Session 3: Information and communication technologies: some references

Expert Workshop
"Women: Source of Wealth and Job Opportunities"

11-12 April 2005, Tangier (Morocco)

The activities chosen by women entrepreneurs are usually highly concentrated in few areas, thus limiting their income and growth prospects.

Information and communication technologies represent an excellent opportunity to achieve greater diversification and growth in women's business ventures. It has now been recognized that the structuring and transforming nature of ICTs allows them to play an important role in the development process. ICTs can help to establish links between globalization, the emergence of new forms of wealth accumulation, and employment. For instance, exports related to ICTs, which can be classified as exports of knowledge, contribute to reducing countries' external constraint; they open up new trade possibilities in the virtual market place; and they also provide an efficient way of displaying products, adapting to market fluctuations and managing stock. They are also tools for training, education and networking. They encourage partnership, the formation of alliances and the spread of knowledge.

Women entrepreneurs can move into the ICT sector to meet the challenges posed by the restructuring of the North African societies (modernization of public and private administrations, social services for young people, protection of the environment, increasing exports, training, etc.).

Women also can contribute to the construction of the knowledge society by investing in domains, which could help reducing the digital gap between women and men. This is also an opportunity. In fact, although the new economy has brought many potential benefits for women, they do not automatically enjoy these benefits. To become `winners' in the new economy, women must have access to education and to the tools of the information society. The United Nations has ranked women's access to information technology as the third priority, after the problems of poverty and physical violence. Women entrepreneurs can meet this challenge. They can invest in the production of content aimed at women and fulfilling women's needs, with formats better suited to their context, especially in the rural sector.

Questions for the session:

1. What opportunities do information technologies offer for the creation of businesses by women?