8/8/2019 Locating Gender in ICTD projects - Mahiti Mitra kiosks of the Setu project of Abhiyan

1/4

IT for Change Case Study

This case study is a part o the broader research study Locating gender in ICTD projects: fve cases rom India,

undertaken by IT or Change, which sought to understand how principles promoting womens inclusion and

gender sensitivity can be incorporated into Inormation and Communication Technologies or Development

(ICTD) projects through an analysis o ve interventions:Abhiyans Mahiti Mitra kiosks, DHAN Foundations

Village Inormation Centres, the E-Krishiapplication within theAkshaya project, rural eSeva kiosks and the

Community Learning Centres and Trade Facilitation Centres o SEWA1. These specic projects were selected

on the basis o their representation o dierent development typologies2, geographical coverage, scale, type

o ownership (government or civil society sector) and their stated approach to gender and social justice.

In addition to the eld research undertaken between February and April 2007 using qualitative methods,

the research also built on secondary sources. Each o the ve interventions aims to improve community

development and linkages with external institutions to better address community needs, while womens

empowerment was not necessarily an explicit objective or all cases. This case study analyses Abhiyans

Mahiti Mitra3 kiosks.

Abhiyans genesis

and approach todevelopment

Abhiyan is a network o

grassroots organisations,

including womens organisations,

which came together ater the

1998 cyclone in Gujarat. Their

driving vision was to provide a

platorm or collective action

involving relie and rehabilitation

work in the area, and later,

to address uture long-term

development interventions. The

three major aims oAbhiyan

are: to create institutions and

innovations, to provide services

and to collaborate with other

organisations.

The main initiative oAbhiyan

is its Setu centres (literallybridge centres) which have

become a key node within

the community. They have

Mahiti Mitra kiosks o theSetu project o Abhiyan

IT or Change

2008

contributed to: bringing about a

movement or sel-governance;

strengthening gram panchayats4

by improving their unctioning

and mechanisms; strengthening

the capacity or development

decision-making, and placing

development as a peoples

agenda rather than as an

externally induced mandate.

The 15 Mahiti Mitra inormation

hubs, set up in 2005 in theearthquake-aected region

o the Kutch District5, are a

refection o the dynamism

o the Setu programme. Their

main objective is to bring the

benets o ICTs to marginalised

groups through serving as a

central source or all inormation

relating to government services

and local development needs.These ICT-based platorms

demonstrate the eective use

o ICTs in strengthening the

A balance has to

be drawn betweengenerating incomeand providingcitizenship-relatedservices, withoutaltering the essentialdevelopmental ideal othe project (Mr. Bharath,ICT coordinator at the Setu

in Adesar)

gram panchayatsystem through

improving transparency and

accountability o such structures

in the districts o Kutch.

Abhiyans vision is one where

ownership and control o

inormation is in the hands o

the community. This is soughtthrough the Setu and its linkages

with the panchayats which

aim to acilitate accountable

8/8/2019 Locating Gender in ICTD projects - Mahiti Mitra kiosks of the Setu project of Abhiyan

2/4

sel-governance and long-term

development. Mahiti Mitras

enable e-sel-governance, by:

increasing citizen access to their

rights and entitlements at the

grassroots level; strengthening

local governance structures

through training, computerisation

o records, and acilitation o

citizen interaces; improving

health, through tele-medicine

and health camps; increasing

opportunities or employment

through computer training, access

to job inormation and livelihood-

specic inormation. Althoughthe issue [o gender] is not a blind

spot, according to Ms. Iyengar

(director oAbhiyan and visionary

behind the Mahiti Mitra project), it

is clear that gender considerations

have not been a strong guiding

orce in the development phase o

the Setus and the establishment

o Mahiti Mitras.

ICTD implementationmodel and actors

Setu centres were set up in

the days ollowing the 2001

earthquake in Gujarat. They

unctioned as nodes or relie

and rehabilitation work in the

area. Structurally, Setus are

cluster-level knowledge and

inormation acilitation andsupport centres, each servicing

15-20 villages. A series o

18 exist, covering a total o

360 villages o the District.

They ocus on synergising

the roles o NGOs, district

and state government, and

external experts with the local

communities, and maintaining

inormation and disseminationlinkages among them.

Within the Setu strategy, the two

aims o Mahiti Mitra are: to test

the easibility and sustainability

o a revenue model to run

inormation centres, and to move

towards e-sel-governance.

Mahiti Mitra centres are

positioned as the dissemination

platorm o the Setus, linking

them to institutions so they may

become eective development

and governance centres rather

than merely computer training

institutes. Where the Setus

dissemination mechanism or

inormation and services lacks

structure, Mahiti Mitra centres

are able to provide the requiredstructural support and means or

inormation and communication

dissemination.

The Mahiti Mitra centres are

located in central public spaces,

such as a bazaar, and are usually

located within a panchayat

space in order to establish strong

ties with the local governance

structures. Mahiti Mitra centres

are operated by local persons

who are trained, guided and

monitored by the Setu team.

They are in charge o daily

activities at the centre and carry

out all o the inormation and

communication processes at the

community level. Four o the 18

operators, at the time o the data

collection, were women.

The ICT services and

applications used are developed

and made available ree o

charge by K-Link6.Abhiyan bears

the cost o the inrastructure and

materials, and provides a xed

salary to the operator. Keeping

the content localised is critical

to improving the eciency othe ICT training provided, and

is in itsel a good marketing

tool or the activities o the

centre. Computer training is

provided or both local sel-

governance representatives

and community members. The

centres also house several

applications, such as a legal

portal or a portal addressing

issues surrounding the Right

to Inormation Act, which help

local communities understand

their local governance

structures. Community members

collect community-level data on

the content and services that are

in demand. Data are analysed at

the Setus, where decisions ornew services and content are

made.

Community members view

the Mahiti Mitra centres as the

ocal point or dissemination

o services and inormation

on a variety o development

topics. Interviews show how

the centres have enabled

marginalised populations to

directly access inormation

without having to go through

village leaders. However, owing

to problems with the location,

the centres are not easily

accessible or women, which

shows that conceptualising

projects in a gender-neutral

way may not have the positiveoutcomes expected.

Challenges and positiveoutcomes

While the access and

participation o marginalised

populations in Mahiti Mitra

centres continues to be an area

o concern, some changes have

been introduced to increasetheir engagement both in centre

activities and, more generally, in

those o the Setu. Future goals

2

IT or Change Case Study, Mahiti Mitra kiosks

8/8/2019 Locating Gender in ICTD projects - Mahiti Mitra kiosks of the Setu project of Abhiyan

3/4

o the Mahiti Mitra project thus

include increasing centre use by

women and other marginalised

sections; providing relevant

governmental inormation,

especially on entitlements, or

access by these groups at the

centres; and developing the

capacity o the panchayats

to engage with the related

governance mechanisms through

the centre.

Discussions on nancial

sustainability o the Mahitri Mitra

project raised opposing views

rom representatives at dierentlevels o implementation.

Financial sustainability is

listed as one o the important

objectives o the project, but

Mr. Bharath (ICT coordinator at

the Setu in Adesar, one o the

sites o the research) believes

that a balance has to be drawn

between generating income and

providing citizenship-relatedservices, without altering the

essential developmental ideal o

the project.

The social and cultural norms o

the region have kept the levels o

womens involvement in the Setu

and Mahiti Mitra intervention low,

except in the tele-conerencing

programmes on health which

address womens specic needs.

As only our o 18 operators are

women, seeking the participation

o community women in the

centres has been a huge

challenge. Bringing sustainable

change would mean having more

balanced gender ratios among

both Setu teams and Mahiti

Mitra operators, in order toinclude a gender perspective at

the strategy design levels. This

would involve: revising selection

norms by reducing the minimum

literacy requirement; shortening

the duration o the training

programme; bringing resources

and trainers to local areas rather

than taking women to cities

or capacity building exercises;

providing certicates at the end

o training as a motivation tool

and convincing the community

o the importance o womens

inclusion.

In places where eorts have

been made to modiy the timings

and location o the centres and

to nd women operators, therehas been an increase in womens

participation in inormation

processes and training sessions.

Even though the Kutch region

is heavily networked through

womens sel-help groups

(SHGs), increasing womens

agency requires more relevant

and easily accessible content in

the centres.

What does Mahiti Mitratell us about gender inICTD projects?

The empowerment possibility

within the vision o change

It is widely recognised that

access to inormation is a

basic right that is empoweringby its very nature. Thereore,

a project design ocused on

improving community access

to, use o and control over

inormation is a key actor

or promoting participatory

development through ICTs.

While this constitutes a pre-

condition or womens inclusion,

the empowerment possibility

however, in an intervention such

as the Setu, lies in the end value

o the inormation provided, and

how it may be eectively used by

women in the community.

Trade-ofs between gender

justice and governance reorm

In order to challenge the

underlying power relations

in inormation sharing,

strengthening local sel-

governance and engaging the

community in demanding its

rights were key to the success

o the Setu project. Project

visionaries and representatives

elt that incorporating gender

concerns rom the start would

have been a contentious process,

as it would have involved

simultaneously challenging

power relations on a urther

ront, which rom a conventional

project management perspective,

was seen as a risk to its

success. Securing the buy-in o

community members and the

power elite, while establishing

basic e-sel-governance, was

seen as a necessary rst

stage. However, encouraging

womens participation in the

Mahiti Mitra through specic

Project visionaries and representatives elt thatincorporating gender concerns rom the start wouldhave been a contentious process, as it would haveinvolved simultaneously challenging power relations

on a urther ront, which rom a conventional projectmanagement perspective, was seen as a risk to itssuccess.

3

IT or Change Case Study, Mahiti Mitra kiosks

8/8/2019 Locating Gender in ICTD projects - Mahiti Mitra kiosks of the Setu project of Abhiyan

4/4

programmes is crucial because

access to and eective use o

the inormation is where the

empowerment possibility lies

in theAbhiyan model. On an

organisational ront, specic

eorts have recently been taken

to address the gender issues o

the model, e.g. development o

gender-sensitive content and

applications aimed at women

with low literacy levels.

Gendered choices in project

implementation

Community spaces are governed

by gendered norms and public

spaces tend to be seen as the

male domain. Thereore, locating

Mahiti Mitra centres in central

bazaars (where men tend to

hang around all day) comes at

the cost o womens access. The

lack o an explicit preerence

or selecting women as centre

operators urther conrms

the denite trade-o between

making centres accessible to the

general community in a cluster

o villages, and creating an

environment accessible to those

who are most alienated rom

inormation sources and external

linkages, i.e. women.

Strength o the community

approach

There are several strong points

worth noting in theAbhiyan

model. Firstly, the process o

setting up Setu centres with

Mahiti Mitra kiosks has been

given great attention, with

emphasis on empowering the

community to participate in

development activities that

benet them, as well as on

strengthening and incentivising

the local sel-government body

to better perorm their roles.

The operator and sta o the

centre are local, thereore they

are in tune with the realities

o the community. Even the

technical experts in K-Link work

in conjunction with the Setu

sta to ensure that applications

are user-riendly and t the

communitys needs. Finally,

despite the act that Mahiti Mitra

centres are a revenue-making

model, the services which are

central to the communitys

rights and struggles are provided

or ree. Similarly, the highest

revenue generating services

(like computer literacy) are

not pushed at the cost o low-

revenue or ree services like

inormation on reproductive

health. There seems to be

enough groundwork in building a

community-owned and oriented

model inAbhiyan, and alongside

this, or making signicant

eorts in grassroots womens

empowerment, to then synergisethe two in order to ensure

that women are not sidelined

yet again as they have been in

most development endeavour,

also rom the empowering

possibilities o new technologies

ReerenceGurumurthy A., Swamy M., Nuggehalli R.,Vaidyanathan V. (2008), Locating genderin ICTD projects: fve cases rom India,Bangalore: IT or Change. The study canbe ound at www.ITorChange.net/images/locating.pd.

Four lms have been made about thesecase studies. Write to communications@ITorChange.net or a copy o the CD.

IT or Change is an India-based NGO working

on inormation society theory and practice rom

the standpoint o equity and social justice. Our

work spans a range o development arenas:

gender, education, community media and

governance.

Endnotes

1 Gurumurthy A., Swamy M., Nuggehalli R., Vaidyanathan V. (2008),

Locating gender in ICTD projects: fve cases rom India , Bangalore: IT

or Change. Available at www.ITorChange.net/images/locating.pd.

The study was part o the ICT or Development project implemented

by the National Institute or Smart Government (NISG), supported by

UNDP and the Department o Inormation Technology, Government o

India.

2 The ICTD ramework used in this research to typiy dierent approaches

includes the ollowing:

i. ICTs as a vehicle or market extension.

ii. ICTs as eciency enhancing tools or development institutions,

including o the government.

iii. ICTs as community-centred development tools that can be used to

specically address education, health, livelihoods, agriculture, and

other goals.

iv. ICTs as a new strategy or empowerment that can shit social

power relationships and acilitate institutional transormation

towards the realisation o rights o marginalised groups.

Abhiyan was selected to represent type 4.

3 More inormation aboutAbhiyan on www.abhiyan.communicationcrats.

com/index.php.

4 Panchayats (or gram panchayats) are village level sel-governance

institutions in the Indian administrative system.

5 The district is the node o local governance at the state level in the

Indian administrative system.

6 K-Link is the technical wing o the programme that develops ICT

applications or rural development and maintains links with the

community level through its close association with the Setu eld sta.Credits

Coordination : Chlo Zollman

Design : Varun Dhanda, Krupa Thimmaiah

Editor : Anita Gurumurthy, Chlo Zollman

Editorial support : Sophie Ault

Printed by : National Printing Press, Bengaluru

A digital version o this paper is available at www.ITorChange.net

Creative Common License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0

IT for Change Case Study, Mahiti Mitra kiosksIT or Change Case Study, Mahiti Mitra kiosks

4