P R I M E R S I N G E N D E R A N D D E M O C R AT I C G O V E R N A N C E

4. G E N D E R R E S P O N S I V E E - G OV E R N A N C E :

E X P LO R I N G T H E T R A N S F O R M AT I V E P OT E N T I A L

A valuable opportunity exists to fulfil UNDP’s mandate

for gender equality and women’s empowerment through

e-governance programming. This primer highlights

some of the key gender-related issues regarding

e-governance in the context of UNDP’s Democratic

Governance work, presents entry points for continued

programming on gender and e-governance, and makes

recommendations for closing the existing gender gap

in specific e-governance interventions prepared by

UNDP practitioners and its partners.

Author: Nadia Hijab and Raúl Zambrano (prepared in 2007 under commission by UNDP)

Editor: Anita Palathingal

Design: Suazion (New York)

Production coordinator: Jessica Hughes, UNDP

Production: Automated Graphic Systems

The analysis and recommendations of this report do not necessarily reflect the views of theUnited Nations Development Programme, its Executive Board or the United NationsMember States. The report is an independent publication by UNDP and reflects the viewsof its authors.

© 2008 United Nations Development Programme

Acknowledgements 2

Acronyms and definitions 3

Introduction 5

1 Mandates for UNDP work on ICT, gender and e-governance 7

2 The track record on gender and e-governance

in UNDP programming 9

3 Key gender issues for e-governance 12

Design of e-governance policies and strategies 13Delivery of basic e-services 15E-participation and networking 16Access to ICTs 17Access to information via ICTs 19

4 Entry for programming on gender and e-governance 21

Policy design and implementation 21

E-service delivery 22E-participation and networking 23Access to ICTs 23Access to information via ICTs 23

Resources 25

Boxes and FiguresBox 1. Gender equality considerations within the legal framework 14Box 2. Connecting communities in Armenia and Bulgaria 15Box 3. Bridging gender gaps using ICT networks in the Arab Region 16Box 4. Access to ICTs for e-governance: People First Network in the Solomon Islands 18Box 5. The Sustainable Development Network of Honduras 20

Contents

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This primer was written by Nadia Hijab,Director, Development Analysis andCommunication Services, and RaúlZambrano, ICT and Governance PolicyAdvisor, Democratic Governance Group,United Nations Development Programme(UNDP). It is one of five primers beingproduced on different aspects of genderand democratic governance by the UNDPBureau for Development Policy (BDP).The aim is to support UNDP/BDPDemocratic Governance Group (DGG)staff and networks in promoting genderequality and women’s empowermentthrough their programme and policy advice.

This Governance and Gender project wassupported by funds from the GenderThematic Trust Fund, which were gener-ously made available to the UNDP/BDPGender Unit by the Government of theNetherlands. The project was managed byMarie-Ange Bunga, the DemocraticGovernance Group’s gender focal point, inclose collaboration with the Gender Unit.The production of the primer was overseenby Raúl Zambrano and Marie-Ange Bunga,with support from Research Associates

Renata Nowak-Garmer, Froniga Greig,Veronica Perera and Minerva Novero.

We would like to thank the following colleagues who served as the ReadersGroup: Shahid Akhtar, Pierre Dandjinou,Sonia Duran, Jessica Hughes, Yuri Misnikov,Roland Msiska, Martin Lavoie, Najat Rochdiand Luke Wasonga.

The other four primers in the Primers inGender and Democratic GovernanceSeries are:

l Quick Entry Points to Women’sEmpowerment and Gender Equalityin Democratic Governance Clusters

l Gender Equality and JusticeProgramming: Equitable Access toJustice for Women

l Electoral Financing to AdvanceWomen’s Political Participation:A Guide for UNDP Support

l Corruption and Gender:The Linkages and the Impact on Equitable Development

These resources are framed by the humanrights-based approach to develop-ment, which now informs the work ofthe UN development system (see theQuick Entry Points primer for a dis-cussion of the approach and what itmeans for gender equality). UNDPintends for these primers to contributeto the empowerment of women andthe advancement of gender equalitythrough democratic governance. Weencourage colleagues to continue toshare their experiences and ideasthrough dgp-net@groups.undp.org,the electronic discussion networkserving UNDP democratic governancepractitioners and ictd-net@groups.undp.org, the cross-practice

Acknowledgements

Gender

The social attributes associated with beingmale and female and the relationshipsbetween women, men, girls and boys, aswell as the relations between women andthose between men. These attributes andrelationships are socially constructed andare learned through socialization. They arecontext- and time-specific and changeable.Gender is part of the broader socio-culturalcontext. Other important criteria for socio-cultural analysis include class, race, povertylevel, ethnic group and age (UN/OSAGI,n.d.). The concept of gender also includesthe expectations about the characteristics,aptitudes and likely behaviours of bothwomen and men (femininity and mas-culinity). The concept of gender, appliedto social analysis, reveals how women’ssubordination (or men’s domination) issocially constructed. As such, the subordi-nation can be changed or ended. It is notbiologically predetermined nor is it fixedforever (UNESCO, 2003).

Gender relations

The social relationships between men,women, girls and boys, which shape howpower is distributed between women,men, girls and boys and how that powertranslates into different positions in society.Gender relations vary depending on othersocial relations, such as class, race, ethnicity,etc. They will greatly impact how an indi-vidual man or woman experiences processesand institutions such as trials and courts andhow they interact with other individualswithin those institutions.

Gender mainstreaming

“The process of assessing the implicationsfor women and men of any planned action,

including legislation, policies or programmes,in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategyfor making women’s as well as men’s concernsand experiences an integral dimension of thedesign, implementation, monitoring andevaluation of policies and programmes inall political, economic and societal spheresso that women and men benefit equallyand inequality is not perpetrated. Theultimate goal of this strategy is to achievegender equality” (UN/ECOSOC, 1997).

Gender equality

The equal rights, responsibilities andopportunities of women and men and girlsand boys. Equality does not mean thatwomen and men will become the same butthat women’s and men’s rights, responsi-bilities and opportunities will not dependon whether they are born male or female.Gender equality implies that the interests,

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Acronyms and Definitions

ACRONYMS

BDP Bureau for Development Policy

CEDAW The Convention on the Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination Against Women

CO Country Office

CSO Civil Society Organization

DGG Democratic Governance Group

GBV Gender-Based Violence

ICT Information and Communications Technology

ICTDAR Information Communication Technologies forDevelopment in the Arab Region

MDGs The Millennium Development Goals

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

PAR Public Administration Reform

PFnet People First Network, Solomon Islands

RDS Red de Desarrollo Sostenible de Honduras

SDNP Sustainable Development NetworkingProgramme

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

WSIS World Summit on Information Society

needs and priorities of both women and menare taken into consideration, recognizingthe diversity of different groups of womenand men (UN/ OSAGI n.d.).

Gender equity

The process of being fair to men and women.To ensure fairness, measures must often beput in place to compensate for the histori-cal and social disadvantages that preventwomen and men from operating on a levelplaying field. Equity is a means—equalityis the result (UNESCO, 2003).

Gender analysis

The collection and analysis of sex-disag-gregated information. Men and womenperform different roles in societies andwithin institutions, such as police forcesand courts. These differing roles lead towomen and men having different experi-ences, knowledge, talents and needs.Gender analysis explores these differencesso that policies, programmes and projectscan identify and meet the different needsof men and women. Gender analysis alsofacilitates the strategic use of the distinctknowledge and skills possessed by womenand men, which can greatly improve thelong-term sustainability of interventions(UNESCO, 2003).

Gender neutrality

An assumption that development inter-ventions will benefit men and womenequally, leading to a failure to analyse andplan for the social relationships between men

and women and how those relationshipswill impact programming.

Gender justice

“The protection and promotion of civil,political, economic and social rights on thebasis of gender equality. It necessitatestaking a gender perspective on the rightsthemselves, as well as the assessment ofaccess and obstacles to the enjoyment ofthese rights for women, men, girls andboys and adopting gender-sensitive strate-gies for protecting and promoting them”(Spees, 2004). Much of the broadergender justice agenda falls outside thescope of UNDP Access to Justice pro-gramming. However, increasing women’saccess to justice, be it formal or informal,hinges on removing economic, politicaland social barriers to participation, asarticulated by the gender justice agenda(UNIFEM & ILAC, 2004).

Gender-based violence (GBV)

A generic term used to describe any harmfulact perpetrated against an individual againsthis or her will based on his or her sociallydefined identity as male or female (UN,2005). The UN General Assembly definedviolence against women in the 1993Declaration on the Elimination of ViolenceAgainst Women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely toresult in, physical, sexual or psychologicalharm or suffering to women, includingthreats of such acts, coercion or arbitrarydeprivation of liberty, whether occurringin public or in private” (UN, 1993).

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‘‘

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Gender is defined as the social attributes associated with being male and female and the relationships between

women, men, girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men.

The concept of governance has evolved tocover not just public sector managementof efficient services and an enabling envi-ronment for development, but also thepromotion of human rights and funda-mental freedoms. This shift towards whatis now known as “democratic governance”is partly the result of globalization. Thelatter in turn has been spearheaded sincethe early 1990s by the rapid developmentand widespread use of new Informationand Communications Technology (ICT).

Developing countries have not been ableto harness the potential of ICTs at thesame speed as industrialized nations. Issuesof access to ICTs and investment in ICTinfrastructure, among others, have limitedthe uptake in such countries. As a result,many of the initial ICT for Developmentprogrammes and initiatives focused onaccess, complemented in many cases bysupport for local capacity building.

By the end of the millennium, nationalgovernments had started to complementtheir development agendas with strategiesand policies to foster the use of ICT withingovernments (national, state and local).Thisled to the emergence of e-governance as a keyand dedicated area of ICT for Development.

It is essential to emphasize, however, thatICTs are not gender-neutral—they are notaccessed, managed and controlled by allmen and women equally. As a result, menand women experience different benefits

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E-governance refers to the use of old and new technologies to enhance government

efficiency, transparency, accountability, and service and information delivery, as

well as fostering citizen participation in democratic processes via ICT networks and

networking. E-governance thus includes three core components: e-administration,

e-services and e-participation.

Introduction

‘‘

‘‘

and effects of ICTs at all levels, a pointhighlighted by many studies on ICTs andgender since the early 1990s (Hakfin,2006; UNDP-APDIP, 2007).

A quick review of the existing literatureshows that this is a relatively new area thatremains to be explored in much moredetail. This primer builds on this extensivebody of work on ICTs and gender, butfocuses on key gender issues related to e-governance within the context of UNDP’s

work on democratic governance. Thesekey issues are: (1) policy-making processesfor e-governance planning; (2) delivery ofbasic services and public information viaICTs; and (3) empowerment of stakeholders,particularly women, to use ICT networksto engage with governments over gover-nance processes.

The primer has four sections: Section 1 isan overview of the intersection betweenICT, gender and e-governance and UNDP’smandate in regards to this field; Section 2presents the work UNDP has done to datein integrating these areas; Section 3 buildson the previous sections and highlights keygender considerations for e-governanceprogramming, including major obstacles;and Section 4 presents entry points forcontinued programming on gender and e-governance, and makes recommendationsfor closing the existing gender gap in specifice-governance interventions.

All in all, this primer is designed to contribute to the broader discussion of genderand e-governance and facilitate gender-responsive e-governance programming byUNDP practitioners and their partners.

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ICTs are not gender-neutral—they are not accessed,managed and controlled by all men and women equally.

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This narrow interpretation of ICT fordevelopment as pertaining to access toICTs later made it into the eighth MDG,which calls for making technologies avail-able to all.1

UNDP follows a two-pronged approach toworking on ICT for Development: (1) ICTfor the poor; and (2) e-governance. One ofthe key concerns in both of these areas isensuring that women and other marginal-

Mandates for UNDP Work on ICT, Gender and E-governance

1ICT for Development emerged as a new area of work in the mid-1990s at a time

when the potential of new technologies was starting to be better understood.

However, development programming in this field tended to focus on the provision

of access to ICTs rather than on deploying innovative technologies to help address

traditional development gaps and challenges.

ized groups have the access and capacity touse new technologies.

UNDP defines ICTs to include both newand “old” technologies, and does not limitit to the use of the Internet or personalcomputers. Many older technologies, such asthe telephone and radio, are more accessibleto the poorest sectors of the populationand are regaining importance largely dueto the gradual convergence of old and new ICTs.

UNDP’s e-governance strategy was adoptedafter a major review of its extensive partic-ipatory experience with practitioners inthe countries and regions that it serves.This strategy aims to:

l Increase the efficiency, transparency andaccountability of national institutions;

l Enhance access to information andimprove the delivery of basic servicesto the overall population, in particularthe poor; and

l Enhance citizen participation, in particular the participation of the poor,women and youth, in democraticprocesses and policy-making.

At the Fourth World Conference on Womenin 1995, participants reflected on the issue ofICTs and gender, and the two topics wereaddressed in formal conference documentsand in non-governmental forums. Likewise,at the World Summit on InformationSociety (WSIS) in 2003 and 2005, womenexplicitly addressed the issue of the use ofICTs for governance and their involvementin such forms of governance. However,both of these events demonstrated theneed for more work, particularly in theareas of policy, capacity development andgovernance mechanisms, to help catalysesocial and political change in this field(Oxfam, 2005).2

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One of the key concerns of UNDP ICT for Development programmes is ensuring that women and

other marginalized groups have the access and capacity to use new technologies.

This was followed in 2005 by a more in-depth review of DGG advisory services, anintensive electronic discussion on the 1,300-member global governance electronic knowl-edge network, and a learning day ongender equality for DGG practitioners.

The review concluded that there has beenconsiderable progress in the area of main-

streaming gender equality considerationsinto governance programming. It foundthat DGG advisors were well able to assistthe efforts of UNDP Country Offices (CO)to increase the numbers of women in elec-tions, parliaments and the public service,as well as to disseminate lessons learnedand experiences garnered across the globe.DGG advisors were also increasingly able

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The Track Record on Gender and E-governance in UNDP Programming

2In 2004, UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group conducted a gender mapping of its

service lines, in what was to be the first of several steps to fully mainstream gender

in the practice of democratic governance.

to support efforts to challenge structuraldiscrimination seen in, for example,national and local resource allocationtrends and access to citizenship rights,including access to justice.

To expand UNDP’s contribution to e-governance programmes, an extensivemapping was completed at the end of2005 of all related programmes supportedby the organization and its partners.3 Theexercise uncovered 195 ongoing projects in100 countries and revealed that thedemand for support covers five key areasof UNDP’s e-governance programmes:(1) access to ICTs; (2) e-administration;(3) e-service delivery; (4) access to infor-mation via ICTs; and (5) e-participationvia ICT networks and networking. Theseareas are now part of DGG Cluster I:Fostering Inclusive Participation.

This review of projects also suggested thate-governance initiatives take two differentforms: (1) direct intervention, as stand-aloneprogrammes that have clear e-governanceand ICT-related outputs and outcomes; and(2) indirect intervention, as a component oflarger democratic governance programmes.Historically speaking, the former has ledthe way in introducing e-governance programming into CO portfolios. But oncethis has occurred, the indirect form seemsto take precedence, which is a good indicatoras to the degree that e-governance can bemainstreamed into more traditional areasof UNDP democratic governance work.

Even so, UNDP is still supporting projectsthat are, for example, almost exclusivelyfocused on e-administration. However, atthe same time, these e-administration projectsare seemingly disconnected from broader

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In many cases, data exists to keep track of who is using specific government services provided through e-governance solutions, but analysis is not carried out to track the gendered consumption patterns of such services. Understanding usage patterns would help reallocate resources based on demand.‘‘ ‘‘and/or related policies and programmes onPublic Administration Reform (PAR): alogical partnership. By the same token, manyPAR initiatives are lacking in e-governancecomponents that could explicitly improveboth public administration and servicedelivery. Initial results from new and ongoinge-governance mapping exercises indicatethat this is now changing and interactionsbetween the various service lines and clustersare increasing. In a handful of countries,using ICT as the entry point for broaderdemocratic governance programming hasbeen instrumental in getting such pro-grammes off the ground.

E-governance activities are not limited togovernment institutions alone. For example,parliaments and electoral processes (includingindependent electoral bodies) are not government entities per se but part of broaderdemocratic governance processes. The samecan be said about human rights commissionsand anti-corruption commissions, forexample, for which ICT can be used toensure transparent and accountableprocesses and to facilitate active stake-holder participation. It is thus not surpris-ing to find UNDP already supportingICT initiatives in these areas.

All in all, important challenges remain in

integrating gender equality considera-

tions into e-governance. Perhaps the

most critical challenge identified by

UNDP is the absence of programmes

grounded in rigorous gender analysis. In

many cases, data exists to keep track of

who is using specific government services

provided through e-governance solutions,

but analysis is not carried out to track

the gendered consumption patterns of

such services. Understanding usage

patterns would help reallocate resources

based on demand.

Policy is another important area where

gender equality considerations have largely

been ignored. Policy advice has tended to be

either gender-neutral or focused on women’s

empowerment. The main assumption here

has been that ICTs are either neutral or

that they somehow address gender gaps on

their own. This was the case regardless of

whether women or men were providing

policy advice across focus areas as diverse

as aid coordination, regional planning and

decentralization, budget oversight, employ-

ment or minority rights.