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Empowering Rwandan Women through ICT
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a field that is becoming increasingly accepted and relied upon in Rwanda and indeed in Africa as a whole, as a crucial means towards social and economic development. This is an area however, where women and girls are at particular risk of exclusion from potential opportunities, because of poverty, illiteracy, insufficient access to education and training and insufficient time as a result of their multiple roles in families and communities. In addition, in many cultures, women are considered less capable of understanding and operating technologies, or of successfully engaging in science, math and technology.
UNDP and UNIFEM have begun working together in Rwanda to open up access to ICTs for women and girls, and to empower them through the use of ICTs, to improve their social and economic rights and build a more secure economic future for themselves and their families. With funding from the Japan Women in Development Fund, UNDP and UNIFEM are collaborating to build on the strong political commitment of the Rwandan government to using ICTs for development and the promotion of gender equality.
The Rwanda project is part of UNIFEM’s initiative “Bridging the Gender Digital Divide in Africa Through Strategic Partnerships”, which leverages the knowledge, expertise and resources of the African “Digital Diaspora” to contribute to the eradication of feminized poverty in Africa through ICT. The initiative is guided by a Global Advisory Committee comprised mainly of African ICT entrepreneurs and ICT experts from the Diaspora, and is developing a roster of African Diaspora ICT experts who are willing to participate in ICT women’s empowerment projects in Africa. The Committee provides overall guidance to the initiative, advice on the development of innovative funding arrangements and resource mobilization, as well as participates and invests in country initiatives designed to empower African women through ICT.
“If there is a digital divide, then we, gathered here, are the bridge and together can and will propel Africa to the forefront of the digital economy.”
Ms. Rebecca Enonchong
CEO, AppsTech
Member, Global Advisory Committee
Africa Launch of DDI Initiative
May 2003
As the first pilot project of the Digital Diaspora initiative, the Rwanda project is using the technical and market knowledge of Africans in the Diaspora to build the capacity of women’s business-oriented organisations to use ICTs to promote business linkages and influence policy-making, in order to situate women’s issues and concerns at the centre of efforts to reduce poverty.
Implemented by the Kigali Institute of Science, Research and Technology (KIST), in collaboration with experts from the Diaspora, project activities for women’s associations have ranged from basic IT training to more complex skills-building such as web design, e-commerce and management information systems, and other technical knowledge beneficial to developing entrepreneurship among Rwandan women. The project also supports network building between NGOs, local private sector firms, African Diaspora entrepreneurs and experts, and the international ICT sector.
Members of women’s business-related associations and local women entrepreneurs received their first advanced training from Pity Wachuka Warungu, a US-based Kenyan web design expert, Lamine Sano, an e-commerce expert from Ivory Coast based in the US, and Brian Thompson, a Rwandan MIS expert also based in the US. Training, which included classroom activities as well as on-the-job work, showed women how to design their websites, register the domains and host their associations on their websites. They also acquired skills on how to sponsor links and network with other women’s groups and commercial websites.
Designing their own websites, especially with e-commerce features, was particularly popular with the women. They were excited by the prospect of being able to create websites, which could display products and services, and were eager to learn how to market such sites to reach clients and buyers beyond Rwanda’s borders.
Domitille Mukasonga, from Duterimbere association, a local Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship was one of the participants of the training session on web design. “By its completion, I was ready to work on our association’s website. Judging from what the website design and Internet program entailed, we can now check out what other women’s associations are doing in the field of women’s empowerment and build partnerships to best market women’s products through the Internet,” she said.
Another participant, Odette Uwambaye, a member of Ndabaga, a female ex-combatants association, described the training as ‘a channel to more advanced business’. “The program is just what I needed. Now I can seek for partners all over the world. We are also interested in developing partnerships with Kenyan women because they are far ahead of us in the field of ICT for economic empowerment.”
In the context of the project, UNDP and UNIFEM have also organised awareness raising Activities aimed at educating different sectors on the ICT issues faced by local women entrepreneurs, and sharing knowledge on ICT strategies to boost women’s economic security. This has led to a dynamic environment of cooperation, and created opportunities for partnerships between women’s organizations, local ICT companies and public institutions working on ICT in the country, such as KIST, the Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA), and the Ministry of Communication.
“ICT further enables the bridging of north/south divide as well as the gender divide and encourages foreign direct investment in Rwanda”
Mr. Juma Okech, Director of the Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA)
Some unexpected outcomes have also developed from the implementation of the project, which could play an important role in ensuring the longer-term impact and sustainability of the initiative.
For example, UNIFEM, UNDP and KIST are currently exploring concrete opportunities to create ICT training, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for women, by linking the beneficiary women’s groups to the local private sector, which has grown interested in investing in the ICT activities under the project. “Supporting women in ICT is doing business” said Mr. Eugene Nyagahene, CEO of TELE-10, referring to the economic contribution that female ICT users make to the development of the national ICT sector, including as mobile phone subscribers, as owners of newly-established ICT kiosks, and potentially as ICT-enabled commercial businesses.
In creating business linkages to benefit women entrepreneurs, the project is looking, as planned, far beyond Rwanda, to the international business expertise of Africans in the Diaspora, and the international private sector. An International Business Mentoring Committee is being set up to support innovative initiatives linking women’s associations with foreign markets and investors. An example is a partnership between KIST, RITA, RwandaTel, the Ministry of Gender and the Ministry of Communications, to scale up through ICTs the activities of AVEGA, the association of widows of the genocide. AVEGA is already acting as focal point for many Rwandan women producers of local crafts, some of which have been sold on the international market through intermediary organizations (http://www.bpeace.com/projprog_rwanda.php).
The export activities of AVEGA and other similar associations can be up scaled up through ICT and e-commerce, to reach the US and European markets, in partnership with local artisan cooperatives, African Diaspora associations, foreign businesses and fair-trade networks. The ultimate vision of the project is to create a model of successful e-commerce and online marketing for local women, which can serve as a case study to boost the policy changes and investments needed in Rwanda’s own path towards an ICT-enabled economy for poverty reduction. In so doing, the project will put women at the forefront of ICT for development in Rwanda, and strengthen their contribution to the economic future of Rwanda.
Last update: April-28, 2005