IWTC Women's GlobalNet #225
Initiatives and Activities of Women Worldwide
By Anne S. Walker
12 March 2003

WOMEN, MEDIA AND ICTS: UN/CSW DELEGATES DEFER DELIBERATION ON CONTENTIOUS POINT

Onsite Report from the 47th UN CSW session
by Mavic Cabrera-Balleza,, Isis International/Manila
New York: 11 March 2003.

The Bureau of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) finished the second reading of the draft of the "Agreed Conclusions on the theme media and information and communication technologies (ICTs)" today. The Commission recalled and reiterated the strategic objectives and actions of the Beijing Platform for Action, the outcome document of the Fourth World Conference on Women 1995, on the potential of the media and of ICT to contribute to the advancement of empowerment of women. It also recalled the provision in the UN
Millennium Declaration (2000) on the need to ensure that the benefits of the new ICTs are available to all.

One of the points that the Bureau agreed on is the need to focus on the gender dimensions of ICTs to prevent and combat any adverse impact of the digital revolution on achieving gender equality. Another point agreed upon is the need to integrate gender perspectives in the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). However, the delegates failed to come to an agreement on the call for the inclusion of at least 30 percent women in national, civil society and private sector delegations to WSIS. The representative from the USA objected to
the 30 percent quota in the composition of the delegations saying that this number is arbitrary.

The Commission did agree on the provision of management, negotiation, and leadership training for women, as well as mentoring systems and other support strategies and programmes to enhance women's capabilities and potential for advancement in media and ICT sectors. Another point of agreement was the need to compile statistics on ICT use, disaggregated
by sex and age, to develop gender-specific indicators on ICT use and to collect gender-specific data on employment and education patterns in media and ICT professions. Similarly, the Commission agreed on the need to enable equal access for women to ICT-based economic activities such as small business and home-based employment.

The following action points, regarded as the more contentious ones, are to be discussed on 13 and 14 March, the last two days of the 47th
session of the CSW:
-Ensure that policy and legislation empowers regulatory bodies to establish appropriate mechanisms to enhance full participation of women in ownership, control, and management of ICT and media;
-Use and establish legal and regulatory means and provide financial and other support that enable public and community media to work in support of gender equality;
-Encourage South-South cooperation to facilitate transfer and exchange of low-cost technologies and appropriate content between developing countries;
-Strengthen and encourage the use of existing information and communication technologies such as radio, TV, as well as telecommunications and print, in parallel to enhancing the use of the
new technologies for gender equality and the economic and political and social empowerment of women as leaders, participants and consumers; and
-Enhance international cooperation to create an enabling environment to reduce the digital information divide between developed and developing countries and promote, develop and enhance access to ICT including the internet infrastructure, particularly for women.
In relation to the last point, the Canadian delegation proposed the following formulation:
-facilitate access to and transfer of knowledge and technology on concessional, preferential, and favourable terms to the developing countries, as mutually agreed, taking into account the need to protect intellectual property rights and the special needs of developing countries.
Other than the proposal from Canada, the current draft of the "Agreed Conclusions" does not discuss the issue of intellectual property rights, a hotly debated issue in the WSIS process. In addition, there is no mention of open source, i.e. computer software that is non-proprietary and available for anyone to adapt and change, nor any mention of network security in the draft.

Check out the website set up by the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group for further information concerning the lobbying efforts of gender, media and ICT advocates at the CSW and the WSIS. Website: http://www.genderIT.org
Official UN/CSW documents can be found at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/47sess.htm

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