Integration of gender considerations in strategic vision documents and programme design for e-government systems

• Is gender equality explicitly mentioned as an intended outcome in the e-government master plan or national digital agenda?
• Do strategy documents for e-service delivery adopt a rights-based perspective for women-directed services, one-stop-shop portals for women etc.?
• Do strategy documents for e-participation underscore women’s right to participate in e-information and e-consultation processes?
• Do connectivity policy and programme documents emphasise universal access for women?
• Is there room for consultations with gender experts and with women from different socio-structural locations to improve gender-responsiveness in e-government design?
• Do strategic documents on e-government consider appropriate involvement of women’s groups and local NGOs in realising the goals of e-government?

Gender mainstreaming in e-government

• Does the women’s ministry have a policy on ICTs / e-government for gender equality?
• If yes, does the policy adopt a rights-based approach, taking into account the role of e-government in advancement of women’s social, economic and political advancement?
• Does the women’s ministry take a lead in inter-ministerial/ inter-departmental collaboration for gender-responsive e-government?
• Does the national policy for women’s empowerment emphasise women’s uptake of e-government and investment in women’s digital capabilities?
• Are gender focal points active in all sectoral ministries/agencies?
• Does the women’s ministry have specialised digital literacy and skills programmes for women and girls?
• Does the women’s ministry adopt a life cycle approach in e-service design?
• Are there sufficient number of policy forums/dialogue spaces available at the national level, to support inter-ministerial coordination on gender mainstreaming?
• Are gender perspectives integrated in the manual on e-government implementation?
• Is there a gender mainstreaming manual for e-government development?
• Are there periodic capacity-building programmes on gender-responsive e-government for officials of women’s ministry and those from other ministries?
• Is gender-disaggregated data on uptake of e-service delivery, digitally-mediated citizen participation, and access to connectivity, available? (For further checklist suggestions on the datasets that are required, please see Parameters 2,3 and 4)

Gender budgeting

• Does the budgetary allocation for the e-government master plan or national digital agenda have a gender budgeting component?
• Are all sectoral ministries/agencies bound by gender budgeting norms?
• Do financial audits and performance audits of e-service delivery, e-participation, and/or connectivity interventions incorporate gender dimensions?

Governance of Public Private Partnerships in e-government

• Is private sector involvement in e-service delivery backed by clear contractual specifications to ensure accountability?
• Are technical functions of the vendor / private agency in public-private e-government partnerships appropriately guided by criteria for gender-sensitivity and public interest?
• In public private partnerships involving management of data backbones, are there appropriate safeguards for protection of personal data of citizens and accountability of private partner to conform to the highest standards for data governance practices as required by the law and/ or relevant policies?
• Is there an open and transparent process for selection of private partners in e-government?
• Are there clear screening guidelines on technical and financial feasibility for evaluating requests for proposals with respect to PPP arrangements in e-government?

Provisioning of women-directed e-services

The following checklist build on suggestions from (UNPOG 2013) on measures for gender-responsiveness in transactional and connected stages of e-government:

• Is there a one-stop-shop portal for women-directed services that supports advanced search?
• Are women-directed services in the one-stop-shop portal for all services clearly signposted?
• Is there a provision for personalising e-service delivery interactions through MyGov services that support customised information/ e-service updates and secure identity authentication?
• Are national gender machinery and e-service delivery portals harmonised to globally accepted standards on technical openness, accessibility, and privacy and data protection standards?

Facilitation mechanisms for supporting women’s access to e-services

• How many e-service delivery kiosks/ telecentres (providing assisted access to e-services) have been set up?
• What is the average population coverage/ reach of each telecentre?
• How many women are covered by each telecentre, on an average?
• Are there women facilitators in e-service delivey kiosks/telecentres? What is their proportion in compariso male facilitators?
• What percentage of information/entitlements processing requests processed by the e-service delivery kiosks/ telecentres pertain to women-directed schemes on social protection, employment and income generation, education and so on?

Gender responsiveness of Open Data frameworks

The following checklist builds on Open Data readiness sub-index of the Open Data Barometer developed by the Web Foundation, to assess gender-responsiveness of Open Data frameworks:

• Is there a well-defined policy frameworks on Open Data that balances transparency and privacy considerations?
• Is government data on gender dimensions of public policies and programmes available online? (eg. Data on provisioning and uptake of women-directed services, findings of gender audits, gender-disaggregated data from national census etc.)
• To what extent are online government data sets machine readable? Do they contain data URLs for key elements?
• What is the periodicity of updation of gender-disaggregated Open Data sets?

Women’s uptake of e-services

• What percentage of women Internet users are accessing e-service portals?
• What percentage of women are accessing e-services through service delivery kiosks?

Legislative guarantees

This checklist builds on the Freedom and Openness sub-index of the Web Index developed by the WWW Foundation:

• Is there a right to information legislation? Does it adequately balance competing considerations of transparency and informational privacy?
• Are Open Data frameworks and right to information legislation harmonised?
• Are there proactive disclosure programmes? Do they focus on inclusion of women in public information outreach efforts?
• Does existing legislation on freedom of expression adequately guarantee women’s rights in online spaces?
• Is gender-based hate speech in online spaces restricted under existing hate speech legislation?
• Do existing laws on gender-based violence effectively address e-VAW?
• Does privacy legislation address emerging concerns on personal data protection?

Gender-inclusiveness of e-participation initiatives

The following checklist adapts key aspects from the UN e-participation Index:

• Are sources of archived information (policies, budget, legal documents, budgets, etc.) pertaining to policy and programming for women’s empowerment and gender equality available?
• How many women-directed information outreach services exist?
• What percentage of women participate in online consultations?
• Out of the total number of online consultations on services/policies, what percentage of consultations on services/policies are specifically directed at women?
• Do government agencies publish the outcomes of policy consultations online?
• Are there instances of collaborative co-production and/or crowd funding in women-directed e-services?

Digital literacy efforts directed at women and girls

• In the design and roll-out of national digital literacy programmes, is there a provision for a gender component?
• What percentage of women Internet users have an adequate grasp of information, media and data literacies?
• What percentage of government schools and colleges are equipped with computer labs? Are they easily accessible to girls?
• Does the digital literacy curriculum at the school and college level integrate issues/concerns pertaining to women’s rights online?

Universal access for women

The following checklist builds on the Digital Gender Gap audit toolkit of the Web Foundation:

• What percentage of women and men access the Internet?
• Are there time-bound targets to overcome gender and poverty divides in Internet use in connectivity policy frameworks? Is there a budgetary provision for this?
• Are there specific policies to promote free or low-cost public Internet access? (such as budget allocations for Internet access in public libraries, schools and community centers, or provisions for spectrum use by community WiFi options)
• Is the price of 1 GB of Internet data within 2% of average monthly income of women? (Existing evidence suggests that this is the range within which data costs become affordable?

Meaningful use cultures that promote women’s empowerment

• What are the patterns of Internet use of women and men?
• Is online content relevant for women users? Are women able to access information that is context-appropriate, and in local languages?
• Do government agencies, especially those working on women’s rights and gender and development, have an online presence? Do women’s civil society organisations and women-run enterprises have a web presence?
• What is the number of free and paid public access points per 100 inhabitants? On an average, at each public access point, what is the percentage of women visitors?
• What is the percentage of schools with Internet? (disaggregated by boys’ schools, girls’ schools and co-ed schools)