POLICY RECOMMENDATION Gender and IT APWINC 2008

This work was realized in ‘IT Capacity Building Programme for Women in the APEC Region 2008’, for the representants, from Peru, Mexico and Chile ( I from Chile).

Considering

That new information technologies are a crucial tool for development and social inclusion of men and women.

That the decrease in the digital gap brings along the decrease in the social gap, and it has an impact on the relations of men and women.

That information technologies facilitate the development and creation of networks for women,

That information technologies facilitate the access of women to information.

That information technologies eliminate the existing geographical, cultural and social barriers.

That information technologies offer tools for: education, commerce, creation of local contents, and building virtual communities.

That governments are already willing to allocate budget to develop IT to improve the competitive levels of the Latin American countries.

That IT is both appealing and a responsibility of all sectors of our population.

The Latin American women leaders present in the IT Capacity Building in 2008, recommend:

Public policies regarding IT must be built with the participation of all sectors: public, private, civil society and academy.

Such policies must have a “country trademark” scope (negotiated with all sectors at all the different levels: national, sub-national, local).

To generate strategies to bring women close to the information society through the development of IT competences according to their condition and position.

Focus training on access to information and network building and on the creation of local contentsSensible training so that women populate the information society.

General Recommendations

To generate and enforce rules to ensure the creation of websites that facilitate an effective access to information, highlighting the rights, benefits and public offer that are particularly appealing to women.

To promote the access to information and social networks as an emerging human right, since countries that fail to diminish the digital gap, will find it difficult to diminish the social gap.

To generate actions that enable women’s participation in a global culture, preserving and spreading their local culture.

The Latin American women leaders present in the IT Capacity Building in 2008, recommend:
Labor and entrepreneurship

To explore ways to integrate telework for parents (both men and women), so they can have more time to take care of their children, particularly during their early childhood.

To promote entrepreneurial actions, to enhance competences that enable women’s access to e-market and e- commerce.

To generate initiatives that support personal access of women to PC’s for women entrepreneurs (social and economic) as well as to the best female students of the poorest sectors.

Research and analysis

To collect and spread best practices on women and IT.

To conduct specific studies and research to visibilize women’s real access and use of IT, and use this information to identify priority groups and aspects with the objective to generate strategies that eliminate gender gaps.

HRD

To develop and disseminate e-learning platforms to boost women’s participation and permanent capacity building.

To promote and encourage women’s participation in traditionally masculinized sectors, such as computer science and telecommunications, among others.

To train women leaders of the most vulnerable sectors of the population on IT management models.

International cooperation

To promote creative commons licences in any work created for public use (video, text and sound), in order to share this information for the benefit of the different communities, particularly those where poor women are most present.

To encourage local, national and international alliances through networking with organizations that favor women’s development.

To support the creation of an international collaborative database of educational actions designed to improve women’s condition and position.

Citizen Participation

To generate gender sensitive programs that foster and strengthen e-participation (e. g: participative budgets).

To promote the use of technological tools that would enable women’s organizations to promote their rights and put their problems and needs in the public agenda (e.g: through the use of blogs, podcast, among others).

To use IT as a means to maintain an active communication of women migrants and their families, considering that migration has become a feminized phenomenon recently.

To allocate budget to enable women’s community organizations of priority sectors to implement telecenters, within a sustainable social and economic model.

To incorporate IT training for women union leaders as well as for leading businesswomen.

E-Government

To encourage the central government of the emerging APEC economies to provide not only unidirectional information, it must be bidirectional information system.

To use TIC tools to generate a model government more transparent, accessible and near that enables men and women to be more conscious in relation what it is happening with the State and the government.

To generate actions that strengthen the capacity building of the active digital audience, this implies that the State works, mainly to support women in vulnerable sectors to access effectively to meaningful information and networks dependent on the State.

To generate information in friendly, close and accessible formats to disseminate information aimed at women regarding issues of great public interest, such as: domestic violence (prevention and reparation), campaigns for health, prevention against drug consumption, public funding, etc.

To generate accessory measures to encourage electronic Government to enable people to access information contained in government websites, through posters and information in the media, so that people know where to find information.

Technical recommendations

To consider the incorporation of open source as a sustainable alternative for the effective operation of computers, thus improving the use of resources.

RSE

To involve the private sector in the support of women IT projects.