Case Study 1
Setting up Networks in Francophone Africa
Synergie Genre et Developpement (SYNFEV), ENDA
Programme on Communication for Women

1. Context of the programme

SYNFEV is a subunit of Environnement et Developpement dans le Tiere Monde (ENDA), an international nongovernmental organisation created in 1972, with headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. ENDA works toward development which respects the environment. The mission of SYNFEV, more specifically, is to promote sustainable development with respect to gender relations. With this goal several complementary programmes have been developed since 1987: 'Economic Autonomy for Women', 'Health for Women' and 'Communication for Women'.

The programme on 'Communication for Women' began in 1995, during the preparations for the Fourth UN World Conference on Women (Beijing, September 1995). During this period, the flow of global information and communication on women's issues, both practical and substantive, developed considerably. It became important to have access to information, and quickly. But the information which was distributed was mostly in English, a language seldom learned by women's groups in francophone Africa, and often reached these groups very slowly as a result. Only those women accustomed to travelling and working at large international meetings had the opportunity to get information quickly in a language accessible for them.

SYNFEV was aided by the fact that ENDA had already invested in the dissemination of electronic information for NGOs by putting in place aa network node with viable human and technical resources. SYNFEV was therefore able to benefit from access to critical information concerning participation at the Beijing Conference, distributing this information to local organisations in Senegal, developing its interest in using communications technologies up to the Conference and afterwards, in order to benefit other women's organisations in francophone Africa.

SYNFEV took on the responsiblity of working with the team of 40 women from the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) who provided all electronic communications services at the NGO Forum in Huairou, and during the United Nations governmental confernce at Beijing. As a result of this SYNFEV proposed to facilitate the development of electornic communication for women's groups in francophone Africa. With the assistance of APC, SYNFEV was able to identify a donor, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), which would be willing to support this project financially.

2. Workshop on Electronic Communications for Women in Francophone Africa, Dakar, February 1996

Since the strategy adopted was to promote electronic communications in francophone African countries west of Maghreb, it was decided in the first phase to train representatives from women's NGOs in each of these countries (15 in all) with the intention that these organisations would ultimately become 'mothers of networks', i.e., electronic network centres to support ICT access for women's groups in each country. The workshop provided:

The participants each left the workshop with a modem, installation and configuration disks, and addresses for local internet/network access. To further the process of communication, it was decided to put in place an electronic network on the theme. An electronic conference was also set up, on 'Rights and Health for Francophone Africa Women', "femmes.afrique", the primary theme of the organisations represented, moderated by SYNFEV.

From March to November 1996, this activity continued, with financial support from the Women in Development Europe (WIDE) program on Small Projects Post-Beijing, under the title 'Energising Electronic Communication among Women in Francophone Africa'. This activity consisted of:

3. Technical Assistance for Electronic Communication for Women in Francophone Africa: Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroun.

WACC agreed to financially support a project to provide technical on-site assistance for electronic communications, provided by a francophone GreenNet female technician, in 5 countries which had proven to have high levels of potential/ability for electronic connections: Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroun.

The project is currently in progress (January - March 1997). To date, the visits to Mali and Burkina Faso are completed, and the mission is currently in Togo. In each country visited, the technician:


Case Study 2
Connecting a Coalition for Reproductive Rights
The Reproductive Rights Alliance, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Reproductive Rights Alliance is a network of organisations and structures "committed to creating and promoting a liberalised, safe and legal framework for reproductive health and well-being." It was formed in early 1996 in order to organise support for reproductive rights and comprehensive reproductive heath care services in South Africa, and more specifically to work towards the passing of legislation for safe abortions. It brings together some 27 organisations with a history of activism in the area of reproductive freedom, rights and health.

Alliance members are largely urban-based and located throughout the country, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pietersburg and Durban. Members include trade unions, women's organisations, university-based research groups, law organisations and health-oriented groups. They come together as a community sharing a common interest in reproductive rights.

The Alliance considers its achievements to be the inclusion of reproductive rights in the Constitution, the passing of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill into legislation, and growth in membership and profile. The Constitution provides a number of protections, such as the equality clause, the right to freedom from public and private violence and the right to make decisions about reproduction and to security and control of our bodies. The abortion bill, after several years spent in drafting and debate, came into operation on 1 February 1997.

As a networking body, the Alliance planned to strengthen the work of the individual organisations in the field through the dissemination of information and lobbying for the pro- choice position. With these as primary aims, and with the geographic spread of its members throughout the country, electronic networking was a logical and innovative step. The Alliance raised funds to assist their members and their management committee to get on line - where necessary, purchasing modems, supplying software and taking out subscriptions to Internet Service Providers, so that they could make effective use of an e-mail communications system.

In February 1996, the Alliance set up a list server, through the non-profit Internet service provider, SANGONeT. The purpose of the list was to network members, keep them informed of meetings and activities, and to distribute information. It was set up as a closed list, restricted to the Alliance members. Some of the messaging was "administrative", used to organise Alliance activities, while some was more substantive and used to distribute documents.

The list was used extensively to send regular messages about events, to distribute minutes and to organise Alliance activities. It was also used to send out RRA policy statements, to distribute a questionnaire, drafts of the legislation and the RRA Constitution. The Alliance thus increased accessibility to documents, and information by sending them out on the list. They found that using a list expedited the discussion of issues and opened up communication possibilities that would not otherwise exist. Their members were able to communicate fast and without the cost of long-distance telephoning or faxing.

The list administrator in the Alliance office was already computer literate when she took on the job, and was able to teach herself to send and received messages, send files and decode them etc. She did not receive any formal training and she perceives this as a problem to further development of electronic systems at this stage, as her knowledge is limited. She feels that she does not know the full potential of the Internet, and would need further advice in order to use it more effectively.

Some of the women who joined the list were new to computing and even newer to electronic mail, having received modems as part of the Alliance's efforts to facilitate communication. One of the participants commented that they did not include electronic communication in their daily routines. People with busy programmes were used to spending time on the telephone, faxing or in meetings, but were not used to taking time to do their e-mail and participate in the list. However those who had many years of experience using e-mail participated more freely and actively in the list.

One of the criticisms of the list was that too few people participated actively - approximately 20 - 25% used it consistently to discuss substantive issues, and that there was a "one way" communication stream from the Alliance to its members.

The major problem which was experienced in the sending of documents was that people were unable to decode them. The Alliance used Word Perfect 6.1 which may have added to the difficulty of reading the files, such as difficulties with reading them in MS Word. They therefore had to send documents by fax, or resend them in ASCII as well as by e-mail. This was identified as a training issue but it was not effectively addressed. It is likely that time pressure mitigated against training during the intense lobbying processes which took place during 1996.

An important comment made was that the list "could not make networking happen." This was the task of the Alliance and, whereas the list could facilitate the process, participants had to have the will to network. Where networking was not seen as an important activity, the list could not be an effective tool. At this juncture, with the Constitution and the abortion legislation both having come into effect, the Alliance will need to assess its future activities and network accordingly.

The Alliance has set up a basic Web site, which forms part of the Health Systems Trust site. It contains a short description of the organisation, list of members with live electronic contact addresses, and has the full text of three policy documents. In our discussion, Judi Merckel, the Alliance Administrator, expressed the view that they had not used their site as extensively as they could have done, and intend to change this during 1997. They plan to use the site to feature articles and papers, although their quarterly newsletter, intended primarily for members, may not be put up on their site. They still need to explore further possibilities and ways of developing their site. At the time of writing, the site had not been updated for over four months, in spite of the coming into effect of the new Constitution (of South Africa) and the new abortion legislation.

The Alliance considers that it has advanced the issue of reproductive rights publicly, through successful lobbying for its inclusion in the final constitution and the passage of the legislation. These processes have been assisted by the use of the list server. In addition, they have had many inquiries by the public and are therefore encouraged to use their Web site to better effect in future.

Based on the experience of their first list, the Alliance plans to set up a new, publicly accessible list on policy and legal developments. The list discussed above will be maintained for communicating about Alliance activities. A third internal list is to be set up for the Legal Working Group to share information about the future constitutional challenges to the abortion legislation. It will assist members to communicate about legal issues, exchange ideas, distribute documents and prepare litigation.

A further plan of the Alliance is to reach rural organisations dealing with reproductive rights. They will use e-mail to do this as far as possible, however it is seen as a problem that most of the contacts are through governmental and non-governmental organisations, which tend to suffer from a lack of infrastructure. While money alone is not the issue, infrastructure, such as available computers, and the knowledge to use them, may present a problem to the Alliance. It is recognised that there are further barriers to overcome before this becomes effective, such as the perceived difficulty and fear of the technology, the lack of culture of electronic communication and the time factor.

Interestingly enough, the setting up and use of the list server as a means of communication, is not mentioned in the Draft Annual Report 1996, although it is acknowledged by staff as having been effective. It was also suggested that an evaluation of their electronic communication methods should take place, as until now, the Alliance has been piloting its work. As it moves into the next phase, it would like to make more effective and powerful use of the medium to enhance its work.


Case Study 3
Supporting Legal Rights Advocacy
Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA)

With funding from U.S.A.I.D., the Georgetown Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program has since 1993 sponsored and administered the Leadership & Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) project. The LAWA project recruits, selects and trains women lawyers from Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda interested in advancing the cause of women's rights upon return to their country. Selected participants come to Washington, D.C. for a sixteen month period of advanced legal study and work assignment on legal and policy issues affecting the status of women. Fifteen of the twenty lawyers taking part in the four year pilot project have returned home; the remaining are currently at Georgetown.

As part of their training, from the second year of the program all of the LAWA fellows have received internet and e-mail training, and U.S.AID has made available the funding for computers and start-up of e-mail accounts on their return home. Of the fifteen fellows who have returned home, to date only three have succeeded in activating accounts. All three of these women are in Uganda.

One of the alumnae, Gloria Ofori-Boadu of Accra, Ghana, did her graduate work on legal obstacles to women's empowerment in Ghana; she and her colleagues are attempting to set up a micro-credit initiative modeled on the Grameen Bank to work with Ghanaian small tradeswomen. Gloria does not have direct access to e-mail because she as yet has not been able to afford or obtain a separate phone line. To use e-mail, she drives 20 kilometers to the University library, presents a copy of the information to be sent either in manuscript or diskette, pays one U.S. dollar per page to send a message and 50 cents U.S. per page to receive a message. She has to wait two days to pick up replies, but in any event most e-mails she sends never arrive at their destinations, because the addresses are keyed in by the library personnel, who, she reports, "tend to make mistakes" in keying in the addresses.

Several of the LAWA alumnae who have not yet activated accounts are from outside urban areas. Regina Rweyemamu, for example, is a magistrate from the northern part of Tanzania. Regina's placement in the second half of 1996 was with the U.S. Federal Judicial Training Center and with the International Women Judges Foundation (IWJF). Regina has worked at developing a judicial training program for Tanzanian judges; she is extremely talented, and the IWJF would love to work with her in further developing and presenting her program; there is substantial support for such a program among African judges who are members of the IWJF, but it will be impossible to run a program with Regina if she cannot get on line.

Ultimately, LAWA expects that all of its alumnae will succeed in activating accounts, because it is too important not to. They need to be able to share information about litigation and legislative strategies for combatting domestic violence, changing sex discriminatory inheritance, contract, and family laws and practices, new developments in AIDS prevention (a subject several of them are working on), etc. Funding is going to continue to be an ongoing problem. Even though the costs of access are falling, they are still high relative to their earnings, and will be for the foreseeable future.


Case Study 4
Engendering International Trade: Women in the PTA Region
Gender, Science and Development Programme
and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

The Women in Business Unit (WIB), COMESA

In 1992, at the time when the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) conducted a review of its operations for the previous 10 years, a Women in Business (WIB) Unit was established within the Secretariat as part of the overall effort to adapt to economic changes in the region. Within the context of increased emphasis on private sector, and given women's urgent need to earn income, the focus of the Unit was on women entrepreneurs.

The Unit was instrumental in incorporating a chapter on gender in the COMESA Treaty and a strategy was designed to help put this into action. The first step in 1993 was to mobilise women entrepreneurs through the location and creation of focal points through which they could meet and express and exchange views. These became formalised as National Associations of Businesswomen. There was also a need for a sub-regional body which could help express the views of women entrepreneurs officially through PTA to the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts, the Council of Ministers and Heads of State which is where decisions on trade policy are made. Accordingly, FEMCOM was established in July 1993 as a body of COMESA.

In addition, the WIB Unit has been doing gender training and sensitisation for Secretariat officials, for government focal points of COMESA, Chambers of Commerce, etc. Recently a system of roundtables had been established whereby the private sector can meet directly with Ministers prior to the meeting of the Council of Ministers.

With respect to questions on information dissemination and specifically what FEMCOM is doing to make information available to women entrepreneurs, it was explained that there is a computerised data base system (TINET) available through Chambers of Commerce. However, this is only just becoming gender sensitive and would probably not be really accessible unless it was also available directly through National Associations. Other participants felt that there was a great need to improve channels of communication with women entrepreneurs because so few know that either the National Associations or FEMCOM exist. One suggestion was that press releases by GEMCOM to the national/international media could also be made available to local radio stations in local languages. Generally, it was felt that information dissemination both to the grassroots but also between Associations was a high priority. An example of lack of information exchange was that one Association had established a company to buy and sell goods of members and also raise funds for itself. A participant from another country expressed surprise as her Association had wanted to do something similar but did not because they thought it was not legally possible. Advice of this nature through FEMCOM would be useful. It was also felt that FEMCOM should be seeking the resources which the National Associations need to reach out to existing and potential members.

FEMCOM is only 2 years old and national structures are not yet effectively in place. However, FEMCOM has undeniably been successful in becoming part of the COMESA structure. Women's Associations can use this first to influence COMESA policies and then, possibly, trade policy at the international level. The role of women’s NGOs in community development, and the potential they possess for sustainable and equitable development in Africa is frequently remarked upon.


Case Study 5
 Researchers and Librarians use ICTs
GENNET and the Africa Gender Institute



1. GENNET

GENNET is intended as an open forum for the discussion of gender-related topics, primarily (although not exclusively) across tertiary institutions in Kwa Zulu/Natal.

Among the topics covered are:

GENNET was established at the beginning of 1996, at the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Natal, primarily to facilitate communication between people involved in teaching and researching gender-related issues at the two campuses of the University of Natal, and in the Kwa Zulu-Natal region more widely. The network also has members from the Western Cape region, where there is a lot of activity on the gender front, along with a handful of subscribers from other countries.

Thus far the list has been used mainly for posting notices about women and gender-related events (with an occasional flare-up of discussion), and it has yet to fulfil its potential. This year the organisers would like to see GENNET membership expand to other parts of South Africa and become a more effective tool for networking, in order to help to increase South African women's use of on-line resources. For a developing country, South Africa has a high level of Internet connectivity and access to technology, but these resources have yet to be put to best use by women.

Future Plans and Possibilities

Women's/Gender Studies is a growing field in South Africa, and GENNET could be used to facilitate communication between teachers and researchers in this area throughout the country; the organisers would also like to see theGENNET Web site developed properly as a resource. Fulfilling both aims depends on the active co-operation of those involved in Women's/Gender Studies. Barriers to involvement include lack of available time and mental energy, and overcoming a degree of “technophobia”.


2. Africa Gender Institute (AGI), University of Cape Town

AGI is in a relatively privileged position, in that it has access to ICTs at the University of Cape Town and given South Africa's high level of internet connectivity and capacity. AGI has full Internet access and is keen to use it to its full potential. To that extent the Institute is exploring ways of information dissemination and communication on gender.

Currently, the institute is working on putting online the bibliographic details of its comprehensive documentation centre which focuses on the collection, management and dissemination of material on gender equity and justice issues in Africa. It hopes to make this information available on its new Home Page (currently being set up).

The Institute participated as the Southern African focal point in a recent International Women’s Tribune Centre electronic conference on gender training resources. This was a very useful exercise in collecting, downloading and posting to NGOs and institutes in Southern Africa who do not have Internet access.

In March of this year AGI is hosting a workshop for librarians and documentalists working in the area of gender equity and justice information. The workshop is to look at ways of establishing communicative mechanisms on gender equity and justice information in Africa. AGI has a pan-African working group whose email correspondence has facilitated quick, efficient and regular communication.

The workshop will be looking at issues of ICT and how women librarians and documentalists can utilise ICT in Africa, particularly around dissemination of information on gender.


Case Study 6
 African Women and Electronic Mail: The case of WEDNET

1. Introduction

Electronic networking is fast becoming a fact of life in developed countries. The electronic "superhighway" has made communication more rapid and far reaching than ever before in history. In developing countries, and particularly in Africa, it is in its infancy. Yet these countries would benefit greatly from this resource, which is cheaper, since communication by telephone (particularly international communication) is both inefficient and expensive.

Where possible, NGOs and CBOs in Africa are making every effort to access electronic mail. Their ability to communicate through the electronic mail offers opportunities that could potentially allow them to overcome many of the constraints that have limited their capacity to effectively address national and local problems of sustainable development.

African women's organizations and groups have everything to gain from being able to effectively communicate with the international community as well as with each other. Access to information about best practices, appropriate technologies, ideas and problems of other groups working on similar concerns are critical information and communication needs of women's organizations in Africa. Facilitating and building this capacity is vital if women's organizations are to contribute effectively to sustainable development.

For ELCI, e-mail is the first step in connecting people working at the community level for sustainable development. It is a critical part - but only a part - of a continuum of information flows laterally between communities and vertically from the community level to participation in the global dialogue on environment and development.

For this reason the development of e-mail networks within the regions across Africa, and around the globe need to be seen within the context of a larger communication agenda. Women's organizations and groups across Africa communicate through several medium - song and dance, theatre.

2. The WEDNET Experience

In 1989, the Women, Environment and Development Network(WEDNET) of the Environment Liaison Centre International began to explore possiblities of using e-mail as an effective method of communicating amongst African women researchers who were working in an IDRC's funded project - "women's indigenous knowledge in natural resources management". During a researchers' workshop held the same year, participants were unanimous in their interest on using e-mail as a means of communication. ELCI and IFAN (Institut Fondamental de l'Afrique Noire), Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal were identified as the main links for computerized information sharing in support of WEDNET. The Pan-African Development Services (PADIS) based at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa offered to to support WEDNET by providing access to their vast data-bank for on-line users. Training possiblities on the use and management of computerized data systems and related systems was also a possibility from PADIS.

The WEDNET's research project's communication component was meant to be part of another IDRC funded initiative. During the same year, IDRC supported the establishment of 4 e-mail nodes in Nairobi, Dakar, Tunis and Harare. Three of these nodes were successful and today provide services to hundreds of organizations and individuals throughout Africa, and the project as well spawned a number of supernodes in other countries. However, the WEDNET researchers, although initially interested, did not use e-mail for communication. The objective for attempting to link them through e-mail was to foster communication amongst researchers located in 10 African countries and between the researchers and the coordinators (Nairobi and Canada) through a more effecient and cheap means - as communication costs in Africa, especially through telephone and fax are very high.

3. The Canada Fund Project

A project entitled "Building Communication Capacity of African NGOs Pilot Project: Upgrading Electronic Mail in Kenya" was supported through the Canada Fund in 1994/95. The project has provided 40 NGOs in Kenya with e-mail communication facilities, training and assistance in covering some of the costs involved in e-mail. The Fund also undertook to upgrade three collaborative nodes - ELCI, ARSO (Nairobi, Kenya) and MARIE (Arusha, Tanzania) as a way of building the communication capacity of African NGOs. The project was implemented just in time for the Fourth World Conference on Women. A special emphasis of the project was placed on identifying women's organizations intending to participate in the Beijing conference. It was expected that the beneficairies would be connected to international e-mail conferences related to the WCW. 12 out of the 40 of the beneficiaries of the project were women's organizations or organizations considering gender issues in their work. A qualifying organization was entitled to: - a modem - communication software - training for 2 staff - installation of software - e-mail joining fee - monthly fee for 6 months The project was received with a great deal of enthusiasm by Kenyan NGOs and CBOs. The WEDNET programme played a role in promoting the project to women's organizations in Kenya. A total of 52 applicants were received out of which 40 were selected.

A quick survey on the 12 women's organizations addressing gender issues users indicates that only 4 out of the 12 are actively using e-mail. A further survey on a few individuals who are members of the beneficiaries indicates that they have access to e-mail either at home or in their respective places of work. However, only 2 reported that the Canada Fund Project influenced their interest and use of e-mail. (2 is a very small number as most of these women's organizations benefitting from the e-mail project are networks, e.g. the Association of African Women for Research and Development, AAWORD-Kenya has 300 members; National Council of Women of kenya has over 100,000 women, FIDA (lawyers), 100 members, etc).

4. Lessons Learnt, Emerging Issues and Recommendations

There is an urgent need to make women (particularly African women) understand more fully the implications of new information technologies and to demystify the aura that surrounds them. A promoter of the use of e-mail among African women, has been asked many questions: why should I use e-mail? how is it different from fax? I have no time to learn computer, can I still use e-mail? Will everybody using a computer read my messages?

A second but very important issue has to do with languages used. Most of the available e-mail conferences - like the africa.wcw.news - which we were promoting for the 4th UN World Conference on Women, were in English and French. This meant that in order for the information to get down to the women's groups working at the community level, it needed to be translated into local languages. In Kenya, ELCI managed to do this by collaborating with radio producers who translated the information to Kiswahili (national language) and other vernacular. Special efforts must be made to get the information where it is needed most.

This leads to another issue - multi-media strategy. From the ELCI experience, it is clear that in order to overcome the inequalities in terms of access to information, particularly for women and community organbizations who may not have access to IT, a multi-media strategy is a must. The multi-media strategy used by ELCI includes receiving information by e-mail (on the Beijing e-mail Conferences through newsletters, radio interviews and meetings and workshops). This information was re-directed to other e-mail conferences and networks.

Women's access to IT also seems to be a major hindrance. A number of women in the WEDNET research project and the Canada Fund project indicated that they did not have access to computers. In AAWORD, for instance, access to the computer is only by the secretaries, who use it mainly for wordprocessing practically the whole day. Therefore any member of AAWORD wishing to use the computer for e-mail is limited. Most of the AAWORD researchers had no direct access to a computer. Computers were available in their departments at the university, but they had no direct access to the computers nor decision-making powers, in terms of determining how the computers could be used. For instance, they did not make the decisions on where to install modems.

Capacity building and training are an important component in the promotion of IT among women. The lack of basic computer skills is the first step in discouraging women from using e-mail. Both the WEDNET research project and the Canada Fund project demonstrate this point. Some of the women interviewed indicated that they lack the basic computing skills and can only engage in learning e-mail after equipping themselves with some word-processing skills. For the Canada Fund project, training was limited to e-mail communication and one of the selection criteria was that the organization applying for consideration needed to possess a computer as well as some basic computer literacy. This automatically eliminated potential candidates who either did not have one or both of the criteria. It is true that most women's organizations, especially those working at the grassroots level, do not have either computers or the skills, yet they would benefit from IT. It might be wise to consider providing equipment as well as training in basic computer skills in future projects. In this way, we may be able to get more women's organizations involved in IT.

One of the selection criteria was that an organization had to be registered in Kenya, governed by a board of directors and not directly affiliated to a foreign or international organization. This criteria was restrictive. Most women's groups and organization are not registered. The process of NGO registration in Kenya is tedious and complicated, so that many women's organizations, although doing very good work, have opted to operate as informal networks. Thus, in order to capture the wealth of women's organizations and groups that may benefit from IT, a deliberate search must be undertaken.

Under the Canada Fund project, training was a key component. Two staff per selected organization were trained at a series of workshops organized at ELCI. However, because not all the beneficiaries were identified at the same time, some were trained during installation at their respective offices. The beneficiaries were free to contact the systems operator (ELCI) in case of any difficulaties. However, most of the beneficiaries indicated that the training was too short and that they also needed more focussed training aimed at their specific information needs. For instance, the medical women's network indicated that they would prefer training which would enhance their capacity to network nationally and internationally with other similar networks. They indicated that they would benefit more if they were trained on how to surf the net for information relevant to their networking initiative - medicine. Future trainings should be focussed and geared towards empowering women in their respective areas of concern.


Case Study 7
Supporting Women’s Electronic Networking in Africa
Assocation for Progressive Communication (APC) Women’s Networking Programme

APC Women’s Programme works with a community defined as: groups of women networkers who are leaders in their own right in the fields of journalism, health and reproductive rights, internet service provision, information brokerage, and environmental sustainability. They are women who are intermediaries working with and providing linkages for their communities in and through national and international initiatives and fora. They are motivators, animators and focal points of networks in their countries and regions, using ICTs to faciliate their work with their communities.

The APC's Women's Networking Programme objectives are to "equip women's groups in Africa, Asia and Latin America with the necessary access to training, technology and information to: facilitate local regional and international communication and information exchange; empower women with an information tool to increase their visibility and highlight their achievements as primary agents of development; provide access to communicate channels and facilitate information exchange for women and men around the Beijing process; respond to women's training needs, and support the involvement of a core group of women technicians and information management specialists."

The programme began in 1993 and emerged as a response to several convergent needs and demands from women and women's organisations, working within and outside APC and its network alliances.

Generally speaking, the programme has had most impact in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Morocco (and the Maghreb), Senegal (and francophone West Africa), Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mozambique.

Activities

1. In December 1993 a questionnaire was sent to 200 African women's groups covering issues of information, technology, information and training in preparation for Beijing.

The survey was posted (regular mail) or faxed to 200 women or womens groups, since at that time only a very small number of women were using electronic mail in Africa (excluding South Africa).

One set of activities which resulted was the development of relevant and well organised content and information systems and support for women working as information brokers. At the time, there was concern that these activities were fundamentally unsustainable in that they required a great deal of human resources and that, until these services were recognised as having “value” enough for people to agree to pay for them, the activities would have to be largely subsidised.

Although this situation continues to be true to this day, the generation of local content, development of appropriately multi-disciplinary information systems, efficient and targetted delivery and sharing of relevant information in local languages continue to be highlighted as priority areas by many working for sustainable human development.

2. In November 1994 APC facilitated on-site communications, training and orientation activities at the UN World Conference on Women regional meetings in Dakar, Senegal.

The objectives of this activity were to:

The technical setup was very modest: two computers were placed in a room near the press centre. From there, a connection was made to the ENDADAK host in Dakar, where email was exhanged to and from the internet four times daily via a connection to GreenNet in London.

Training sessions were held daily in French and English. In general, most of the women who attended these sessions did not have modems (though many had computers) and many came from countries where no local internet service providers existed, making local support impossible and the cost of calling a host in another country financially restricting. Nonetheless, most women who attended were quick to grasp the potential benefits of using ICTs.

Information from the NGO delegates and other media groups, e.g. The Women's Feature Service Daily newspaper, were uploaded into electronic conferences and sent to interested colleagues and groups which were following the process online.

During the drafting of a section on Women's Rights as Human Rights in the Africa Regional Platform, the Internet was used as a source to find precedent language used in documents such as the Vienna Human Rights Declaration to facilitate proposed changes to the African Platform.

Some experiences of this activity:

  1. There was some difficulty establishing the installation of telephone lines at the conference site. Although the organisers of the event were very open to the potential of using email during the conference, they were not sufficiently familiar with its potential to prioritise the necessary arrangements to ensure telephone lines were installed. There was also some wariness from some members of the organising committee as to the exact nature of the technology, its relevance to the meeting.
  2. During the meeting, electricity supply to the site was unreliable, often meaning that women and men had to work by natural light while it was available. This of course also meant that it was impossible to run training sessions and connections to transfer email. If information was time urgent, the usefulness of computers and modems powered by electricity as a communication tool was minimal.
  3. There are 4 official languages used by the UN for African conferences - English, Portuguese, French, Arabic. English and non-cyrilic language is dominant in on-line communications and this presented a serious obstacle to using the medium to carry information.

3. In March 1996, an African Women's Policy and Technical workshop, was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. This workshop gathered together many of the key women technicians and networkers using ICT in Africa. Twenty women attended the workshop - system operators, information brokers and women from organisations simply interested in using ICTs more effectively.

The following are a few of the issues which arose during the workshop:


Case Study 8
Empowering Women in the Information Society:
Building a Women's Information and Communication Network
in South Africa on SANGONeT

1. Introduction

Following the first democratic elections in the country's history, government and civil society in South Africa are grappling with the challenges of radically transforming South African society. Critical to this transformation is the constitutional obligation and political commitment to building a society based on gender equality. A great deal is happening to consolidate women's historic gains: the inclusion of sex equality provisions in the new Constitution; the South African government's ratification of CEDAW and participation in the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women and work on a Women's Empowerment Policy for the Reconstruction and Development Programme. A momentum has also been achieved in the establishment of national machinery to advance gender equality: e.g. the Commission on Gender Equality; planning for an Office on the Status of Women; gender units which are being established in government departments at national and provincial and local government levels.

In civil society there is a corresponding resurgence in the development of sectoral and regional NGO networks focusing on gender equality. Beginning with a definition of a Women's Charter for Effective Equality by the Women's National Coalition in 1993, a more co-ordinated national women's movement is beginning to emerge.

This environment offers many possibilities. Very real obstacles, however, hamper women's ability to strategically and effectively participate in developments around advancing gender equality. A national women's movement in South Africa is still in its infancy and to a great extent still divided by the legacies of apartheid. Newly elected legislators and policy makers in government, particularly at the provincial level, are isolated by a lack of access to information about developments in gender equality policy both inside South Africa and in other parts of the world.

It is necessary to connect islands of activities into a broader gender equality movement. This calls for information to be channelled effectively and continuously within a framework that also facilitates communication and interchange between the people and organisations working for gender equality.

Information technology in South Africa is becoming increasingly accessible and is being recognised as a fast, effective and affordable method of lobbying and monitoring as well as information exchange. Good communications software is readily available, modems are becoming cheaper and of higher quality. Many more legislators, civil servants, NGOs and individuals have access to computers and phone lines and as a result to a powerful mobilising tool. Effectively co-ordinated and integrated with training in the use of the technology, an electronic information and communications network in the field of gender equality would greatly enhance women's ability to act strategically and in a co-ordinated fashion.

Being able to use information technology is an important source of empowerment for women who often feel isolated and disempowered by rapidly advancing technological change. Such a network would also provide a link with regional, continental and international networks.

2. SANGONeT and the APC Women's Programme

SANGONeT, the Southern African Nongovernmental Organisation Network, has been providing electronic communication services to NGOs in South Africa from 1987 when it was first established as WorkNet. Since 1993 SANGONeT has focused on integrating the provision of an accessible and affordable electronic communications infrastructure with training and other capacity building activity, including the provision of useful information.

In 1994 SANGONeT became a full Internet service provider. This enabled easier access to international sources of information and immediately increased the size of the information pool users could access. At the same time the lower cost of modems and computers enabled more organisations in the development and social justice sectors to afford the necessary hardware. These factors gave rise to a dramatic increase in the number of Internet users in South Africa, and in the actual use made of the technology. A user survey conducted by SANGONeT in mid-1995 indicated that most users regarded electronic mail as an essential component of their communications systems and that at least 40% were using the network to retrieve information they needed in the course of their work.

To consolidate and extend these trends, SANGONeT provides a range of services which include training and electronic publishing. Between 400 and 450 people have been trained in the past year and have created 36 World Wide Web sites and extensive use is being made of communications tools such as mailing lists and on-line discussion forums. As a result there is finally a visible impact in the levels of electronic information sharing and communications among civil society organisations in South Africa.

From the outset SANGONeT earmarked gender and women's issues as a critical area for information development and linking of organisations. However, other than various projects around the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995, and the campaign for the Termination of Pregnancy act of 1996, its activities in this sector in South Africa have been limited.

At the international level SANGONeT have worked with its international partner organisation, the APC (Association for Progressive Communications). The programme has provided hundreds of women with technical skills training and included training of trainers. One such training workshop was hosted by SANGONeT in March 1996 for women working in networks and women's organisations in Africa.

3. The South African Women'sNet
3.1 Beneficiaries

A critical aim of the Women'sNet is to enhance the ability of both law and policy makers and civil society to impact on various political and decision making processes which seek to redress the unequal status of women in South African society. The initial target groups for this network would therefore be:

Once the network has been established to the extent that a significant number of organisations working with women at the community level are participating, the target group will be expanded to include women in communities who could have direct access to the network through their relationships with NGOs and CBOs, e.g. resource centres, training centres, small and micro enterprise support groups, advice centres, health and reproductive rights services, child care support groups, etc.

3.2 Empowering women through communications and information access

A preliminary project proposal for Women'sNet identifies the following components:

3.3 Empower by Building Skills

3.4 Location

The Women'sNet project would be coordinated by SANGONeT and housed and administered in the SANGONeT offices in Johannesburg.

3.5 Consultation and Accountability

The project will be governed and informed by a broad consultative process which will include:

3.6 Aims and Objectives of Women'sNet