Bridging the Gender Digital Divide in the "New" Europe
By Amy N. Addams, Editor, On Campus With Women

The United States is not the only country plagued by a gender divide in information and communication technologies (ICT). A major new report focusing on women in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) argues that the status of women in ICTs is an essential component of international development, affecting and facilitating poverty reduction, good governance, and sustainable human development. In addition, because of their ever-increasing influence, ICTs are also seen as potential instruments for advancing gender equality. However, findings indicate that gender differences appear at multiple levels, including access, participation, and benefits.

Bridging the Gender Digital Divide: A Report on Gender and ICT in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States explores initiatives on gender and information and communication technologies (ICTs) implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and other constituencies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). It was produced by the Central and Eastern Europe Office of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States of the United Nations Development Program.

Findings
The authors found that many of the trends regarding gender and ICTs that have been identified in other regions of the world were also reflected in CEE/CIS. These include:

• the underrepresentation of women at all levels of the ICT sector and minimal amount of integration of gender issues into ICT policies and discussions;
• the lack of understanding of gender equality advocates regarding the importance of ICT to their goals;
• the relative absence of CEE/CIS from global discussions and forums on gender and ICT;
• the lack of access and opportunities for women to learn basic ICT skills;
• the need to produce more online content that relates directly to women's needs and lives, and the need to include women in the creation of such content;

• the reality that "young women have greater opportunities to participate in ICT activities and environments, than do older women who deserve further encouragement and support" ;

• the necessity of post-secondary education in the struggle to achieve gender equality in the ICT sector.

These findings demonstrate that high levels of women's participation in the workforce over several generations, as was found in most of the countries in CEE/CIS, do not automatically translate into gender equality. Although many women in the CEE/CIS obtained and continue to obtain advanced degrees in science and engineering, traditional gender roles have also persisted and women have not had equal input into policy and program design.

UNDP and UNIFEM argue that the potential for ICTs to advance women's equality "cannot be realized if ICT policies and tools are gender blind and if ICT as a growing sector . . . remains pervasively male-dominated." One of the report's core arguments reflects this position and advocates that gender mainstreaming—the integration of gender issues into all policy analyses and design—is essential for ICTs to be instruments of change.

As comprehensive data on gender and ICTs in CEE/CIS are difficult to find and gather, this report functions more as a "map of the situation of gender and ICTs in the region," than as an in-depth analysis. The authors have, however, begun to identify trends, gaps, and promising practices, as well as issued recommendations for future directions and work.

Bridging the Gender Digital Divide focuses primarily on how to integrate gender into ICT policies and discussions on training, education, access, and skill building in order to both ensure that women enjoy equal benefits from technology and to improve human development more generally. The report emphasizes specific current contexts and future directions while also pointing to the relevance of the extensive sub-regional ethnic and cultural diversities and their differential impact on women's vulnerability, the region's shared history and legacy of communism, and the potential criminal and misogynistic uses of technologies. These realities play a crucial role both in current levels of access to, participation in, and benefits from ICTs and in the development of National Action Plans for Information Society Policies.

Recommendations and Conclusions
In addition to reviewing the current situation for women in CEE/CIS, the authors also put forth several recommendations. These include:

• increased support for gender and ICT advocates from the region to advance gender mainstreaming within ICT policies and programming;
• support for stronger involvement of women and women's organizations from the region in the WSIS process leading to the Tunis Summit 2005;
• further research to determine the status of women in the ICT sector and the gender impact of ICT policy development;
• specific measures to strengthen gender within ICT projects at various phases, including planning, implementation, and evaluation;

• capacity building for ICT project personnel on gender and its relevance to ICTs.

The findings and recommendations included in this report reinforce a central theme in the literature on women and development: education is vital in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to move toward gender equality, but women have limited access to this education, particularly at the tertiary level. Bridging the Gender Digital Divide makes it even more difficult to overstate the centrality of access to and participation in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education to advancing gender equality.

To read the full report, please visit web.undp.sk/uploads/Gender%20and%20ICT%20reg_rep_eng.pdf (PDF). To further explore the intersections of gender, science, and technology in the UN, please visit the website for the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission for Science and Technology for Development at gab.wigsat.org/. To learn more about the United Nations Development Program, visit www.undp.org/ and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, visit www.unifem.org/.

Reference
UNDP Regional Centre for Europe and the CIS and UNIFEM Central and Eastern Europe. 2004. Bridging the Gender Digital Divide: A Report on Gender and ICT in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.