Investing in information and communication technologies to reach gender equality and empower rural women

Book excerpt: Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have made information available to more people than ever before. These advances have also substantially increased their capacity to connect with each other in a continuously expanding number of ways. Rural women are currently (and have always been) last in line in terms of ICT access and use, even though women stand more to gain than most from active participation and engagement with these resources. Evidence suggests that the ICT sector is both urban- and male-centric, ranging from the design of ICTs to the gender of sector employees and decision-makers. Representation in the media is also predominantly male. The aim of this paper is to bring rural communities, and women and other marginalized groups in particular, back into the centre of conversations on ICTs and ICT4D.