The African Centre for Women, Information and Communications Technology is a pioneer Kenyan based Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) Organization with a regional reach whose mission is to promote women’s access to and use of ICTs as tools for social, economic and political advancement.
Founded in 1998 and registered in 2001, ACWICT dedicates its efforts to providing a One-Stop ICT solution linking the social, economic and political needs of rural women by empowering them to make a difference to their lives and the lives of their significant others. This enables them to address their needs concerning food security, education, governance, conflict, peace building, entrepreneurship and Trade, and health.
Over the years, ACWICT has created a niche for herself in providing innovative ways to using ICT as tools for further development, with a bias towards women and other marginalized groups; integrating a gendered approach to ICT4D; linking private sector to the development arena; linking women beneficiaries of ICT4D to fiscal and technical resources; and results based management.
Over and above its capacity to integrate ICT across various disciplines such as agriculture, governance, education, health, trade and entrepreneurship, ACWICT collaborates with the government, private sector NGOs, Community Based Organizations and international development partners who share a common goal of creating a better livelihood for women in Africa.
Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have become a potent force in transforming social, economic and political lives of women globally. Their ability to overcome traditional barriers of location, distance, volume, time and medium in service delivery and to provide equal spaces for participation at national, regional and global levels has provided an unchallenged opportunity for ending isolation of the worlds most poor and marginalised women; and giving them a voice and visibility on the global platform.
Unlike in the past few years when many critics dismissed the issue of ICTs and gender as a development agenda because of more pressing needs that women in developing countries have for safe water, adequate food, improved health and better education, it is now more widely accepted that health, water, food and ICT are not in opposition with each other in the drive to empower women in developing countries. They are all needed. As Nancy Hafkin and Nancy Taggart have put it, "simply ending the isolation that women face in rural as well as urban areas through improved communications will go a long way towards promoting economic, political and social growth, and eliminating poverty"
ICTs can facilitate women's access to production techniques and technologies for increasing yields; increase economic returns through primary processing of commodities or improving quality of artisanal products; contribute to women's economic status by supporting access to distant markets through electronic commerce. In the political sphere, ICTs can contribute to political empowerment of women as tools for networking to perform social and political advocacy to strengthen women's participation in the political process and to improve the performance of elected women officials as well as women's access to the government and its services. ICTs can also facilitate women's access to improved health and education facilities through tele-medicine and distant learning.
With the forces of globalization shaping the world into one village and one economy and ICTs being the driving force of globalization, access to, use, application, production and control of ICTs by women is no longer a choice or a luxury but a precondition to participation in the emerging global information society and economy.
Although ICTs present a unique and powerful tool for accessing and disseminating information and knowledge necessary for advancement of women, there exists a broad concern on the growing gap in knowledge and information between those who are accessible to the technology and those who are not. Majority of those who are not are women who are already experiencing difficulties in gaining access to traditional resources in their countries. A series of factors, including low literacy and education, language barriers, time, cost of access, geographical location of facilities, lack of ICT literacy skills, social-cultural norms, non gender responsive ICT policies, lack of privacy and security and a general lack of awareness on the opportunities brought by ICTs and the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) agenda in general constrain women's access to and control over ICTs.
ACWICT’s programs are designed to be highly flexible and scalable. The programs can support scaling-up by supporting creation of additional community technology learning centres, identifying additional thematic areas, specifying age groups, and entrepreneurial activities, technologies [ICTs] adopted, training modules, numbers of people, income levels and geographical coverage amongst others.
ACWICT provides visibility for her partners through community, national, regional and global platforms. At the community level, ACWICT achieves this through community open days. At national, regional and global levels ACWICT participates in platforms such as international women days, world telecommunications day, African telecommunications day, UN Commission for the Status of Women, World Social Forum among others. |
