A rather disillusioned observation was recently made during a pan-Africa conference: Africa women consider new information and communication technologies as "futuristic" rather than a tool for development to be used today. If initiatives are not taken now to thwart this attitude, activities by women in Africa to promote sustainable development that also benefit them will take event longer. This will be especially true in regions on the continent where English is not the common language

Mottin-Sylla, Marie-Hélène

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  enda synfev Synergy Gender and Development  Environment and Development in the Third World  A Chance To Seize by Women in Francophone Africa       par : Marie-Helene Mottin-Sylla,  ENDA-SYNFEV Synergy Gender and Development,  Environment and Development in the Third World, APC Women Program in Africa BP 3370, Dakar, Senegal mhms (a) enda.sn  A rather disillusioned observation was recently made during a pan-Africa conference (1)  :  Africa  women  consider  new  information  and  communication  technologies  as "futuristic" rather than a tool for development to be used today. If initiatives are not taken now to thwart this attitude, activities by women in Africa to promote sustainable development that also benefit them will take event longer. This will be especially true in regions on the continent where English is not the common language.  A Recent Tool for Development  Use of electronic communication is a relatively new phenomenon in Africa compared to  other  regions.  During  preparations  for  the  1995  Fourth  World  Conference  on Women held in Beijing (China), electronic infrastructures almost completely bypassed Africa, except for South Africa. The rest of the continent was "terra incognita" similar to the blank unexplored regions of the world portrayed centuries ago on explorers' maps (2). During preparations for the Beijing Conference, the Synergy Gender and Development  team  of  Environment  and  Development  in  the  Third  World  (ENDA-SYNFEV)  (3)  launched  a  "Communication  for  Women"  Program  in  francophone Africa. At this time, no women's organization in francophone Africa was connected to electronic  mail,  and  access  to  Internet  in  francophone  Africa  was  practically nonexistent.  This situation highlighted the urgent need that women's groups in francophone Africa be  "connected"  in  order  to  establish  the  beginnings  of  an  electronic  network.  If endogenous initiatives were not implemented, the risk would be that development actions launched through electronic communication would only reinforce the regional tendency to extraversion.  In the three years since the Beijing conference, the situation has greatly evolved. Most of the coastal African countries and a good part of the land-locked nations now have  access  to  Internet.  However  they  all  still  lag  behind  in  the  availability  of communication  and  information  technologies.  The  possibility  of  Africa  integrating itself into cyberspace are much more encouraging than a few years ago, and the continent now has a stake in this medium. But what will be the role of African women in this process, especially those in regions that only recently became connected ?  Cyberspace : A New Space for African Women ?  Although  it  has  become  an  important  component  of  today's  world,  cyberspace appears to be only a vague abstraction to the majority of African women. Yet if they are not actors in cyberspace, African women will be affected by it.  Women,  including  those  in  Africa,  have  traditionally  been  confined  to  domestic, "private spaces", although they are beginning to conquer public ones. Are we going to let ourselves be marginalized in this new medium ? Fortunately some have venture into cyberspace and have understood the stakes involved.  "In  cyberspace,  and  invisible  form  of  digitized  information  and  messages,  certain relations are assumed between people and organizations. It is dynamic and inspiring, it is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. There are no borders in cyberspace and it is constantly evolving. However it isn't always welcoming or accessible and is often cold and onerous, hermetic and Westernized. Cyberspace is especially a world of men. It reminds one of a badly organized library humming with conversations that are of little interest.  What can cyberspace offer women ?What will be our place in it ? We haven't been forgotten  in  this  medium,  mainly  as  cyber  consumers  and  cyber-workers  on  the information highway that is about to invade our lives. If information important to us isn't available, we must produce and publish it. We must also find ways to meet in larger numbers and create networks among ourselves to reinforce, as cyberspace allows it so well, coalitions, strategic alliances an actions.  Women want to be active in the process of developing and structuring cyberspace. The "info-poor" - those without access - will surely suffer discrimination compared to the "info-rich". In fact access to information will be a crucial determining factor that makes  the  difference,  as  the  world  moves  into  the  coming  millenium.  For  these reasons, women activists aim to work for :  ·  equal access to the knowledge and skills necessary for access to cyberspace and exchanging of digitized information;  ·  reinforcement  of  public  regulations  of  cyberspace  in  order  to  prevent commercial abuses and violation of individual rights, as well as to guarantee equal access to information; and  ·  gender equality in the organizations and forums in which decisions are taken about the development, structure and organization of cyberspace. " (4)  In general women have been confined to actions promotion development that are "traditional"  and  conform  to  their  place"  in  society  :  literacy,  health,  (especially reproductive  rights),  and  income-generating  activities.  Recently,  women  have become more involved in areas of public management, by participating in decision-making, politics and good governance, actions for peace, and in the media. However, women are still underrepresented in certain sectors, especially science, technology and information.  Francophone African women have only a modest presence in the area of information and communication technology; for now they are limited to using elementary facilities given  by  these  tools.  The  obstacles  facing  them  are  enormous,  especially  when compared  to  the  rest  of  the  population.  Women  have  very  high  illiteracy  rates  - especially  in  languages  used  for  international  communication.  French,  the international language of Francophone Africa is a "minority language" in cyberspace. The cost of access is relatively high for women, who make up the majority of the poor in  poor  countries.  Their  additional  responsibilities  of  survival  production  and reproduction  often  prevent  them  from  benefiting  from  an  adequate  education.  In addition, technical support, training and maintenance facilities are not adequate for the needs of many women.  It goes without saying that in that context, francophone African women are strikingly absent from the spheres where decisions and initiatives are undertaken concerning information  and  communication  technology  policy  and  equipment.  They  also  lack information about international events that would be of interest to them, and therefore have little possibility of playing a role in them.  At the same time, it is obvious that efforts must be prioritized in this direction on the part of donors and policy makers, governments and especially by women and their organizations.  Today,  there  is  a  consensus  that  educating  women  is  a  central necessity  for  development  and  fighting  poverty  -  as  much  as  for  environmental preservation for future generations. Women, and especially women's organizations working  for  sustainable  development,  make  up  the  major  category  of  potential "strategic users" of information and communication technology.  From the Tool to the Contents  Even  after  tacking  these  primary  obstacles  linked  to  access,  use  of  electronic communication  by  francophone  African  women  shouldn't  be  taken  for  granted. Solving  the  basic  problems  that  limit  women's  access  to  cyberspace  -  illiteracy, prohibitive  costs,  lack  of  equipment  and  access  to  technical  formation  -  won't guarantee that women are actively going to use information technology. This is one of the lessons learned from the activity of the private electronic conference femmes-afrique,  established  after  the  training  workshop  on  electronic  communication  for women organized in February 1996 by ENDA-SYNFEV in Dakar. The electronic list membership hasn't stopped since.  When analyzing the activities of the electronic conference, the facilitators noticed that individual women and women's organizations used the basic functions of electronic communication for interpersonal communication (from one individual or organization to another one) rather than for collective communication (from one to many). In this way, women are confining themselves to a passive role as receivers of information coming from the outside rather than playing an active role in producing and diffusing their own information about their activities, their concerns and their context.  The crucial issue of endogenous production of information is continuously highlighted by  organizations  working  for  sustainable  development  through  information technologies. It is stressed that the content of information made available is much more  important  than  the  constant  development  of  sophisticated  new  tools  (6). Mastering the technology is an important step, but beyond that new possibilities must be  explored,  and  be  used  for  the  advancement  of  women's  agendas.  The "Communication for Women" program in Francophone Africa hope to develop useful activities that are action oriented in this way.  From Access to Action, one step forward  Women in francophone Africa need to access to new information and communication technologies  because  these  will  allow  them  to  change  the  level  at  which  they communicate  and  are  able  to  act.  With  these  technologies,  one  adopts  a  new perspective on the world: one lives locally but becomes more aware of what is going on globally. In turn, this knowledge helps to transform one's local actions.  The main issue is not - as some still think today - of deciding if it is worth adopting these  new  technologies  or  not.  Just  like  globalization,  no  one  has  the  choice  of deciding whether to be involved in such a process. These technologies will influence our lives whether we accept to use them or not. For this reason instead of fearing them, African women should consider how the new information and communication technologies can allow us to change the world and to contribute to determining our own future.  In Dakar, October 1998, the "Communication for Women" Program has organized another  action  in  that  line,  around  the  issue  of  "organizing  and  participating  to electronic  solidarity  campaigns  for  women's  groups  in  Africa  (7).  This  activity demonstrated that electronic communication and information tools can help, being used  wisely,  to  change  the  situation  of  women,  by  increasing  awareness, international solidarity and possibility to change locally with global support. The Mid-Term  Assessment  of  the  Beijing  Platform  for  Action  five  years  after  the  United Nations World Conference on Women will provide a new impetus for actions in the field of using electronic communication for the advancement of women's agenda.  Notes  1.  Eight Summary, AFR-FEM Virtual Working Group organized by World Bank (March-June  1998)  around  the  40th  Anniversary  Conference  of  the  United Nations  Economic  Commission  for  Africa  "African  Women  and  Economic Development, investing our future", Addis-Ababa, 28 April -1st May 1998. Web archived on: http://www.globalknowledge.org.  2.  See for instance the map of Association for Progressive Communication, a network  of  electronic  networks  active  for  development  worldwide,  dated November 1994.  3.  ENDA-SYNFEV,  "Synergy  Gender  and  Development"  is  a  team  of  ENDA Third World,  an  international  non  governmental  whose  headquarters  are  in Dakar, Senegal. The "Communication for Women" Program is implemented since  1995  by  ENDA-SYNFEV  for  promoting  the  use  of  electronic communication by women's groups in francophone Africa. ENDA is a member of  Association  for  Progressive  Communication,  and  ENDA-SYNFEV  is coordinating the Africa regional program of the APC Women's Program. More information  on  ENDA  on  http://www.enda.sn,  and  on  ENDA-SYNFEV: http://www.enda.sn/synfev/synfev.htm.  4.  "Atelier  de  formation  en  Communication  électronique  pour  les  femmes d’Afrique  francophone",  Dakar,  February  1996,  in  collaboration  with  World Association  for  Christian  Communication,  Women's  Networks  Support Program of Association for Progressive Communication, PADIS-ECA.  5.  Translated and adapted from : Maja van der Velden (maja (a) xs4all.nl), with her kind authorization.  6.  femmes-afrique, private electronic conference of the Health and Rights for Francophone African Women Network, links the women's organizations active in the fields of health and rights in francophone Africa. It was launched in 1996 in collaboration with Women In Development Europe, and presently connects more  than  40  groups,  diffusing  about  30  messages  per  month.  femmes-afrique-info, a twin electronic information service is open to anyone interested to  receive  information  in  French  about  women  in  Africa.  Contact : synfev (a) enda.sn or http://www.enda.sn/synfev/fainfo.htm  7.  Communiqué,  Association  for  Progressive  Communication  (APC)  Africa Network, Conference on "Global Connectivity in Africa" (ECA, Addis-Ababa, 2 - 4 June 1998).  8.  The  documentation  on  this  workshop  and  its  follow-up  is  available  on http://www.enda.sn/synfev/solidarite/solindex.htm  

A chance to seize by women in francophone Africa

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