Unit 4.2. Designing gender-inclusive connectivity architectures: Insights for policy and programming

4.2.1. Overview: Design strategies for addressing women’s exclusion from connectivity

In 2016, the Broadband Commission cautioned that progress towards gender equality in access to the Internet has stalled, with global trends pointing to a widening gender digital divide (See Unit 4.1. for details). It also went on to alert that this state of affairs could not be remedied, if they continued functioning in a “business-as-usual” mode, banking on market-led Internet diffusion automatically trickling down to poor and marginalised women. Making Internet services accessible to even those members of society with limited ability to pay – such as women from remote and rural communities – does require committed public policy efforts, without which women risk being left behind. This is exemplified by the trajectory of Internet development in the Asia-Pacific. The region currently accounts for half of all active mobile subscriptions in the world (UNESCO 2016)34. The growth of connectivity is confined to a few middle income and high income countries in the region. In the past 15 years, one-third of ESCAP member countries in the region have made very limited progress in broadband expansion. In Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island developing States, digital divides continue to persist(UNESCAP 2016a)35. As does the gender digital divide in the region as a whole – with only one in 5 Internet users in the Asia-Pacific being a woman.

To effectively address women’s exclusion from connectivity architectures, we need a two-pronged e-government strategy that simultaneously incorporates:

  1. A ‘hybrid public good’ approach to connectivity, which guarantees all citizens a minimum level of Internet access. Given that basic access to the Internet is non-negotiable for women’s participation in e-government, and since a significant proportion of women cannot afford connectivity or go out freely to Internet access points, policy makers should provide Internet access as a public good. By reaching a minimum level of guaranteed access to the Internet to all, women’s uptake of and participation in e-government can be incentivised.
  2. A multi-track gender mainstreaming approach, which weaves together integrated and targeted interventions. The former type of actions, to mainstream or integrate gender based perspectives in different policy and programmatic areas, ensure that women's needs and priorities are not sidelined in the larger vision of connectivity related policy. The latter interventions bring focused attention to promoting women's effective adoption of connectivity. Evidently, both sets of actions are critical for tackling context-specific, socio-structural barriers that impede women's access to, and effective use of, the Internet.

From this standpoint, this Unit discusses some key ingredients that should go into policy and programming for a gender-responsive connectivity architecture.

4.2.2. Key ingredients of gender-responsive connectivity policies and programmes

The combination of the following elements in connectivity policy and programming can narrow the digital gender gap, and open up new/ hitherto inaccessible pathways to women’s empowerment.

Ingredient 1. Universalising access through gender-responsive strategies

Guaranteeing a data connection of a minimum quantity and quality is the first step  to  realizing the vision of ‘universal access for women’s empowerment’. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of  opinion and expression (2011)36 has observed that: "without Internet access, which facilitates economic development and the enjoyment of a range of human rights, marginalised groups and developing States remain trapped in a disadvantaged situation, thereby perpetuating inequality both within and between States”

This thinking has gained traction in gender and development policy circles at the global and national level:

Global level: On the heels of Agenda 2030, numerous initiatives have been set up to enhance women’s access to Internet and other enabling technologies to further their empowerment. For example: the ITU-led multistakeholder committee to forge an Action Plan on closing the gender digital gap, and the Broadband Commission’s Working Group on bridging the gender digital divide, both of which were instituted in 2016.

National level: A few states have started to adopt a rights based approach to providing citizens a right to broadband/ Internet access through the concrete measure of legislation (Broadband Commission 2013)37. Estonia and Greece have enacted legislation that makes universal access a mandatory obligation of the state to citizens. Some countries have gone a step further, by defining a minimum standard of access. For example, in 2010, Finland made a reasonably priced 1 Mbps broadband connection a legal right of citizens. A year later, Spain guaranteed the same to its citizens. In 2016, Canada ruled that broadband connections with download speeds of at least 50 Mbps and upload speeds of 10 Mbps constitute a “basic right of citizens”, revising by over tenfold, the broadband targets it had set in 2011. The case of Canada alerts us to the wisdom of regularly revisiting and revising definitions of minimum access standards, taking into account the exponential growth of connectivity. At the sub-national level, too, such trends are emerging. For example, the Indian state of Kerala, in March 2017, declared Internet a basic right, and earmarked funds from the state budget for providing free/subsidised access to 2 million families.

Even when countries have not enacted such legislation, they have worked towards designing programmes to reach the 'unconnected'. Examples within the Asia-Pacific region include Australia, India and the Philippines which are investing in nation-level programmes to build Internet infrastructure in rural and remote areas.

The specific components of a gender-inclusive universal access strategy are delineated below:

The specific components of a gender-inclusive universal access strategy

1.a. Gender budget in Universal Access and Service Funds

Universal Access and Service Funds can play a key role in extending connectivity to marginal areas and ensuring the digital inclusion of marginalised communities . These funds can be used to support a wide-range of programmes such as: making ICTs accessible to persons with disabilities, network roll-out to under-served areas populated mainly by women and indigenous peoples, subsidies for handsets and/or minutes; funding connectivity and equipment, and ICT trainings for community telecentres. It involves the establishment of a dedicated fund at the country-level into which all telecommunication operators are mandated to pay part of their end-user revenues, for the express purpose of supporting programmes to further universal access interpreted in most countries as “ensuring that telecommunication services are accessible to the widest number of people (and communities) at affordable prices” (ITU 2013a)38.

It is crucial that any strategy for universal access should invest in both mobile and fixed broadband expansion. It may be true that globally, it is mobile broadband that is driving Internet penetration and increase in Internet usage (ITU 2016a)39, but without investments in fixed broadband, governments will be unable to create an institutional environment that enables poor and marginalised women to use connectivity as a stepping stone to full participation in the digital economy and knowledge society (ITU 2012; ITU 2016d)40. This is because mobile broadband cannot support intensive users, such as businesses providing information and knowledge services, or public institutions delivering specialised services to citizens. Several constraints would emerge in the absence of a high bandwidth, low latency fixed broadband connection, such as for a rural government hospital seeking to introduce a video-conference facility for e-health consultations with women; staff training through expert inputs; or, a sub-district level agricultural agency trying to schedule a monthly video conference session for women farmers with experts from leading agricultural universities in the country.

A portion of the Universal Service Fund can be earmarked to specifically address gender inclusion, but before it can be deployed the terms of the fund should be updated to include digital technologies, and mechanisms should be put into place to ensure that the fund is utilised transparently.

In comparison to many other regions of the world,countries in the Asia and the Pacific are placing a greater focus on deploying fixed broadband and wireless infrastructure and services through the Universal Access and Service Funds (ITU 2013b; UNESCAP 2017)41. A 2013 ITU study of Universal Access and Service Funds across 16 countries in the region found ‘moderate-to-high’ levels of activity in 10 contexts. Nine countries were allocating funds for broadband expansion, five focused on the creation of special services for people with disabilities, six addressed institutional connectivity issues, and five contained provisions for the establishment of telecentres. However, only three countries earmarked a portion of the Universal Access and Service Funds for initiatives on women’s digital inclusion (ITU 2013b)42. This is an area that needs urgent attention, as introducing a gender budget in the Universal Service Obligation Fund is a vital strategy for ensuring that women are not lost sight of in large-scale digital inclusion efforts.

The experiences of Malaysia and Philippines demonstrate some ways in which such gender budgets could be deployed. Malaysia has identified women under rehabilitation (recovering substance-abusers) as a key priority-group to be targeted through its Universal Service programmes. The Philippines has used its Universal Service Fund to set up a network of telecentres – Community eCentres – in remote and rural municipalities across the country, where shared Internet access facilities are absent. As the country has a robust institutionalised gender mainstreaming framework as part of which all departments and agencies have set up gender focal points, the eCentres have been able to ensure meaningful access to the Internet for women and girls in the communities they are located in.

At the same time, merely providing a gender budget in Universal Service Funds may not suffice, as many of these Funds are governed by pre-digital regulatory frameworks that restrict their deployment to expansion of infrastructure for voice telephony and fixed line connectivity (A4AI 2015)43. Unless legislation underpinning these Funds is overhauled to bring it up to speed with digital realities, it will become impossible to use the gender budget for creative interventions such as affordable ICT programmes that subsidise gadget/ device acquisition costs for women and girls, digital literacy efforts. In fact, in the Asia Pacific, the lack of clarity in the legal environment that Universal Access and Service Funds operate have led to low rates of disbursement, which have hindered progress towards reducing access divides (UNESCAP 2017)43A.

Finally, transparency and accountability in the disbursement of collected levies is essential for effective administration of Universal Access and Service Funds, as the experiences of Malaysia and Pakistan demonstrate (UNESCAP 2017)43B. This can be attained through greater clarity about the mandate and operations of such Funds and, insulating the Fund from excessive political interference, and investing in appropriate staffing to build institutional capacity for effective management (A4AI 2015)44.

1.b. Data allowance for marginalised women

Providing a minimum data package free, to all citizens, financed through public funds or other corporate partnership models has recently gained traction in policy debates. A data allowance scheme can be a useful incentive to encourage women who are socio-economically marginalised to go online and seek public information and services. Direct benefit transfers in large scale, country-wide schemes in developing countries are increasingly relying on digital payments, which can promote women’s economic empowerment by enabling the confidentiality and convenience women require to be financially autonomous. Using connectivity in such financial inclusion and other schemes can help women discover many ways to make their online experience meaningful. A subsidized universal data allowance can therefore play a crucial role in creating virtuous cycles between e-government services and their uptake by women.

In India, where Internet policies are fledgling, proposals for a Data Pack Direct Benefit Transfer scheme for providing citizens a part-subsidised annual data allowance using Universal Service Funds, have been made by both technology experts and civil society groups (Nilekani and Shah 2016)45. In December 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India suggested that all rural users be given a free data allowance of 100 MB per month, by compensating mobile network operators from the Universal Service Obligation Fund.

Data allowance schemes are also likely to have more sustainable outcomes for inclusion of women than market-based solutions for free data, such as zero rating (see Box 1) or data recharge apps that allow users to 'earn' data through use of particular web services. Such solutions can end up consolidating the dominance of powerful mobile network operators and web platforms over the Internet, leaving very limited room for content efforts led by local women’s organisations.

Box 1 . Is zero rating a good strategy for promoting affordable access for women and girls?

Zero rating refers to the practice of offering users access to a selection of websites/applications without data charges. Zero rating arrangements may assume the following forms:

  1. Mobile network operators may operate a free-of-charge content service for a specific class of applications. Eg. video streaming or mobile TV service.
  2. A web platform may enter into an exclusive partnership with a specific mobile network operator/ announce a non-exclusive offer that can be availed of by any interested mobile network operator, for providing a set of web services/applications without data charges. Eg. Facebook’s Free Basics platform that bundles together a set of web services.

In recent times, the desirability of zero rating is a matter of intense debate. Proponents feel that by offering a small portion of the web free of cost, zero services are able to help users overcome affordability barriers that restrict Internet uptake. Opponents feel that such zero services distort the level playing field of the Internet by giving an unfair advantage to a select set of web applications, as a result of which smaller content providers will be pushed out of the market.

In developing countries, this debate has become much more contentious – especially as it has snowballed into an argument about how “some Internet is better than no Internet” for contexts where the end-goal of universal access still seems very far off. In these contexts, the defendants of zero rating have argued that such arrangements are a viable market-based solution to bringing people online, especially women and other socio-economically marginalised groups who have remained offline due to the high costs of data plans. Their argument is that the select basket of services offered by zero-rated platforms may be a stepping stone to the wider world of the open Internet for such users. Meanwhile, critics have cautioned that zero-rated services, by their very design, restrict user autonomies with respect to information-seeking and participation in collaborative knowledge production processes. Also, as an“experience good”, the extent to which the Internet’s benefits unfold for users depends upon the specific cultures of use they are inducted into. Therefore, they argue, an introduction to the Internet through zero rating does not enable an individual to make the transition from passive consumption of web services to actively seeking information or co-creating knowledge online. This is borne out by existing research which suggests that mere exposure to the Internet and social media platforms does not automatically contribute to an enhancement of marginalised women’s capabilities to actively find and seek information or expand their networks of support (Web Foundation 2015)46. Further, commercial zero rating arrangements are not necessarily bringing new users online in developing countries. Between November 2015-February 2016, the Alliance for the Affordable Internet conducted a survey of 8000 mobile Internet users across eight countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They found that only one in 10 zero rating customers are first time Internet users. Also, most users seemed to be using zero rating as a strategy to top up other unrestricted means of accessing the Internet, such as through public Wi-fi.

What the evidence suggests therefore is that zero rating is not contributing in any significant way to universal access strategies for ‘reaching the unreached’. At the same time, it is also not a benign ‘discount coupon’ that can be legitimised as one of the many strategies that ISPs/ TSPs and platform companies deploy, to consolidate their market share. Where zero rating is permitted, mobile network operators are incentivised to set low data volume caps on broadband plans, to increase the appeal of their own zero service bundles, inflating connectivity costs of the Open Internet (Web Foundation 2015)47. Also, zero rating has an indirect throttling effect on web services which are not zero rated, as “other non zero-rated services get throttled as soon as end-users deplete their artificially low volume caps"(Web Foundation 2015)48.

Commercial zero-rating arrangements may not be the best option available to realise the goal of affordable access for all. On the other hand, publicly funded zero service platforms that allow users to access e-government services and emergency services, free of cost, can set up a virtuous cycle between use of connectivity and citizenship rights, especially for women. For groups with limited ability to pay, the opportunity to approach government agencies and public service providers need not be deterred just because they have exhausted their monthly data cap. Using the gender budget of the Universal Service Fund for setting up a zero-rated platform that links to women-directed services of various government agencies may hence be an effective strategy in furthering the goal of promoting affordable access for women and girls.

1.c. Women-directed muncipal broadband

Evidence suggests that development of fixed broadband backbones, with local government/municipal funding is an effective strategy to reach connectivity for the “furthest behind first”. Municipalities should have targeted measures to reach the last woman. The United Kingdom has attempted this successfully, through the ‘Women and Broadband’ initiative of the Government’s Equalities Office that has supported innovative projects from local public authorities for equipping women entrepreneurs and women-led businesses in their areas, to take advantage of the new economic opportunities opened up by high speed broadband. For example, this initiative has supported a collaboration between the municipal councils of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Telford & Wrekin, and a national business support organization based at Harper Adams University – 'Women in Rural Enterprise (WiRE)', for equipping rural women entrepreneurs in these areas to fully utilise digital and cloud technology for transforming their businesses.

ISPs tend to avoid investing in infrastructural creation in remote and rural areas that are sparsely populated. Also, they are reluctant to making outlays in areas where a competitor already has a strong presence – as a result of which there are many belts where ISPs operate as a virtual monopoly, leaving consumers with very limited bargaining power to demand an improvement to the quality of services. Even as connectivity becomes more and more commonplace, it will still be elusive to the poorest women unless telecommunications regulation and public finance measures can break the stranglehold of market monopolies. A sustainable alternative to such an arrangement is establishing local government/municipal networks managed either by a public agency or maintained as an Open Access network. An Open Access network is one where independent ISPs compete with one another to provide last-mile connectivity, leveraging network infrastructure that has been created with public funding. (Community Networks 2016)49. Such networks have been very successful in furthering access to the benefits of socio-economic development for rural communities (Mitchell 2012)50.

1.d. Promoting affordable access

Affordability is one of the major impediments to access for women to digital technologies. Measures should be taken by the state to create an environment where affordable prices are encouraged and sustainable. These include interventions to introduce and sustain competition in the ISP sector, mandatory infrastructure sharing, ensuring the availability of spectrum for mobile broadband at reasonable prices etc.

As highlighted in Unit 4.1, the high cost of connectivity is a major barrier to women’s uptake of the Internet. Globally, women earn almost 25% less than men (UN Women 2015)51. Therefore, promoting affordable access (popularly defined as the availability of an 1 GB data plan for 2% of monthly per capita income in the concerned context) is an integral component of any gender-responsive strategy for universalising access. While acknowledging that measures to make access affordable may alone be inadequate, attention to the following policy directions can certainly go a long way in encouraging women’s use of the Internet:

  1. Fostering effective competition in the broadband operators market, by ensuring the independence of the regulatory authority for telecom and data services, and penalising anti-competitive practices through withdrawal of licenses of defaulting operators. Mexico has made significant headway in this direction (A4AI 2017)52.
  2. Putting in place guidelines for mandatory infrastructure sharing, that will decrease operating expenditures for ISPs and TSPs, resulting in lower prices for consumers. An useful example to study in this regard is Peru’s 2015 legislation that mandates the development of an operator-agnostic national optic fibre network.  Another good practice in this area is coordinating broadband infrastructure sharing with other infrastructural projects. For example, consider “the incorporation of a fibre network deployment in the Doba-Kribi oil pipeline between Cameroon and Chad, or the leasing of passive capacity in Ghana by the National Electricity power transmission provider, Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO), to mobile network operators in the country” (A4AI 2017)53.
  3. Ensuring that sufficient spectrum is available on a timely basis, to enable timely allocation that keeps pace with the increasing demand for mobile broadband. Policies which ensure that mobile spectrum is available on a competitive and non-discriminatory basis are vital. National policies should also work to reducing spectrum licensing fees and interconnection charges levied upon telecommunication operators, as they are key factors that determine end-user tariffs of mobile services. Further, spectrum licensing guidelines should reserve part of the mobile bandwidth for public agencies and community organizations, to enable them to initiate subsidised mobile-based information services and knowledge networks specifically directed at women and marginalised groups.
  4. Offering tax exemption to low cost technologies such as mobile hand-sets, and simplifying patent regimes to encourage innovations in the field is critical to ensure that such digital technologies are within the reach of marginalised women and other low-income groups.

1.e. Digital literacy and m-information services for women

Digital literacy programmes to strengthen meaningful use of the Internet by women and girls are essential components of gender-inclusive universal access strategies. For details of successful digital literacy programmes and a basic schema on the many kinds of literacies that such programmes should access, see Unit 3.2, Section 3.2.2.

Similarly, creating m-information services that expand women’s access to reproductive health, child care, nutrition, financial literacy, public entitlements etc is another area in which connectivity policy and programming can make a difference.In India, the Sanchar Shakti m-information service, set up using the gender budget of the USOF, has successfully subsidised small-scale pilot projects across the country, for the provision of mobile value-added services in the areas of public information updates, financial literacy, health and agriculture, to rural women. See Unit 2.1, Section 2.1.2, subsection 2a for design principles pertaining to such services.

 

Ingredient 2. Gender-responsive public access strategies

Public access points serve as crucial venues to build digital capabilities of socially marginalised groups who need supportive facilitation, to make sense of connectivity initially. At the same time, public access is not just a temporary substitute that can plug the gap till 100% individual access is achieved. Rather, as Sey et al. (2013)54 observed in their global research study on the impact of public access, it is more in the nature of a “permanent complement” – a constant support structure to individual access – especially in developing countries.

National governments have invested in a variety of public access models. In the Asia-Pacific, Thailand and India are implementing centralised programmes for setting up country-wide networks of community ICT points to cover rural populations. Philippines is implementing a national-level programme for promoting access to connectivity in remote communities, through its Community e-Centres programme. When we examine examples from developing country contexts outside the region, the initiatives that stand out are: the Community Multimedia Centres of Mozambique that provide low cost access and digital literacy trainings to community members (A4AI 2015b)55; the Vive Digital programme in Colombia that seeks to take high speed broadband Internet to remote and rural communities; and the public library-based model adopted by the government of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Though these public access models focus on enabling the inclusion of hitherto excluded groups in the benefits of connectivity, that does not make them automatically gender-inclusive. Research by Sey et al. (2013)56 and the ITU reveal that the prevailing cultures of use at public access points play a key role in determining women's comfort and willingness in accessing these spaces. For example, across the world, public libraries with broadband facilities attract more visitors than cybercafes, reflecting the way the design and cultures of public space open up or foreclose women's access. The institutional design of public access points needs to be consciously geared towards including women. The experience of the Community eCentres of Malavar Municipality, Philippines provide some insights in this regard, even though they function within a larger nation-wide public access programme that is gender-neutral in design. More details in Box 2 below.

Box 2. Making public access points gender-inclusive: Insights from the experiences of the Community eCentres(CeCs) of Malvar Municipality, Philippines

The Malvar Municipal Government in Batangas province of the Philippines has set up 5 telecentres under this programme. When the programme was initiated, two officials of the Municipality, the Municipal Planning Officer and the Coordinator for Alternative Learning Systems (a governmental program for providing modularised non-formal education) were appointed as the CeC Manager and Assistant CeC Manager, respectively. This helped the programme get political attention and investment, in the initial years, when it was still teething. These two officials were both champions of the gender equality agenda, and therefore they introduced the following design elements to ensure the inclusion and effective participation of women.

  • Using the existing provision in national law for mandatory gender budgeting, to design outreach and digital literacy programmes, specifically targeting women health workers, daycare teachers, young women in search of alternative education and stay-at-home mothers.
  • Adopting a gender perspective when making site-selection decisions for the CeCs. For example, the decision to establish CeCs in the neighbourhoods of Poblacion and San Isidro was taken after the Municipality’s Community Based Monitoring System found that these areas had low levels of female work-force participation and a high drop-out rate among young women.
  • Promoting the CeCs as women-friendly public access points by making regular announcements about digital literacy and skills training at meetings of local health workers, daycare centre workers, and senior citizens, and church services – community spaces that traditionally tend to be frequented by women and girls.
  • Adopting a 'travelling CeC' strategy of sending computers from the centre and the facilitator to remote areas for a week-long outreach visit, in order to reach out to women who cannot travel the distance to the main centre.

These strategies have resulted in the Community e-Centres emerging as gender-inclusive spaces that have enabled many women to expand their communication horizons and undertake new empowerment journeys. Women now have access to public information they were hitherto unaware of; and possess new technical skills to explore employment and income-generation opportunities.

Source: Case study undertaken as part of the UNESCAP research study on E-government for women’s empowerment in Asia and the Pacific. See http://egov4women.unescapsdd.org/report/annex-ii-case-study-synopsis

Gender-responsive public access strategies

Existing research on telecentres suggests design principles that can help us unlock the immense potential of public access spaces to contribute to women's economic and social empowerment. These insights, highlighted below, can inform design of large scale government projects:

2.a. Affordable access: Telecentres should have a public wi-fi hotspot and also allow users to connect to the Internet from their own devices. The setting up of such public wi-fi hot spots does not automatically ensure women’s uptake of connectivity. This is because gender-neutral public access spaces may be intimidating or unwelcoming for women and girls seeking to explore the Internet (A4AI 2017)57. Therefore, telecentres should put in place a range of strategies to ensure that as access spaces, they are welcoming to women and girls – designated time slots for women, women-only Wi-Fi kiosks, targeted publicity for encouraging women’s use of online schemes etc.

2.b. Ease of authentication: Registration requirements to use public Wi-Fi hotspots at telecenres should effectively address user privacy concerns. Some public Wi-Fi networks ask users to submit identity-related information such as national ID data, passport numbers, telephone numbers etc. as part of registration requirements. This may pose concerns for  data security of users, and inhibit those who want to seek sensitive information such as on sexual and reproductive health-related services online. Therefore, registration requirements should be framed in a non-invasive manner, keeping collection of personal information from users to a bare minimum (A4AI 2017)58.

2.c. Empathetic facilitation: Supportive intermediaries in telecentre initiatives play a path breaking role in community uptake of e-government and other services. Helping women and other first time users become comfortable with the technology, intermediaries play the role of stewards managing a new public resource in the community. From running digital literacy courses, visiting households for information outreach, to providing technical help in telemedicine or distance education, and building institutional linkages, facilitators or infomediaries, as they are called, bridge the distance between public services and people. Many female infomediaries have emerged as role models locally, and successfully negotiated the demands of their public roles. The Infolady initiative of the Bangladesh-based NGO DNet has been extremely successful in building a vibrant culture of Internet use in rural communities in Bangladesh, and has been acknowledged as a good practice that has facilitated women’s access to connectivity, by the IGF Best Practice Forum on Gender (2016). For close to a decade, DNet has been training rural women volunteers to travel to remote areas, equipped with mobiles, laptops and dongles, in order to take connectivity to these communities. On their visits, the infoladies support different sections of the community in effectively navigating the Internet for meeting their informational needs. Further, they specifically reserve some time for promoting the uptake of women directed e-services in these areas.

2.d. Women's ownership and management of centres to transform them into non-threatening spaces: Right from the early 2000s, ICTs for development scholars have highlighted how local mechanisms to promote women's participation in the ownership and management of community access points play a major role in creating access cultures that are welcoming for women and girls (Jorge 2000)59. For example, setting up a Managing Committee for the telecentre with quotas for women and marginalised groups, encouraging supervision by community women of service delivery targets, and institutionalizing linkages between the telecentre and local public authorities are simple strategies that make the local public access point or telecentre not only a gender-inclusive space, but also a creative intervention that changes prevailing socio-cultural gender-norms about women's public roles and mobility.

2.e. Agile design for catalysing information, learning and knowledge processes: Public access points can harness the multi-dimensional informational and communicative possibilities of connectivity, and emerge as inclusive digital learning hubs. Voice messages on mobiles, social media, conference calls and more can be used alongside older technologies such as radio and video, to support these processes. The experiences of the Beyond Access programme in Myanmar, Bangladesh and Uruguay demonstrate how to design telecentres that are able to effectively reach out to women, creatively combining Internet technologies with traditional library services for catalysing vibrant information, learning and knowledge cultures at the grassroots. Datamation Foundation, a charitable organization in India, uses a combination of ‘hand held computers, computer-aided design (CAD) based embroidery technology, multi-media CDs over the cable network, narrow-cast transmission of content and local community cable internet’ to train women in the informal sector in the cites of Lucknow and Kanpur. NGOs can be supported to localise public information in interesting offline formats and through short video clips in remote and rural areas with poor connectivity.

 

Ingredient 3. Investing in the development of robust national level statistics on  gender-disaggregated patterns of access and use of the Internet

The adage “what is not counted does not count” underscores the need for national-level 'gender and ICT' data-sets so that the needs and priorities of women and girls are not ignored in connectivity policy and programming. The Partnership on Measuring ICT and Development (2014) has highlighted that the heart of the problem is the country-level focus on creating household-level, rather than individual level data sets, in the area of mapping access and uptake of ICTs. As a result, existing country-level metrics cannot answer questions on gender differences in access and use of digital technologies and the Internet such as: “What are the common barriers to accessing and using the Internet among girls and women? What percentage of girls and women own mobile phones? For what activities are (they) using their mobile phones? Are female-headed households and their members less likely than other types of households to access and use ICTs?” and so on. The government of Mozambique’s efforts in this area are noteworthy. Recently, it has entered into a partnership with Cetic.br – the UNESCO Regional Centre for Studies on the Development of the Information Society – to explore how the collection of gender based statistics in the country's new household ICT survey can be made robust (A4AI 2015b)60.

 

Ingredient 4. Including clear targets to measure progress on gender equality in the implementation of connectivity policy frameworks

Concrete targets on gender equality should be an integral component of national ICT and broadband policies/plans. For target-setting to accurately reflect the nuances of access for women, coordination between ICT and women’s machinery is essential. This is an important frontier policy area as currently, very few countries have concrete targets on gender equality in their national ICT and broadband policies/plans. As the Alliance for Affordable Internet observes in its 2016 Report, “Only 10 out of 109 countries covered in the 2013 Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender Report have policies that include references to gender; [and only a handful] have plans that include specific targets for ICT gender equity, with budget allocated to achieve these targets”.

The experiences of Nigeria and the Dominican Republic provides a number of valuable insights on how to effectively mainstream gender in connectivity policy frameworks. The Nigeria National Broadband Plan (2013-18) has clear provisions for monitoring specifically the number of women without access to the Internet; providing incentives for private educational centres and civil society organizations to train more women in the use of the Internet; and setting up dedicated centres at local government headquarters to serve as safe technology access centres for women (A4AI 2015b)61. The experience of the Dominican Republic demonstrates how effective coordination between the ICT machinery and the national women’s machinery, and public consultations with a variety of stakeholders, can contribute to the effective inclusion of marginalised women’s concerns in the national digital agenda. In 2015, the ICT machinery and national women's machinery invited over 90 stakeholders from various government agencies, private sector and civil society to an ideational workshop for specific suggestions on how to integrate gender into the five pillars of the connectivity agenda: “(1) infrastructure and access, (2) capacity development, (3) productive development and innovation, (4) e-government and digital services, and (5) enabling environment”(A4AI 2015b)62.

 

Ingredient 5. Building synergies between connectivity innovations and women’s empowerment policy and programming

The national agency/ministry for women, should adopt an informed position on connectivity innovations in its policy and programming for women’s empowerment and influence gender-mainstreaming approaches and women-targeted programmes across all ministries to integrate such innovations. Connectivity innovations can go a long way in enabling the effective delivery of public information and services to women. NGO-led pilots and projects demonstrate the numerous possibilities in this area. Helplines and mobile information services are extremely effective in reaching sensitive information such as on sexual and reproductive health and rights, to women and girls, especially in contexts where there are strong social taboos that prevent open discussion on such issues. Eg: the Aunty Jane hotline in Kenya on contraception and safe abortion services, and the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action that combines SMS and IVR messaging strategies to reach health information to expecting and new mothers, in Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and South Africa. Social networking can enable the creation of inclusive and safe spaces where women can connect with their peers, and seek advice from mentors in furthering their leadership skills, as the WorldPulse initiative demonstrates.

In the area of addressing women’s grievances and complaints pertaining to e-service delivery, voice and web based applications can go a long way. “Our City, Our Say’, an initiative based in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis (Ghana) and supported by the Making All Voices Consortium, has been quite successful in this regard. This project has set up a web platform and toll-free grievance redress helpline in partnership with the local municipality. Additionally, it has started a monthly phone-in radio talk show during which women can call in, and receive immediate advice for their problems/grievances with respect to accessing public services. The radio talk show format helps women shed their initial inhibitions and fears with respect to using formal channels of seeking redress that have been established.

From the experiences of governments in the Asia-Pacific, there is much to learn about effective leveraging of connectivity innovations for public information and service delivery. Some examples are provided in Box 3 below.

Box 3. How the connectivity opportunity can be harnessed for information and service delivery: Insights from the Asia-Pacific

Case study

Connectivity innovation

Our Watch, Australia
  • Social media campaign to question hegemonic masculinities among youth
  • Moderated social media discussion groups to provide a safe space for women facing GBV to build ties of support and solidarity
  • Mobile app to build teenage girls' self-esteem and self-confidence

Sree Sakthi portal, Kerala

Online moderated discussion in the platform that enables:

  1. peer-dialogue between women's collectives of the Kudumbashree programme spread across different rural communities in the state and
  2. interaction between members of women's collectives and key government officials.

IVR Reporting system of SERP, Andhra Pradesh
  • Mobile-based IVR tracking of gender based violence cases in rural areas, over an Asterisk Open Source platform.
  • Voice interface-based design to enable (non-literate) women community volunteers entrusted with the task of addressing GBV at the local level to file reports in a timely manner.

Source: Primary research carried out as part of the UNESCAP study on E-government for women’s empowerment in Asia and the Pacific. See http://egov4women.unescapsdd.org/report/annex-ii-case-study-synopsis

To tie in gender mainstreaming and women targeted programmes across ministries/ departments of the government, a system of establishing gender focal points in different ministries and clear guidelines on institutionalising gender mainstreaming – similar to what has been adopted in the Philippines through the Magna Carta of Women (2009) – can be extremely useful to bringing connectivity to gender policy and gender to connectivity policy (UNESCAP 2016b)63.

 

Ingredient 6. Addressing GBV to ensure a free and full connectivity experience for women

As explained in Unit 4.1, gender-based violence prevents women from enjoying the benefits of free and full participation in online spaces. The Web Index report that ranks 86 countries according to the quality of connectivity enjoyed by their citizens has found that 74% of the countries studied, including many high income countries, had failed to take appropriate actions to curtail gender-based violence online (WWW Foundation 2014-15)64. Laws and policies that effectively address technology-mediated violence against women can go a long way in making the connectivity experience rewarding for women. However, this is an area in which a lot of progress is still to be made. One of the more important legal gaps is defining the liability of Internet content and service providers referred to in most jurisdictions as Internet intermediaries. The actors are implicated in certain kinds of technology-mediated violence against women, such as cyberstalking, trolling, non-consensual upload of intimate pictures etc.

In the countries which have taken note of this issue, new legislation and/or amendments to existing legislation on gender-based violence have been enacted to specify the liability of Internet intermediaries with regard to online gender based violence. Broadly, such legislations fall under two approaches: 'generalist' and 'safe-harbour'. Generalist frameworks hold the Internet intermediary liable for online content. Here, the very evidence of illegal user activities on Internet platforms may lead to civil and/or criminal penalties for ISPs and the companies owning these platforms. 'Safe harbour' grants immunity to Internet intermediaries for users' actions, provided they operate within certain requirements – usually expedient action for removing or disabling content that contributes to technology-mediated violence against women, when it is brought to their notice (APC 2014)65.

Generalist approaches, unsurprisingly, encourage over-censorship and excessive content blocking by Internet intermediaries. Even in 'safe harbour' approaches, if enforcement is completely delegated to the intermediary, there is a risk of arbitrary content blocking and take down measures, that are in violation of the country's laws on freedom of speech and expression. Therefore, safe harbour laws backed by due process of law and judicial oversight of content take-down and blocking are seen by experts as a way to balance the multiple considerations for a fair and just interpretation of freedoms. New Zealand has adopted such an institutional framework to address technology-mediated violence against women, as explained in Box 4 below.

Box 4. Addressing technology-mediated violence against women: Insights from the New Zealand model

New Zealand has used an innovative institutional model to address technology-mediated violence against women, putting in place an independent arbitration mechanism that limits the responsibility of Internet intermediaries/ online platforms to that of performing a first level process of arbitration, without indulging in any form of content censorship. This sophisticated system is backed by the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, and works in the following manner.

Harmful digital communication is defined in the law as a piece of communication that can potentially cause harm to an ordinary reasonable person in the position of the victim. For example, communication that is menacing/ threatening, breaches individual privacy, denigrates an individual because of her social location/ gender identity/sexual orientation etc. The law permits any affected person – that is a person who is at the receiving end of such harmful communication – to approach the concerned Internet intermediary/ online platform, who is then required to notify the author of the communication within 48 hours of receiving such complaint. The author has 48 hours to respond with a counter-notice – that either consents to the take-down of such communication or records an objection.

The intermediary/ platform can take down the communication only if the author consents. In case of an objection by the author, the intermediary cannot take down the content. Their only obligation in such an instance is to notify the complainant, who may then proceed to the process of judicial arbitration prescribed under the Act. Where the author does not reply within 48 hours of being notified by the intermediary/platform or is untraceable because the communication is anonymous, the intermediary/ platform is required to take down the content at the end of this period.

This mechanism thus allows the intermediary/ platform to play the role of a mediator between the complainant and the author of a piece of communication reported as ‘harmful’, to help them arrive at a settlement by following a clearly defined step-by-step process. At the same time, it guards against delegating enforcement of censorship legislation to intermediaries, by ensuring that they are not becoming a substitute for judicial arbitrators.

Legal measures to address online gender based violence are vital for equal participation of women in the online public sphere. As governments expand the use of digital methods to deliver services and to engage citizens, gaps and ambiguities in the laws pertaining to gender based violence can impede women’s online participation, perpetuating their exclusion from civic-public processes.

http://www.itforchange.net/sites/default/files/Technology_mediated_VAW_in_India_issue_paper_ITforChange_Feb_2017.pdf

Unit Summary

  1. Addressing women’s exclusion from connectivity architectures requires an e-government strategy that simultaneously incorporates a public goods approach to connectivity and a multi-track gender mainstreaming approach. A public goods approach is one that guarantees a minimum level of connectivity to all citizens, irrespective of their ability to pay. Multi-track gender mainstreaming recognises that gender mainstreaming is about the integration of gender perspectives in the design and implementation of connectivity programmes, as well as the development of targeted interventions that focus on enhancing women’s access and meaningful use of the Internet and ICTs.
  2. The key ingredients of gender-inclusive connectivity policies and programmes are:
    • Ingredient 1. Universalising access through gender-responsive strategies, such as:
      • introducing a gender budget in the Universal Service Fund to support innovative projects for women’s digital inclusion,
      • instituting a universal data allowance for all citizens,
      • reserving a specific portion of municipal broadband budgets, for efforts that seek to promote women’s uptake of the Internet,
      • adopting appropriate regulatory frameworks that can further ‘affordable access for all’, and
      • promoting digital literacy and m-information services for women.
    • Ingredient 2. Setting up public access spaces that contribute to the creation of meaningful cultures of use among women at the grassroots. Models that have worked are those which have emphasised co-ownership by local women’s collectives, empathetic and gender-responsive human facilitation, and the creative combining of digital possibilities with traditional methods for catalysing information, learning and knowledge processes in communities.
    • Ingredient 3. Investing in the development of robust national level statistics on gender-disaggregated patterns of access and use of the Internet, so that women’s needs and priorities are effectively addressed while evolving connectivity policies and programmes.
    • Ingredient 4. Including clear targets to measure progress on gender equality in the design of connectivity policy frameworks.
    • Ingredient 5. Incorporating connectivity innovations in women’s empowerment policy and programming undertaken by the women’s machinery/nodal agency of women, and ensuring that all governmental agencies deploy a ‘gender lens on connectivity’ in their e-services.
    • Ingredient 6. Addressing gender based violence through adopting robust legal-institutional frameworks, to ensure a rewarding connectivity experience for women.

 

 

  1. 34 UNESCO. (2016). China, India now world’s largest Internet markets. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/china_india_now_worlds_largest_internet_markets/, 21 August 2017
  2. 35 UNESCAP. (2016a). State of ICT in Asia and the Pacific 2016, Retrieved from http://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/State%20of%20ICT%20in%20Asia%20and%20the%20Pacific%202016.pdf, 21 August 2017
  3. 36 Rue,F.L., 2011, op.cit.
  4. 37 Broadband Commission. (2013). Planning for Progress: Why National Broadband Plans Matter. Retrieved from http://www.broadbandcommission.org/documents/reportnbp2013.pdf, 21 August 2017
  5. 38 ITU. (2013a). Universal Service Fund and Digital Inclusion for All. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/USF_final-en.pdf, 21 August 2017
  6. 39 ITU, 2016a, op.cit
  7. 40 ITU. (2012). Measuring the information Society. Retrieved from https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/mis2012/MIS2012_without_Annex_4.pdf, 21 August 2017; ITU. (2016d). White Paper on Broadband Regulation and Policy in Asia- Pacific Region. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regional-Presence/AsiaPacific/Documents/Events/2016/APAC-BB-2016/Final_White_Paper_APAC-BB.pdf, 21 August 2017
  8. 41 ITU. (2013b). Universal Access Fund and Digital Inclusion for All. Retrieved from https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Conferences/GSR/Documents/ITU%20USF%20Final%20Report.pdf, 21 August 2017
  9. 42 Ibid
  10. 43 A4AI. (2015). Universal Access and Service Funds in the Broadband Era: The Collective Investment Imperative. Retrieved from http://a4ai.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/A4AI-USAF_06.2015_FINAL.pdf, 21 August 2017
  11. 43A UNESCAP (2017). The Impact of Universal Service Funds on Fixed-Broadband Deployment and Internet Adoption in Asia and the Pacific. Working Paper by the Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, United Nations ESCAP.
  12. 43B ibid.
  13. 44 Ibid
  14. 45 Nilekani, N. and Shah, V. (2016). Free Basics is a Walled Garden: Here’s a much better scheme – Direct Benefit Transfer for Internet data packs. Retrieved from http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/free-basics-is-a-walled-garden-heres-a-much-better-scheme-direct-benefit-transfer-for-internet-data-packs/, 5 September 2017.
  15. 46 Web Foundation (2015). The Internet as a game changer for India’s marginalised women – going back to the ‘Real Basics’.Retrieved from https://webfoundation.org/2015/10/india-womens-rights-online/, 5 September 2017
  16. 47 Web Foundation (2015). Guest blog: the real threat to the open Internet is zero-rated content. Retrieved from https://webfoundation.org/2015/02/guest-blog-the-real-threat-to-the-open-internet-is-zero-rated-content-continued/, 5 September 2017
  17. 48 Ibid.
  18. 49 Community Networks. (2016). Open Access. Retrieved from https://muninetworks.org/content/open-access, 21 August 2017
  19. 50 Mitchell, C. (2012). Broadband at the Speed of Light. Retrieved from http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/muni-bb-speed-light.pdf. 21 August 2017
  20. 51 UN Women (2015). Progress of the World’s Women 2015-16. Retrieved from http://progress.unwomen.org/en/2015/chapter2/
  21. 52 A4AI, 2017, op.cit.
  22. 53 A4AI, 2017, op.cit.
  23. 54 Sey, A. et al. (2013). Connecting people for development:Why public access ICTs matter. Retrieved from https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/22754/ES_Global_Impact_Study_2013.pdf?sequence=2, 21 August 2017
  24. 55 A4AI. (2015b). The 2015-15 Affordability Report. Retrieved from http://a4ai.org/affordability-report/report/2015/, 21 August 2017
  25. 56 Say,A., 2013, op.cit
  26. 57 A4AI, 2017, op.cit.
  27. 58 A4AI, 2017, op.cit.
  28. 59 Jorge, S.N. (2000). Telecentres for Universal Access: Engendered Policy Options. Retrieved from. Retrieved from http://www.isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=690:telecentres-for-universal-access-engendered-policy-options&catid=122&Itemid=452, 21 August, 2017
  29. 60 A4AI, 2015b, op.cit.
  30. 61 A4AI, 2015b, op.cit.
  31. 62 A4AI, 2015b, op.cit.
  32. 63 UNESCAP (2016b). E-government for women’s empowerment in the Asia-Pacific. Retrieved from http://www.unescap.org/resources/e-government-women%E2%80%99s-empowerment-asia-and-pacific, 5 September 2017
  33. 64 WWW Foundation. (2014-15). Web Index: The Web and Rising Global Inequality, Retrieved from http://thewebindex.org/report/, 21 August 2017
  34. 65 APC. 2014. Frequently asked questions on internet intermediary liability. Retrieved from http://www.apc.org/en/node/19291/, 21 August 2017

Glossary Text for Tooltips

Hybrid public good

Public goods refer to goods which can be consumed by more than one person at the same time, and from whose consumption individuals cannot be excluded. Goods that meet only one of these properties are known as hybrid public goods. For example, consider a tolled highway system -- though the road can be utilised by multiple vehicle owners at the same time, individuals who do not pay the toll can be excluded from it. However, governments may choose to waive tolls under certain circumstances. In this Toolkit, it is recommended that governments treat connectivity as a hybrid public good, by investing in public policies and infrastructure to provide some minimum connectivity to all.

High bandwidth, low latency fixed broadband connection

A high speed wired broadband connection with minimal delay in data transmission.

Virtuous cycles

A complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a positive feedback loop and has positive outcomes for social transformation. Whole government Application Programming Interface (API): A software system that enables the smooth flow of data from the citizen to all government agencies, and across different agencies. See https://www.techinasia.com/singapore-government-api for example.

Experience good

This term was coined by the economist Philip Nelson in 1970. He used it to refer to a product/ service whose features could be ascertained only upon consumption. See https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/259630 In the context of connectivity, this refers to the idea that the extent to which the Internet’s benefits unfold for users depends upon the specific cultures of use they adopt. While users may expand their repertoire of use over time, it is has been found that users from lower socio-economic background introduced to the Internet through Face Book presume that Face Book is the sum total of the entire Internet. Functionalities in information, communication and knowledge on the Internet is a function of how users make meaning through their experience as user-consumers.