March 21, 2008

A one-day workshop on Gender and E-government was opened today, 21 March 2008 in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. Over forty participants are in attendance at the workshop drawn from Ministries of Information and Communication Technologies, National Gender Machineries and representatives of Regional Economic Communities.

The workshop is organized under the framework of the Global ePolicy Resource Network (ePOl-NET) the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Canadian ePolicy Resource Centre (CePRC) in the aim of developing an Action Plan framework for Gender and e-Government. The main objective is to facilitate the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as tools for empowering and benefiting women and men, for full inclusion in e-government programming and service delivery. The workshop is also a culmination of the series of workshops held in Tunis, Tunisia and Maputo, Mozambique on "Gender and e-Government" in June 2006 and March 2007, respectively.

Opening the roundtable, Ms Aida Opoku- Mensah, Director of ICT, Science and Technology Division (ISTD) said that “the main objective of the workshop is to encourage dialogue among ICT and gender experts in countries with the aim of analyzing and evaluating the efforts put in place by African countries to include a gender dimension in e-Government policies and programmes that address the specific needs of African women”. Ms Opoku- Mensah invited participants to look at the challenges in developing gender sensitive e-Government strategies with a particular focus in:

• Establishing the right institutional framework;
• Operationalising the elements of the action plan;
• Mobilising resources needed for implementation of e-Government programmes;
• Enshrining e-Government in national ICT policy.
  

Mr. Moses Bayingana, ICT Expert, on behalf of Dr Elwaer Abdul Hakim, Director, Human Resource and Science Technology Department African Union Commission thanked ECA for organizing the workshop, which “ is consistent with the aim of the African Union to build an integrated and inclusive African Information Society that will enhance the integration of African economies and improve the quality of life of African citizens”. He also said that “ the status of women in Africa and their access to decision-making structures, adequate health care, education, housing, income generation and new technologies, remain behind compared to men” and added that “development efforts which do not reach men and women equally have limited impact”.

Ms Wendy Ace, Director, Canadian e-Policy Resource Centre – Canada School of Public Service, touched upon “the gender dimensions of e-governance which reflected gender differences in patterns of use, access and content, and the under representation of women in all ICT decision-making structures which impacted on their direct participation in government activities”.

While presenting ECA's "Gender and Development" programme to workshop participants, Ms Thokozile Ruzvidzo, Officer In Charge of ACGSD also ensured that follow-up activities of the workshop as well as implementation of its recommendations will give an opportunity for interdivisional cooperation between the African Centre for Gender and Social Development (ACGSD) and ISTD.

The outcomes of the workshop will be posted at: http://www.epolafrica.org/events/2008/gender-egov

For more information contact: Ms Eskedar Nega, Programme Officer, ICT Policy Development Section at enega@uneca.org