Back to Index

Remarks by UNIFEM Regional Programme Director at National ICT Strategy and Policy Workshop
Nomcebo Manzini, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director
October 21, 2004

It is my singular pleasure to welcome you all here today as part of this partnership between UNIFEM and EKOWISA.

This is an important partnership as it brings together to strategize on how we as women can be on the cutting edge of accessing ICT for the development of our capacities, opportunities and choices. I need not belabour the point of how important ICTs have become in promoting development; you all know that.

What may not be so clear is how ICT even as they are promoting development can also be an instrument for widening the gap between the rich and the poor, between north and south and between men and women.

ICT constitutes big business and big corporations are at the center of defining the terms and conditions of developing new technologies, they are also at the center of who has access and who does not.

If we are not vigilant and on top of the issues and development around ICTs we will indeed find ourselves at the bottom end of the spectrum.

African nations through the NEPAD have made the development and promotion of ICT critical to the development of the Continent.

It is gratifying to see organizations such as EKOWISA taking up the challenge to locate their support and interventions in the context of gender equality and women's rights.

There are currently too few organizations using this approach. Thank you for your foresight and innovativeness.

UNIFEM has embraced the area of ICT in many ways. Our most successful experience was working with the Technological Information Promotions Systems better known as TIPS, where we worked with them to engender their ICT programme but also embarked on a training programme for women entrepreneurs.

This initiative culminated in the establishing of Help Desk at the offices of Women in Business Zimbabwe.

In this regard we regret indeed to inform you that the women who were to have used my slot this morning to share their experience with you were involved in a horrific road accident on their way here and are in a critical but stable condition at the Avenues Clinic.

Our thoughts are with them right now and we hope that they will heal and recover as soon as possible.

Let me mention also the work that we continue to engage in related to the Digital Diaspora.

Must engage with policy issues as they define where the resources go. To do this we must know the issues this workshop will assist us to understand and know about the ongoing policy development processes in Zimbabwe as well as assist us to define how we want engage with that process.

Let me thank you all for coming to this workshop and also take the opportunity to wish you successful deliberations

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP