Chair: Ms. Alice Shackelford, Country Program Representative, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Islamabad, Pakistan
Discussant and Panel Organizer: Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann, Research Fellow, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan
During the session on the Bridging the Subcontinent’s Gender Digital Divide, chaired by Ms Alice Shackelford, Country Program Representative, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Islamabad, Pakistan, panelists called for the integration of a gender-sensitive approach at all policy levels.
Mr. Aneel Salman, a Fulbright scholar and PhD candidate from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy, NY, USA presented his paper on “Overcoming the Gender Digital Divide: Success Story of Grameen Telecom Bangladesh”. He discussed the Grameen Telecom’s initiatives in bringing a shared concept of telecommunication usage to the poor villagers in Bangladesh. He shared detailed figures from various studies about telephone density, installation charges, complaints ratio and so on with the audience. He said that according to a study by Richardson in 2000, in 1990s, Bangladesh had around 500,000 fixed line telephones and 2/3 of these were located in Dhaka city itself, while in another study on Bangladesh, 91% landlines were located in urban areas only, with 36.6% landlines in Dhaka city itself. As a result, Bangladesh’s urban tele-density was 1.09 per 100 inhabitants, whereas, the rural tele-density was a staggering 0.02 per 100 inhabitants. Given Bangladesh’s population density of 981 persons per square kilometer; one of the highest population densities in the world, there seems to be a huge potential for tele-growth in the country, he stressed. An important development in telecommunications in Bangladesh was the village phone system (VPS). The VPS system is claimed to be the first instance of any NGO involved in rural telecom development through a franchise system. The objectives of the Grameen VPS are mainly twofold. First, franchise members, predominantly women earn their living by selling telecom services and second, villagers benefit by purchasing these services. It is also a step outside the conventional empowering mechanisms of farm related activities prevalent in most of the development projects in South Asia. The VPS propelled by the village women is, thus, a positive move away from conventional methods of the rich growing richer by taking advantage of new technologies. It has many social impacts including new business methods, and unique client servicing techniques. It also builds social relations, efficient communication and stronger kinship. Through this, women’s participation in decision-making increased and they have become self-reliant, more organized and have greater social mobility. Mr. Salman also looked at the negative impacts of this growing system and potential threats and opportunities for its growth.
Mr. Imran Sikander Baloch, a civil servant with the Federal Government of Pakistan presenting his research paper on “Specifying Gender in the IT Policy of Pakistan”, analyzed Pakistan’s IT policy and discussed the change one ICT initiative by National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) on Community Technology Learning Centers (CTLC) in Thatta, Pakistan, brought in the lives of some women. He pointed out that the impact of ICT on women in the developing world cannot take place unless policies are aligned with local factors like social relationships, cultural and historical context. In his analysis of the CTLC he used Vygotsky’s Activity Theory to measure change and impact in the light of contextual local factors like self-efficacy, gender biased social constraints and inspirations to form networks of learners. He recommended development of unconventional context specific gender indicators for measuring the impact of ICT on the women and thus incorporating these indicators in the IT Policy of Pakistan. He pointed out that “You don’t get gender, if you don’t specify gender.” Contemporary policy research has proved the importance of thinking gender, particularly in the developing world situation, where women already make a marginalized group. The case study of NCHD’s CTLC is valuable in the sense that it helps knowing how specifying gender and anticipating women’s social environment in the policy thought process gives sustainable and positive results.
“There is a need to study such small scale models to inform macro level strategies. While Pakistan has gone a long way in formulating gender mainstreaming guidelines, the impact on the ground is still too little. One primary reason is the distance between research and practice. The solution lies in changing the basic assumption that all policies are gender neutral and the tool to achieve this objective is constant campaigning,” he concluded.
The discussant of the panel was Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann, Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Reported by Qammar Abbas
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