Transcript Empowering Rural Women through Distance Learning

UNESCO’s Role in Promoting
the use of ICT to Bridge the
Digital Divide
Abdul Waheed Khan
Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information
UNESCO
“Transforming digital divide into digital opportunities
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If knowledge is the engine of development,
then learning must be its fuel.
Takeushi
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Knowledge
Prosperity
Globalization
Inclusion
Knowledge Divide or Digital Divide
Ignorance
Poverty
Marginalization
Exclusion
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Source: ICT4D-Connecting People for a Better World, Editors: G. Weigel and D. Waldburger (2004)
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Source: ITU Mobile Internet Statistics Annex 2002
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Barriers to use of ICT
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Access to technologies
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General literacy and language skills
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Cost of hardware and relevant content
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Lack of technical training in the use of technology
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Institutional and infrastructural barriers
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Parameters of Empowerment
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Building a positive self-image and self-confidence
Developing the ability to think critically
Building up group cohesion and fostering decisionmaking and action
Ensuring equal participation in the process of bringing
about social change
Encouraging group action in order to bring about change
in society
Providing the wherewithal of economic independence
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Marginalized people’s own view of poverty
Powerlessness - Lack of voice - Lack of independence
• The marginalized are subject to exploitation, humiliation
and corruption
• Powerlessness reinforces their inability to affect changes
to their situation
Strategies must:
• Start with poor people’s realities
• Build grassroots capacity to organize
• Work towards changing social norm
• Support social movements, innovation and leadership
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Assumption:
ICTs can help the marginalized
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to make informed decisions
to better organise themselves
to communicate their interests
to break down their isolation and structures of
discrimination
• to support economic and social innovation that benefit
them
• ICTs can improve the efficiency and responsiveness of
groups that work with the marginalized
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Engaging the marginalized:
obstacles to overcome
• Lack of access (infrastructure)
• High cost of access (when available)
• Lack of spare time and mobility
• Lack of IT literacy
• Lack of relevant content in vernacular languages
• Lack of inclusive access models focused on the poor
and marginalizedLack of enabling policies and strategies
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Community Access: the strengths
Community access
• reduces the access cost per person
• provides a collective learning environment
• facilitates the human interface required to interpret
and contextualize the information
• promote development/packaging of essential
information on the net
• allows mixing and matching of traditional (familiar)
and new media
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UNESCO research project
“Putting ICTs in the hands of the poor”
• Develop innovative solutions for the use of ICTs by the
marginalized, isolated and disadvantaged
• Empower people living in poverty, especially women and
youth, through community access to ICTs and relevant
content
• Develop replicable models through mixing and matching
traditional and new media technologies
• Assess impact and readjust the methodologies through
action research
• Promote horizontal collaboration across the institutes
serving the marginalized at the grassroots level
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Nine Project Sites in South Asia, with different
access models and combination of media
technologies to increase the participation of
marginalized
For details visit http://www.ictpr.nic.in/
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Key Findings
• Poverty is understood as a complex and relative
condition that involves issues of voice, empowerment,
rights and opportunities, as well as material deprivation
• Poverty itself is often a barrier to participation
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Findings… ICTs and education
• ICT initiatives have a huge potential role to play in the
gap between people’s high valuation of education
and the difficulty of continuous access to good quality
education
• They can develop new modes and styles of learning
that may extend well beyond ICT training to the
formal system
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Findings… Media mixes
• The potential of media mixes is immense in reaching
diverse populations
• There are benefits in developing local content creation
and the inherent creativity of participants
• There is a need for more content creation training,
especially for new media, and mixes of old and new
media
• There is potential in using community media models
to provide a foundation for new ICTs to make them
community-oriented
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Findings… Empowerment
• Empowerment is experienced as social norms are
challenged
• The opportunity to use ICTs contributes “confidence
building”
• Horizontal collaboration among institutions working with
marginalized at grassroots requires policies
encouraging such collaboration
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Findings… Empowerment
• Enhanced knowledge and skills in ICT means
enhanced opportunities
• Better social standing
• Better economic opportunities
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Findings… Social networks
• New ICT-enabled networks
• ICT interventions help to enlist and expand existing
networks
• Greater flow of information through wider social
networks
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Sustainability
• Sustainability – both technical and social – need to be
addressed as a priority
• There is a huge potential to build on the involvement
and enthusiasm for participation in ICTs initiatives
amongst young people
• Technical support and backup, and local capacity are
crucial issues especially when the resources are limited
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Key to Success
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Accessibility
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Affordability
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Sustainability
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