Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) run the risk of cutting women off from policy-making debates. Lack of literacy and mobility in male-dominated societies already constrain women’s opportunities to be heard. At a time when it is widely recognised that promoting women’s involvement in policies is crucial for reducing poverty, resource-poor women risk being further marginalised by their lack of access to ICTs. Women’s abilities to communicate their perspectives and concerns can be strengthened if the skills and opportunities to utilise ICTs are made more accessible to them.

The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) coordinated an international project, ‘Women's Voices’, aimed at enhancing the communication skills of poor urban women in developing countries. The women received training in video production and used new abilities in scripting, shooting and editing to highlight circumstances of degraded infrastructure, violence and alcohol, unemployment, HIV/AIDS, the plight of the elderly, and the lack of sanitation and transportation services in their neighbourhoods.

In Kenya and Zimbabwe, the women were able to utilise their knowledge to reach and influence those who had the power to affect their lives. The groups included women of Redeemed Village, one of Nairobi’s worst slums, and a group of vegetable traders who had been forcibly evicted from central Harare to the city’s outskirts in the early 1990s. The women faced regular harassment from authorities, poor water supplies and their slums regularly flooded with sewage. As a result of the project, these women’s groups were able to highlight their situation to Nairobi’s municipal authorities, Kenyan TV viewers and – after winning a prestigious prize – to an international audience. Making a film about their lives inspired women in Zimbabwe to stand up and tell politicians and housing department officials their opinions and demand change.

As a result of the scheme:

• The women have a new direct and more mutually respectful relationship with decision-makers and the media.
• The issue of access to and control over land – at the heart of many urban problems – has been highlighted.
• The relationship between the women and the team still thrives: the women now work as consultants for ITDG and other organisations in their work in the slum areas.
• The vegetable sellers have been promised new land, with improved conditions, on the other side of Harare.

Making modern ICTs accessible to women is a useful empowerment strategy and is vital if the new technology is not to compound existing injustices. Democracy depends on representation and on being heard. It is therefore important that poor women are enabled to overcome the cultural and gender barriers to their use of the technology, which deny them the chance to get their views across.

Source(s):
‘Would ICTs constrain or empower poor urban women?’ by Maggie Foster, Spring 2002

Funded by: DFID (IUDD R7840)

id21 Research Highlight: 19 May 2004

Further Information:
Maggie Foster and Catherine Njuguna
Women’s Voices
Intermediate Technology Development Group
The Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development
Bourton Hall
Bourton-on-Dunsmore
Rugby
CV23 9QZ
UK

Tel: 44(0)1926 634 494
Fax: 44(0)1926 634405
Contact the contributor: maggief@itdg.org.uk

Contact the contributor: catherinen@itdg.or.ke

Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), UK

Other related links:
'ICT revolution: creating a southern info-underclass?'

'Reading between the lines: why literacy for women?'

'Cutting through the techno-hype: new technologies and education'

'Are ICTs contributing to women's empowerment in Central and Eastern Europe?'

Women and ICTs Project: Economic Empowerment of Women through ICTs

'Women’sNet: Using ICTs for the empowerment of Women'