UNESCO – WebWorld – Communication & Information Observatory Portal – WOMEN

Cet ouvrage publié par ENDA,
présente les résultats d’une recherche menée pendant près de
deux ans dans six pays (Bénin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Mali,
Mauritanie et Sénégal), avec l’appui du Centre de Recherches
pour le Développement International (Canada). Les résultats
de recherche attestent que les femmes ont globalement un
tiers de chance en moins que les hommes de bénéficier des
avantages de la société de l’information en Afrique
francophone.

This study examines the role of
nontraditional educational pathways in preparing women and
underrepresented minorities for the information technology
(IT) workforce. It was produced by the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Commission on
Professionals in Science and Technology.

Le projet ADA (du nom d’Ada
Lovelace, première femme programmeuse en informatique) vise
la création d’un réseau d’échange, de réflexion et d’action
sur le thème des femmes et des NTIC.

APC-Africa-Women is a network of
organisations and individuals working to empower African
women’s organisations to access and use ICTs for women’s
empowerment. APC-Africa-Women is the regional network of the
Association for Progressive Communications Women’s
Networking Support Programme.

The Center for Women and
Information Technology (CWIT), established at the University
of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in July 1998, is
dedicated to providing global leadership in achieving
women’s full participation in all aspects of information
technology (IT). The Center’s award-winning web site
provides women-related resources in many fields.

Computers for Africa is a
non-profit organization which has for a mission to reduce
social disparities in Africa by helping bridge the digital
divide. Its goal is to mobilize North America’s surplus
technology to equip organizations that serve the
underprivileged of Africa. CFA refurbishes used computers,
networks them, and ships ready-to-set-up labs to non-profit
organizations in Africa. CFA focuses on the most
disadvantaged groups, generally youth and women.

Datamation Foundation is a
nonprofit organization devoted to creating employment
opportunities, ending hunger and extreme poverty, achieving
universal primary education, improving public health,
ensuring environmental sustainability and promoting gender
equality in economically disadvantaged rural India through
ICT solutions such as, Community Multi-Media Centers (CMCs)
and Information Kiosks (IKs).

This strategy of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has the goal to
assist developing countries in harnessing the potentials of
ICT to contribute towards reducing the social divide,
improving the quality life, promoting universal access and
facilitating entry into the information society. In all
actions, take into account the needs of rural, isolated and
poorly served areas and people with special needs (Gender,
Youths and Indigenous People).

eHomemakers.net is a Malaysian
Mothers for Mothers network. Among its aims: (i)to use ICT
to build cyber communities and networking opportunities for
homeworkers and teleworkers; (ii) to educate women to excel
in areas in which they are skilled through the use of ICT,
and (iii) to encourage women to establish home-based
entrepreneurship by providing information on
decision-making, starting out and maintaining home based
income-generating solutions.

eLIT’s mission is to provide
access to information and tools of economic independence to
socially and economically disadvantaged women and children
worldwide. eLIT believes that access to and proficiency in
computer skills can unlock educational and economic
opportunities for women and help create significantly
brighter future for their children.

Famafrique est un espace de
communication et d’information pour les femmes d’Afrique
francophone qui agissent pour la promotion du développement
durable, l’égalité de genres et la paix. Ce site a été créé
dans le cadre du projet “Inforoutes au féminin pour
l’Afrique francophone”. Il vise à renforcer la visibilité et
les capacités d’action des organisations de femmes de la
sous région et à assurer que les contributions et les
principales informations utiles aux femmes du monde
francophone, notamment en Afrique, soient disponibles en
français sur Internet.

Founded in 1996, the Fantsuam
Foundation is a non profit organization aimed at pioneering
gender- and youth-focused micro finance and ICT services,
and promoting development in rural communities of Nigeria.

Overview report by Anita
Gurumurthy (PDF) New technologies in the information and
communications arena, especially the Internet, have been
seen as ushering in a new age. The dramatic positive changes
brought in by these information and communication
technologies (ICTs), however, have not touched all of
humanity. Existing power relations in society determine the
enjoyment of benefits from ICTs; hence these technologies
are not gender neutral. The important questions are: who
benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is
it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of
equality and justice? Central to these is the issue of
gender and women’s equal right to access, use and shape
ICTs.

Projet pour l’égalité des
chances, Interface3 vise à lutter contre la qualification
inadaptée de nombreuses femmes dans la nouvelle économie,
notamment en leur proposant des formations qui leur ouvrent
l’accès aux NTIC.

IWTC is an international
non-governmental organization established in l976. IWTC
provides communication, information, education, and
organizing support services to women’s organizations and
community groups working to improve the lives of low-income
women, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin
America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Western
Asia.

Research paper by Sophia
Huyerand Tatjana Sikoska. The continuous develompent of new
technologies and their application to economic, political
and social processes is creating new opportunities that
could enhance the equlity of human life. New types of
economic and employment opportunities i.e., e-commerce; new
types of education modalities, such as distance learning and
on-line training; possibilites to access institutions of
governance using on-line access to information; are just few
of the opportunities emerging as a result of the use and
application of ICTs in development.

For a long time there has been a
concern that women are excluded from computers and thus from
the information society. Still, women are relatively absent
from computer science and the design of ICT products. This
website provides the results of a major European project
conducted during 2000-3 that analysed 30 such initiatives
and related processes of inclusion.

The UK Resource Centre for Women
in Science, Engineering and Technology is an innovative
centre set up to complement the Government’s 10 year
investment framework for Science and Innovation. It is the
mission of the UKRC to establish a dynamic centre that
provides accessible, high quality information and advisory
services to industry, academia, professional institutes,
education and Research Councils within the SET and built
environment professions, whilst supporting women entering
and progressing in SET careers.

Women’s Voices is part of the
international Women’s Information and Communications
Technology (WICT) project which works with poor urban women
in Kenya, Peru and Zimbabwe by supporting their existing
communication skills. The women in each country received
brief training in video use before taking control in using
it to reach, inform and influence those who have the power
to affect their lives.

A portal giving links to
(Spanish) websites about Information Society, women and
gender questions.

The “Women give new Impetus to
Technology” association is responsible for carrying out the
“Women in the Information Society and in Technology” Centre
of Excellence. The Centre ties together nation-wide equal
opportunity measures in the fields of education, training,
occupations, science and research. It aims to continually
raise the percentage of women in IT occupations, engineering
sciences and informatics.

WOUGNET’s is an NGO created in
2000 by several women’s organisations in Uganda. Its mission
is to promote and support the use of ICTs by women in
Uganda, so that they can take advantage of the opportunities
presented by ICTs in order to effectively address national
and local problems of sustainable development.

www.witt-project.net is a
website providing strategic ICT information to all, and
supporting, in a collective way, Central and Eastern
European women in developing the web as an instrument in
their social activism.

Women’sNet is a vibrant and
innovative networking support program designed to enable
South African women to use the Internet to find the people,
issues, resources and tools needed for women’s social
activism. It is also a dynamic source of locally generated
information and discussion on gender issues.

WNSP is a global network of
women who support women networking for social change and
women’s empowerment, through the use of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT). WNSP promotes gender
equality in the design, development, implementation, access
to and use of ICT and in the policy decisions and frameworks
that regulate them. WNSP is a part of the Association for
Progressive Communications (ASP), an international network
of civil society organizations.