Agenda

Global commitments to digital inclusion continue to treat access as the primary measure of progress, yet growing evidence shows that having a device or an internet connection does not guarantee meaningful participation. Women and girls across Africa face a layered set of barriers, including affordability constraints that force them to ration data, domestic power dynamics in which husbands control phone access, cultural norms that cast women's online visibility as transgressive, and digital platforms designed without regard for accessibility or safety.

Session Description
This workshop presents findings from the After Access Gender Study, a multi-country qualitative research initiative by Research ICT Africa that, among other indicators, examines how gender shapes digital access, use, and outcomes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda. Drawing on over 1,000 in-depth interviews and focus groups across 18 sites with four population groups: adolescent girls, female teachers, women health workers, and women's collectives/entrepreneurs, the study documents how women actually experience digital technologies in their daily personal and professional lives. 

This session will present evidence on five cross-cutting themes that emerged across all four countries: the affordability paradox,  cultural barriers to device access and connectivity, the role of informal peer networks as the primary channel for digital skills development, technology-facilitated gender-based violence as a constraint on women's digital participation, and the compounding effects of disability on gendered digital exclusion. Critically, the workshop will examine how these barriers differ across national contexts — from Ethiopia's post-conflict digital landscape to Ghana's north-south infrastructure divide, Nigeria's framing of digital spaces as sites of gendered power, and Uganda's experience with mandated government digital systems. 

Participants will engage with the evidence through structured discussion to identify actionable policy and programmatic interventions that address the structural roots of gendered digital inequality.