Gender in telecommunications technology

Telecommunications technology has the potential to alter quality of life, enabling people to access information, share knowledge and communicate without borders. Unfortunately, the benefits of telecommunications technology easily miss those without power and privilege; barriers often arise between richer and poorer countries as well as between elite and non-elite people within countries. Women in particular, are consistently and continually excluded. In this article, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations University for New Technologies (UNU/INTECH) highlight some of the reasons why gender should be considered explicitly in the formation of telecommunication development and policy.

Due to limited mobility, double workload, and lower educational levels, women are traditionally not the first to gain access to, use and experiment with available technologies. Neither are they the primary beneficiaries of the enormous potential for employment, learning and leisure. Cost-related issues also impede progress and discriminate against non-elite women who have less financial access than men. In many developing countries, telecommunications advancement occurs in urban rather than rural areas. While urban areas tend to have a more developed infrastructure, still most of a nation’s population resides in rural areas. For example, Kampala, the capital of Uganda, has 4% of the nation’s population but 60% of all telephone lines. In Viet Nam, telephone connectivity is available almost exclusively in five major cities, although 80% of the population live in villages. To quote one interviewee from that country: "I came to Daklak (the new economic zone in the central highlands of Viet Nam) to get a job, my family and the children are still in my village far away from here. It is difficult for one to be in touch with them as my village has no telephone. I am a widow. I need a job and have little choice."

Due to familial roles and social responsibilities such as the care of children and elderly people, women are less free to migrate to urban centres and therefore remain in rural areas with less developed infrastructure, and less access to communication technology.

Cost is also an obstacle. In Viet Nam, where the annual per capita income is less than USD 350, the cost of obtaining a telephone line is approximately USD 360! Similarly, costs of computers and Internet facilities are high in relation to a country’s per capita income. Women are generally poorer than men — at present, it is estimated that women constitute over 60% of the world’s one billion poor, and 70% of those living in absolute poverty.

Telecommunication services must become more affordable if women are to benefit from them. As another interviewee from Ghana put it: "I am a great champion of new technology. Even in our poor society of Ghana, it has opened up new earning opportunities for women in the form of business centres. With a simple setup of fax, telephone, copy machine and a computer service, women can start such centres with small capital and can cater to the demands of women clients."

This accessibility will open up new ways for women, as well as men, to experience social and economic empowerment through increased access to information such as market data, or to distance education and telemedicine. "It was difficult for me to have a demanding job after I had my first child. Working on-line from home it possible for me to be in touch with my profession", said a software programmer in Bombay (India).

The challenge before us is to find a way of continuing to develop and to expand telecommunications technology while including, more effectively, the needs of the largest percentage of our population. Evaluation, design and implementation of telecommunication technologies are all areas that would benefit from a gender perspective. As a first step, gender-based policies should be included in decision-making processes, thereby ensuring an awareness and understanding of the significance and impact of the development of telecommunications on women in developing countries.

One way of raising this awareness will be to encourage and to make it easy for women to take an active part in the formulation and implementation of telecommunication policies and development programmes. We must also work together to support the development of policies which focus on the needs of women, and direct technical and financial resources to meet those needs.

The potential for collaboration between UNIFEM, UNU/INTECH and ITU is therefore great. The ideas outlined in this article are examples intended to highlight the need for a concentrated gender policy and analysis within telecommunications technology development.

The 1998 World Telecommunication Development Conference, which aims to address the challenges of orienting innovations and national telecommunication policies so that they serve the social and economic needs of developing countries, is one step towards fruitful collaboration between organizations and the advancement of gender issues. Through continued proactive work and collaboration, universal access to telecommunications technology is attainable, resulting not only in the expansion of the information and communication technologies market, but also in enabling more people to benefit from new developments and innovations.

This text is an extract from ITU News 2/98