Public policy has a defining role to play in ensuring ICT development programmes promote gender equity and create opportunities for women. The ways to integrate gender and poverty concerns need to be explored through undertaking specific programmes, which should be also pro-poor.
Major recommendations of the research highlighted in this briefing are presented below for consideration:
- Deploy public access to ICTs like telecentres to locations where women feel comfortable to visit and at a time which fits women's work and family commitments;
- Undertake a programme for women so that women can access ICT-based services at their door-step through innovations like info-lady;
- Identify and promote good practices and lessons learned about how women and girls are using ICTs;
- Promote incentives for girls to undertake science and technology education including provision for special scholarships;
- Introduce full-payment of off-site training, with child care provided;
- Introduce bonuses for women who attend and complete Internet training; [2]
- Create business and employment opportunities for women as owners and managers of ICT-based entrepreneurship;
- Undertake measures to protect children from child pornography through Internet and other media;
- Undertake effective measures to barrier in easy access to pornography by children; [6]
- Promote counseling services foradolescent girls and women on reproductive health through various ICT channels;
- Take effective measures to protect self-esteem and dignity of women which are undermined in the new media, particularly by representing women as a commodity;
- Develop e-learning facilities so that women can access to education opportunities through the power of new media;
- Mainstream gender sensitive monitoring and evaluation tools for programmes and projects.
To ensure the effectiveness of mainstreaming gender issues, it will be important to adopt gender evaluation methodologies that facilitate the integration of gender perspectives into the planning phase and enable the gender analysis of Digital Bangladesh programmes. [12]
Whilst various international agencies have already been supporting partners to develop gender specific budgets in national programmes it is equally important that Government makes lump sum budgets available on gender issues without detailing specific allocations. Any subsequent gender sensitive budgeting exercises should then be ‘owned’ by a wide assortment of civil society groups to ensure a diverse range of needs are represented. [10]
