is that educational programs change too frequently.

As in the areas of training and employment of women in ICTs, the involvement of the private sector may also be of great benefit in the area of teaching materials.

Perspectives on mechanisms and methodologies for involving the
private sector in making ICTs available

The private sector can be involved at several levels is making ICTs available:

• Production of ICTs — As African countries have no computer industry to produce machines and accessories for ICTs, they can only import them, which considerably increases the costs of access to ICTs. Private-sector investment in this area (even if it is only in assembling electronic components for mounting machines) would contribute greatly to African women’s access to ICTs and reduce the purchase and maintenance costs of material. In assembly factories, the finesse of women’s fingers has proven a major asset in handling small, fragile electronic components. If well trained, therefore, women can be effective technicians.

• Production of teaching materials — Having local companies produce educational materials and ICT appropriation instruments would reduce costs. Local human resources are also often sufficient to prepare textbooks and teaching instruments. Having local companies produce these educational materials and instruments would also be very beneficial because it would, in addition to reducing costs, create jobs for youth in a technical area. We should facilitate validation of the contents of these materials through interaction with local communities (where a large proportion of women are sensitized). Feedback and corrections of manuals and instruments would also occur almost immediately, owing to the participatory approach and the proximity of producers and users.

• Training — The private sector can partially support ICT training institutions. Private-sector firms can pay these institutions to train and retrain their personnel. Within the framework of these training sessions, a quota⁵ should be allocated to women working in the private sector, to enhance their competence in ICTs. It would be necessary to further encourage women to undergo this training by attaching special benefits to it, like more responsibilities, productivity allowances, excellence prizes, etc. Telecommunications companies should accord preferential rates to educational centres using ICTs and making a special effort to recruit women. Telecommunications companies can also facilitate access to ICTs in homes (reduce purchase costs; develop a subscriber system that would enable the use of ICTs at low maintenance costs or that would avoid the precariousness of equipment, given the lightning evolution of technology).

• Popularization of teaching materials — The private sector, especially publishers, could develop online guides for youth by selecting the best educational sites, classified according to women’s interest centres. Private-sector firms can contribute to the widest possible diffusion of ICTs among formal and nonformal educational institutions (schools, universities, training centres, clubs, socioeducational centres) by giving them favourable terms on their purchases or by donating equipment to them.

• Employment — Women trained in ICTs should be well received in the private sector, and efforts should be made to discourage the prejudices that make private-sector firms prefer hiring men. The private sector should make practicums available to women in the last stages of training. Women employed in the production of teaching units should also be involved in developing educational materials and instruments for ICT appropriation.

Conclusions

All these changes in behaviour and educational methodology are needed to make girls more interested in S&T studies in general and in the new ICTs in particular, and they cannot become a concrete reality without the goodwill of the state to support efforts of researchers and educationalists in their private and concerted initiatives. Nevertheless, state decisions should emanate from the wishes of the population for a better life. It is therefore up to researchers, educationalists, individuals, and organizations to mobilize themselves, sensitize other actors, and gain the support of the private sector and R&D aid institutions around the world.

The media to be used to sensitize people in the remotest parts of the country are definitely radio, television, and meetings, with effective participation of the youth in preparing the content and broadcasting the messages. Youth should be involved at the concept stage in the creation of stimulating games and examples of practical work themes to encourage girls to undertake technical training.

Decentralized communities may provide favourable frameworks to prepare information and sensitization and training methods and to create Internet sites for women’s groups. Such sites are becoming more and more numerous in the region with the advent of the Economic Interest Groups (EIGs). These are private initiatives with the status of limited corporations. They work to make a profit and pay taxes, but they pay less than a normal corporation. Women’s groups are considered EIGs. In Senegal, the state is already promoting women’s private initiatives through the EIGs, and each year the head of state gives a prize to the one that has obtained the best socioeconomic-development results for its members and local area.

The production and validation of diverse types of knowledge should be based on decentralized communities in each region. Each community might create its information network from women’s groups. These EIGs (the women’s groups) would provide a database, using the findings of their studies to feed the information network in return. The communities would be interconnected. This means that the EIGs from the same community would be able to communicate among themselves as well as with EIGs from another regional community or even another country, once the communication problems are resolved through the promotion of national languages.

To solve the communication problems related to the myriad of national languages in Africa, female intellectuals might translate works between local languages or between local and foreign languages. Oral traditions can be advantageously exploited using ICTs, thanks to the advent of multimedia, which permit the association of sounds (speech, music) with images. Although this method is at the forefront of current technology, it can serve as a soft transition for Africans, especially in the rural and peri-urban areas, where many people are illiterate. The expansion of ICTs in workplaces, educational establishments, hotels, exhibition centres, conference halls, and homes is becoming more and more impressive. It is enabling women, especially those who work in administration, to operate in highly technological environments and more easily master ICTs.

The survey indicated a change in attitudes concerning women’s professions. Despite statistics placing women far behind in S&T, one can be optimistic about the effective involvement of women in ICTs in the future.

References

APC (Association for Progressive Communications). 1999. APC Women’s Networking Support Programme. APC, San Francisco, CA, USA. Internet: www.gn.apc.org/apcwomen/

Appleton, H.; Fernandez, M.E.; Hill, C.L.M.; Quiroz, C. 1995. Claiming and using indigenous knowledge. In United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group, ed., Missing links: gender equity in science and technology for development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. pp. 55–83.

Babb, S.; Skinner, K. 1997. End user computing. Paper presented at the Information Technology National Qualifications Forum, 11–12 Nov 1997. Internet: www. wn.apc.org/nitf/ws971112.htm

Braman, S. 1997. ICT education in the information society. Paper presented at the Information Technology National Qualifications Forum, 11–12 Nov 1997. Internet: www.wn.apc.org/nitf/ws971112.htm

Burch, S. 1997. Latin American women take on the Internet. Internet: www.connected.org/ women

Ekong, D.; Cloete, N. 1997. Curriculum responses to a changing national and global environment in an African context. In Knowledge, identity and curriculum transformation in Africa. Maskew, Miller and Longman, Cape Town, South Africa. pp. 3–17.

EOGS (Equal Opportunities Gender Strategies). 1996. Staff handbook. Internet: www. rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/sites/trinity/gender.html

Huyer, S. 1997. Supporting women’s use of information technologies for sustainable development. Women in Global Science and Technology, Grafton, ON, Canada. Internet: www.wigsat.org/it/womnicts.html

IDRC (International Development Research Centre). 1997. Private sector learning centre partnerships. IDRC, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Internet: web.idrc.ca/acacia/outputs/op-selc.htm

IDRC–GIWG (International Development Research Centre Gender and Information Working Group). 1995. Information as a transformative tool: the gender dimension. In United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group, ed., Missing links: gender equity in science and technology for development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. pp. 267–295.

Jensen, M. 1996. Bridging the gaps in Internet development in Africa. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Internet: web.idrc.ca/acacia/studies/ ir-gaps.htm

Kettel, B. 1995. Key paths for science and technology: on the road to environmentally sustainable and equitable development. In United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group, ed., Missing links: gender equity in science and technology for development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. pp. 27–55.

Kularatne, E. 1997. Information needs and information provision in developing countries. Information Development, 13(3), 117–121.

Lenox, M.F.; Walker, M.L. 1993. Information literacy in the educational process. The Educational Forum, 57(3), 312–324.

Lipani, B. 1996. Changing the learning culture. Sunrise Research Laboratory, Melbourne, Australia. Internet: www.srl.rmit.edu.au/mindware/learning/acea1996.htm

Marcelle, G. 1997. Using information technology to strengthen African women’s organisations. Abantu Publications, London, UK.

NRC (National Research Council). 1996. Pacific island knowledge assessment. TechNet, World Bank, Washington, DC, USA. Internet: www.vita.org/technet/kajsum.htm

Rathgeber, E. 1995. Schooling for what? Education and career opportunities for women in science, technology and engineering. In United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group, ed., Missing links: gender equity in science and technology for development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. pp. 181–201.

Sayed, Y.; Karelse, C-M. 1997. The segregated information highway: an assessment of information literacy in higher education. INFOLIT, Cape Town, South Africa.

UNCSTD–GWG (United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group). 1995. Taking action: conclusions and recommendations of the Gender Working Group. In United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development Gender Working Group, ed., Missing links: gender equity in science and technology for development. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada. pp. 1–27.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). 1996. Statistical directory. UNESCO, New York, NY, USA.

——— 1997. Gender sensitive educational statistics and indicators. UNESCO, New York, NY, USA. Internet: unescostat.unesco.org/publications/public.asp

UNESCO–ROEA (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Regional Office for Education in Africa). 1996. Development of technical and professional education in Africa. UNESCO, Paris, France.

Wolpe, A. 1988. Within school walls: the role of discipline, sexuality and the curriculum. Routledge, London, UK.

Wolpe, A.; Quinlan, O.; Martinez, L. 1997. Gender equity in education. Department of Education, Pretoria, South Africa.

WTC (World Trade Conference). 1997. Paper presented at AFCOM ’97: 6th Annual Conference on African Telecommunications, Informatics, and Broadcasting, 19–23 May 1997, Mbabane, Swaziland. AFCOM International Inc., Fairfax, VA, USA.

Annex 1: Detailed description of the survey and summary interpretation

The questionnaire
 

TOWN: SEX: PROFESSION: LEVEL OF EDUCATION: STATUS: Single — Married — Widow — Divorced                      (circle as appropriate) NUMBER OF CHILDREN: What are your different favourite games? What are your main preferred extraprofessional activities? Are you a little or very interested in technical sectors, such as Computers Mechanics Telecommunications Maintenance Surgery Aviation Others What essential criteria push you to make this choice? Do you know the Internet? Have you heard about it? What is its usefulness? Is gender distinction important for exercising certain professions, especially technical ones? If you had a daughter, which profession would you like her to exercise later? Give your reasons. What do you think of the current teaching materials: Books Manuals Computer programs What improvements would you suggest to attract more girls?

Identification

The sample for the survey was drawn basically from the Dakar region of Senegal (Dakar, Pikine, Rufisque). The 100 participants (52 women, 48 men) came from numerous, diverse socioprofessional backgrounds, which can be classified in the following 10 categories:

• Building and civil engineering
• Education
• Health
• Artisanry
• Forestry
• Telecommunication computers
• S&T research
• Commerce and industry
• Business management
• Others

The analysis of this sample revealed levels of education ranging from primary to postgraduate studies for the two sexes combined. Finally, the analysis showed that the marital status of the respondents was single, divorced, or married. This information served as a guide for interpreting the responses to the questionnaire.

The questionnaire findings

Preferred games

The majority of respondents declared that parlour games, sports, and dance were their favourite pastimes, as revealed by the following results:
 

Another section of the sample — 7% of the women and 12% of the men — seemed not to be interested in any amusement.

Preferred extraprofessional activities

Two types of responses emerged for the question on extraprofessional activities: some respondents did and others did not engage in such activities. In the first category of response, 25 extraprofessional activities emerged. Reading dominated for 39% of the women and 21% of the men, along with housework for 29% of the women exclusively.

Interest in ICTs or another technical sector

Women were very interested in aviation (32%), telecommunication computers (29%), mechanics (18%), and computers (11%), etc. In contrast, men came out massively in favour of computers (94%), telecommunications (61%), mechanics (45%), and maintenance (39%), etc.

Essential criteria for choosing this technical sector

Criteria for citing a particular technical sector in the previous question varied according to the respondent’s socioprofessional profile. Analysis of the reasons given by the majority of the respondents for their choice of sector revealed that 82% of the women and 88% of the men were interested in technological matters, especially ICTs. The most relevant and most cited criteria among the two sexes can be summarized as follows:

• Compatibility of these technologies with the profession exercised (for people employed) or with a future profession (for those in training);

• Pronounced impact of these sectors on contemporary world development but also, and especially, on the third millennium, with the Internet emerging as a modern communication tool to be well mastered by all; and

• Personal passion for a given technical sector.

The Internet and its impact

The survey revealed that women did not want to be outdone in the use of the new ICTs, including the Internet. The three questions about the Internet received the following responses: of the women interviewed, 36% knew the Internet, 86% had heard of it, and 68% knew of its usefulness; of the men interviewed, 61% knew the Internet, 79% declared having heard of it, and 85% knew of its usefulness.

The importance of gender to the performance of a technical job

Four types of trends emerged from the responses to the question concerning the importance of gender to the performance of a technical job. Principally, women and men did not subordinate job performance to gender considerations, even for technical jobs. Thus, 79% of the women and 73% of the men thought that jobs were “unisex” and that only competence should prevail. Nevertheless, 11% of the women interviewed still considered gender important to the performance of a given job.

Choice of a job for a daughter

Four types of response also emerged in reply to the question concerning the choice of a job for a daughter. Both the women and the men affirmed the right of parents to look into this matter: 64% of the women and 55% of the men said they would like to choose their daughter’s future job. Proportions of women and men who were proponents of free choice were more or less equal: 29% of the women and 27% of the men. All of these respondents declared that the choice of profession should be left to the girl, as this would be the only guarantee of success.

Among the proponents of “choosing the daughter’s job,” parents seemed to have an interest in the following sectors:

• Computers (chosen by 14% of the women and 18% of the men);

• Medicine and telecommunications (chosen by 11% of the women); and

• Maintenance chosen by 12% of the men.

Teaching materials (books, scholarly manuals, computer programs)

The analysis of responses to the question on teaching materials revealed two types of result:

• Some gave no opinion (18% of the women and 3% of the men); and

• Others gave opinions on teaching materials in use, and their evaluation criteria were basically as follows:

• High cost or rarity of teaching materials, cited by 24% of the women and 43% of the men,
• Complementarity of teaching materials (books, text books, computer programs), cited by 5% of the women and 17% of the men,
• Inappropriateness of the content of teaching materials, given the sociological realities of the environment, cited by 13% of the women and 63% of the men, and
• Usefulness of teaching materials for all curricular or extracurricular learning, or both, cited by 63% of the women and 49% of the men.

Suggestions for improving girls’ access to S&T training

Although some of the participants (26% of the women and 26% of the men) offered no suggestions for improving girls’ access to S&T training, the majority gave a number of suggestions, which can be summarized basically as follows:

• Providing information to the girls and their families or closely sensitizing them (45% of the women and 37% of the men);

• Breaking sociological taboos and giving girls confidence (16% of the women and 34% of the men);

• Increasing or diversifying short-term professional courses (13% of the women and 17% of the men);

• Reaffirming political goodwill in directing girls to technical and professional training (13% of the women and 23% of the men); and

• Making teaching materials more accessible and reducing the training costs for economically weaker target groups (11% of the women and 14% of the men).

¹ The author of part 1 is Cathy-Mae Karelse. Return

² Ramphele, M. 1995. Submission to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of a Commission on Gender Equity. National Assembly, South Africa. Unpublished address. Return

³ SANGONeT. 1996. Empowering women in the information society: building a women’s information and communication network for South Africa on SANGONeT. SANGONeT, Pretoria, South Africa. Unpublished. Return

⁴ The author of part 2 is Fatimata Seye Sylla. Return

⁵ In terms of the number of women to be trained in each session. Return

Document(s) 8 of 12