INSTRAW Call for Papers
Gender and ICTs
Background
Information and communication technologies are recognized as key
elements of the new global knowledge-based economy, ensuring rapid and
continuous transfer of commercial, financial and political information
crucial to the development process. However, it has been argued that
women worldwide lag overwhelmingly behind men in the access to and use
of ICTs. This newly developing gender gap is being argued to be a major
source of gender inequality and one of the major obstacles to
mainstreaming a gender perspective in development.
In order to address the gender digital gap, the 1995 World Conference on
Women (Beijing) delineated a strategy to promote greater access to
communication by women internationally. Equally, the Beijing+5
Conference (2000, New York) called upon development cooperation to
strengthen the capacity of women to use new technologies for advancing
their position and for achieving gender equality and thus sustainable
development.
As a result, many initiatives have been undertaken by women and womenís
organizations that aim at providing women with an access to ICTs as
tools for social and economic empowerment. Furthermore, national and
international agencies have also pursued many initiatives in order to
ensure that women are not deprived of the benefits of the emerging
"information society". Many of these initiatives, however, have been
undertaken in relative isolation from one another, and thus are not
informed by shared learning experiences. Nor are these projects and
initiatives necessarily integrated from the beginning into larger
development policy frameworks.
INSTRAW Collaborative Research Project on Gender and ICTs
To address the need for sharing of knowledge and learning about gender
aspects of ICTs, INSTRAW is initiating a collaborative research
programme which aims:
* To ascertain the state-of-the-art in terms of access and use,
management and regulation, and impact of ICTs on women.
* To determine the constituents of an enabling/disabling environment.
* To gain a better understanding of how women and men are involved in
ICTs, particularly in the developing countries;
* To investigate what is presently being done by key stakeholders to
promote and support projects aimed at the equal participation of women
and men in ICTs in developing countries;
* To propose ways in which ICTs can better serve as an important tool
for empowerment and close the gender gap if and where such exists.
In order to achieve this, INSTRAW is inviting the submission of Papers
to be used as background information for the Virtual Workshops that will
be held online through INSTRAWís Gender Awareness Information and
Networking System (GAINS). The papers should address the following
issues:
1) Gender dimension of access and use of ICTs through profiling of
women and men using ICTs (age/income/region); how women and men- and in
what ratio -access and use ICTs and for what purpose; what information
is accessed; where it is used (private/public domain), etc..
2) Gender dimensions of management and regulation of ICTs: how women
and men participate in ICTs (as
users/producers/managers/specialists-designers, technicians, analysts,
etc); what are the existing ICT-related regulations and norms on the
international and national levels as well as the existing regulatory
instruments and tools and how do women participate;
3) Impact assessment on a sectoral basis: how ICTs impact on women and
men: cultural (changes in cultural norms and stereotypes);
social/political (empowers and enhances cooperation, negotiation, social
action); and economic (new skills/employment). Why, if so, ICTs impact
differently on women and men - education and training; socialization
patterns; availability (cost, priorities, interest - women are poorer,
have different priorities and interests).
4) Examination of country/regional/sub-regional variations in access to
and use of ICTs; analysis of experiences; lessons learned and good
national/regional practices.
Authors should submit a 500 word abstracts to INSTRAW no later than 22
April 2002, together with a brief resume of their academic/professional
background and experience. INSTRAW will select the most relevant
abstracts by 1 May 2002 and commission the authors of the selected
papers to prepare full versions of the papers. Authors will be paid a
fee of US$ 1,000 per paper. The specific terms and conditions of this
assignment will be discussed with the authors on an individual basis
once the selection process has been finalized. Authors should submit
their papers to INSTRAW by 1 June 2002 and are expected to present them
at the Gender and ICTs Virtual Workshops which will be held during the
3rd quarter of 2002 through GAINS. It is important to note that the
papers should be based on original research and should not be more than
7,000 words in length.
Abstracts should be sent to Tatjana Sikoska at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more information about INSTRAW and GAINS, please visit:
www.un-instraw.org
------------
***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member***
To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at:
<http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
