This past September, Revi Sterling, Director of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge, and Tom Koutsky, USAID Senior Connectivity Policy Advisor, presented their paper, “Understanding the Gender Digital Divide: Social Norms and the USAID WomenConnect Challenge,” at TPRC47: Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy. The paper has insights and lessons that every development professional will find useful, even if they don’t work specifically on tech or gender. The second round of the WomenConnect Challenge was recently announced at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019 (check the website for more info!) and check out the paper to learn more.
By Carrie Nichols
I recently read a paper by Revi Sterling, Director of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge, and Tom Koutsky, USAID Senior Connectivity Policy Advisor, “Understanding the Gender Digital Divide: Social Norms and the USAID WomenConnect Challenge.” I took away some key learnings from this document, and from former mSTAR Revi Sterling’s constant reminder to development practitioners seeking to incorporate digital tools: one of the universal truths of information and communications technologies is that they often fail to diffuse in an equitable way across society. In far too many societies around the world, women do not use or access mobile, digital, and internet technologies in the same numbers or ways that men do, which has led to the digital gender divide. Women in developing countries are 50 percent less likely to use the internet than men. Yet, while researchers, tech companies, non-profits, and international development agencies are working to bridge this gender digital divide, the interventions are often conducted without fully addressing the contextualized barriers to women’s use of ICTs.
It may seem easy to think that perhaps a lack of access to ICTs means women don’t want or need access to these digital resources. But research has shown that the diminished access to these resources further contributes to the marginalization of women and opportunities for development. This in turn leads to less resilience in the face of economic downturns or personal or family crises. All of this feeds a cycle of women’s under-development and systemic poverty. A recent report from GSMA quotes McKinsey and Company forecasting that “increased internet access could add 10 percent or $300 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2025.” Targeting women and working to remove barriers to ICT access and use would not only contribute economically but would empower women and address long-term resilience.
Through the Connected Women Initiative and the Women and the Web Alliance partnerships, USAID has been working to find solutions that can help close the digital gender divide. While these programs have supported millions of women, there is more to be done. Follow up interviews with Women and the Web Alliance participants found that those who successfully transitioned to using ICT to improve their lives and livelihoods were generally considered “outsiders.” This observation shows that pervasive social barriers still exist to women and girls accessing and using ICT even after program interventions, meaning that the vast majority of women are still excluded.
To address this, USAID developed the WomenConnect Challenge. This challenge works specifically at the level of social norms that prohibit women’s use of ICT, rather than only addressing the skills-training side of digital inclusion. On International Women’s Day in March 2018, USAID Administrator Mark Green and other high-ranking government officials launched an open call for WomenConnect Challenge proposals.
The challenge garnered robust interest from around the world. The RFP was downloaded over 5,000 times, 10,000 people joined the mailing list, and more than 500 proposals were received and evaluated. While the WomenConnect Challenge was open to addressing all barriers to ICT adoption, fewer than 50 of the proposals focused on social norms. Most proposals did not mention the gender digital divide, showing that social norms for women’s use of ICT remains a difficult barrier to address. Surprisingly, in a funding challenge named “WomenConnect” 80 percent of the proposals that proposed developing an app or information platform did not propose any value for women. More than 200 of the proposals suggested ICT skills training courses for women online and in person, yet it has been identified that social norms often prevent women from attending ICT courses in any format.
The mere fact that many of the proposals clearly didn’t address the barriers of women’s use of ICT shows how difficult it is to address the gender digital divide. Even many small, community-based organizations failed to mention the gender digital divide or social norms, meaning there is clearly still much work to be done.
Despite the fact that many proposals did not clearly address the digital gender divide, there were quite a few strong proposals. Nine were ultimately chosen as WomenConnect Challenge awardees, and demonstrated deep knowledge of the cultural conditions in which they wanted to work. The winners are a diverse group with solutions across Africa, South America, and South Asia. For example, Equal Access International won for its proposal for a 12-episode show for a Nigerian radio station to break down gender stereotypes, challenge cultural taboos, and promote skills and opportunities for women and girls to use digital technology. Innovations for Poverty Action is working in the Dominican Republic to test new credit scoring models using data from mobile phones to help women access credit. Mali Health is working with women in local savings and loan groups to share information on preventative health and ways to access and finance health services through a voice-based social network app using local languages. These are just a few of the amazing winners. You can learn more about all the winners and their programs here.
These projects are still underway, but many lessons can still be gleaned from the WomenConnect Challenge thus far; social norms need to be front and center when discussing women’s barriers to technology and making long-term changes. There are already tools and frameworks to help us emphasize social gender norms. Development practitioners should be using them to find ways to ensure women’s participation and, just as importantly, understand why women don’t participate. Though technology adoption may be the goal, the impact of that adoption should be bigger. 1.7 billion women don’t currently have access or use ICTs. These women need “on ramps” and to be treated like full humans, with complex needs in order to bring them into the fold and contribute to long-term adoption.
The WomenConnect Challenge has, for perhaps the first time, identified social norms as the largest barrier to women’s access and use of ICT in developing countries. By focusing on social norms the hope is that more women (and men!) will see the many benefits of women having equitable access to digital technologies and lead to a more equitable digital revolution.
Carrie Nichols has eight years of experience managing programs in international development. At FHI 360 she managed activities in ICT4D and digital financial services across sectors. Prior to joining FHI 360 Carrie managed public health supply chain projects. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Mali and a Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer from Zambia and has an MA from the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University.
Photo by USAID Digital Development
Closing the Digital Divide 