Women and ICT in Colombia: An Issue Still Not Completely Incorporated in Feminist Agendas

In this interview with GenderIT, Olga Paz of Colnodo, a Colombian member of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), explains that in her country there is still no clear gender perspective on national information and communication technology (ICT) policies. Further, there is still a ways to go in achieving an understanding of the role of ICT as a political and strategic issue that can be productive for social organisations and women's groups, in particular. Paz here shares her impressions on the challenges involved in integrating gender and ICTs.

Specifically, reflecting on the ICT projects she coordinates, Paz notes that gender is integrated into the development of many such initiatives, even though it might be implicit rather than explicit. At times, galvanising women to use ICTs as a political/development issue can be challenging, simply because of lack of time or means to share news/information. For example, the Portal for Colombian Development - Avanza seeks to support social development processes in order to contribute to the reduction of poverty in Colombia, in part by fostering knowledge management through a space/tool that enables rural, farmer, and women's associations to publish information. But due to various constraints, women users, in particular, "are unable to connect to the internet because of the costs of services, or the distance to access them. All in all, the alternative is that these people send diverse information via electronic mail to the portal's content editor, who revises, organises, and places information on-line on a daily basis." The level of true participation is, thus, diminished; in short, women's organisations in Colombia are not yet taking ownership of ICTs as a political issue.

To flesh out this picture, Paz points to statistics from the most recent report from the Telecommunications Regulation Committee (Comisión de Regulación de Telecomunicaciones, CRT), which indicate that the percentage of people that access ICTs in Colombia is 8% of the population. Their use is much more concentrated in the main cities of the country, among the population belonging to the higher and middle classes, among professionals, the employed, and so on.

To address divides like these, Paz reports, the Connectivity Agenda (Agenda de Conectividad) is working to advance public policy so that citizens can have access to new technologies and manage to establish a more fluid government-citizen relationship. However, "There doesn't seem to be an obvious gender perspective in the Agenda..." Advocacy efforts to integrate that perspective should rely on the fact that the gender perspective is clear and visibly defined, suggesting perhaps a "convergence of issues" amongst organisations dedicated to women's issues and organisations that focus on ICTs. She stresses that the ICT boom in Colombia is recent, though, such that the latter type of organisation is fairly rare. Thus, it might be up to women's organisations to link gender issues to the current ICT debate, such as by working to open spaces for women's participation in ICT policy - creating a heretofore-lacking agenda for citizens to participate in the discussion, design, implementation and evaluation of ICT policy.

Strategies Paz suggests here for boosting participation of Colombia's women in ICT projects, and in shaping ICT policies, include:

• Drawing on workshops to: raise awareness among women on the subject of communication and new technologies, institute mentoring processes so that women's groups and organisations can fully take advantage of the benefits of ICTs, and build capacities, provide follow-up and orientation so that women perceive the possibilities offered by ICTs
  
  Example: Colnodo has organised workshops using the GEM (Gender Evaluation Methodology) tool. These sessions use videos of various experiences, chats, written texts, and so on. "The women are then surprised when they realise everything they can do. Nevertheless, the resources available limit the use of ICTs..." The workshops also share the experiences of women that had no access to technologies and that began to use them successfully; "some women are even training other people and use modern technologies on a daily basis." That said, "the orientation also has to go beyond training. You can't just tell women, 'look at these experiences, you can do this,' you have to sit down and make plans together, manage projects and carry out processes so that ICTs are something practical and productive."
• Fostering a culture of use of ICTs within organisations
• Encouraging women's networks and organisations to consider, promote and obtain resources to develop projects that actively involve ICTs
• Developing community radio initiatives that integrate modern technologies. "There are already interesting experiences in this line, from which we could learn a lot."
• Carefully considering cultural and social aspects when planning projects
  
  Example: Colnodo worked with Neighbourhood Informational Units (Unidades Informativas Barriales, UIB) in Bosa, Suba and San Cristóbal to carry out an alternative journalism project called the Youth Communication and Information Network (Red de Comunicación e Información Juvenil, RIJ). Organisers tried to involve the same number of boys and girls the project, but girls began to pull out due to heavy pressure from their families and domestic commitments to meet; they also needed the permission of their parents to attend the workshops. Anticipating these types of barriers to participation and crafting strategies to address them prior to programme implementation is key.