Gender and the Digital Divide Seminar Series

1. Gender and the Digital Divide Seminar Series Bottlenecks & points of intervention Looking through the prism of small African business

2. unchartered territory • Bottlenecks • Points of intervention • Unanticipated outcomes • Questions

3. tri-dimensions • Civil society and life long learning • Innovation and business • E-government and e-governance

4. civil society and life long learning the most important step, sometimes the easiest

5. learning trends • Education provision has shifted over time from family & community to state • New shift is from public to private sector • Implies that your skills are obsolete by the time you are employed • Employers are now more likely to assume responsibility for education and skills upgrading

6. INFORMATION Learning in warp speed times Informed choices about information choices Breaking the myths about the Web CAPITAL How to access training that is costly Where is the hardware? Opportunity cost of investing time bottleneck

7. points of intervention • One week training @ $20.00 registration fee • Constant on line research & communication • Chance meetings & purposeful partnerships • CISCO gender training program • Scholarships for basic training, exposure and distance learning

8. unexpected outcomes Public and private sector have approached this women’s association for sectoral training on IT policy

9. business and innovation ideas need capital, not trade barriers

10. commoditisation of services For many developing economies, the export of services might be their only means of • diversification away from excessive dependence on the primary commodity / unprocessed materials export • earning real dollar values

11. barriers to market access • Prohibition to foreign access • Price based measures (e.g tariffs) • Subsidies in developed countries that support high technology sectors, investment incentives, tied aid • Technical standards and licensing • Discriminatory access to information channels and distribution networks • Lack of transparency in government measures • Difficult in tapping international financial markets • No access to government procurement orders

12. despite that • Some early attempts at e-services: e.g translation; book-keeping; eco-tourism; and local ISP services • Some trading of traditional products

13. bottleneck Costs and cash flow issues • Excessive fees for local phone calls over and above internet connection costs • Expenses involved in getting web site hosted • Inability to use or accept credit card payments for payments or sales • High monthly payment for ISP connection • Maintenance, upgrading and marketing costs are still high, precludes small businesses

14. bottleneck Human capital issues • Market scope widens, is more competitive • Lack of information on valuing work, skills and products • New ideas about clever marketing, converging sectors, still to come alive

15. points of intervention • Real business mentoring – USA/Cameroon, Lithuania/Canada • Value chain advice to businesswomen but more than anything • Capital, capital, capital • Philanthropic capital • Venture capital

16. unexpected outcomes All very well to talk about e-commerce: introduction of an IT platform to your business base. But now women want to know the implications of WTO policy on e-commerce, of the multi-fibre agreement on their future sales; of the implications of taxation on service exports.

17. e-governance & e-government pushed to their limits or playing for time?

18. government targets Three broad areas: • E-governance: managing the growth of the Internet • Supporting policies: Governing activity on the Internet • E-government: establishing e-infrastructure within government

19. e-governance Management of technologically complex global communications networks and increasing convergence of ICTs through standardization procedures.

20. e-government E-government aims to make the interaction between government and citizens (G2C), government and business enterprise (G2B), and inter-agency relationships (G2G), more efficient, more effective, transparent and economic.

21. stages of e-government • Political commitment • Public service information • Interactivity and feedback • On-line transactions • Virtual delivery of public services

22. where do we start? In countries where most governments are in a stranglehold of debt…….

23. Vacuum in e-governance at the national level Clash between top-down formal govt telcom structure and bottom up informal industry driven Internet Govt authorities lack knowledge and decision power on licence applications and regulations Scarcity of installation engineers and maintenance staff bottleneck: regulatory issues

24. Help government identify with stakeholders Raise awareness about b/g interface Raise awareness among women’s businesses of national regulatory policies Assist in tendering out technical bids Assist in technology research to make informed choices Identify technology package deals that include training and on line help points of intervention

25. questions • Is it really about gender – is it not just about income? • Is it really about e-commerce – is it not about trade barriers?

26. info Dev “…..to leapfrog into the future, developing countries need a place where information on building an infrastructure, accessing social services, organizing production and creating an investor-friendly environment can be shared. Economic growth needs knowledge. The more knowledge is shared, the more growth is generated in industrialized as well as emerging nations.”

27. Thank You ! Nidhi Tandon Nidhi@networkedintelligence.com