Alternative Reports on Women and Media

WomenAction 2000 - Global Alternative Report - The Alternative Assessment of Women and Media based on NGO Reviews of Section J, Beijing Platform for Action
Also available in Spanish and French

Review and Monitoring Activities

Declaration to UNGASS of the NGO Caucus on Women and Media in English, French and Spanish - New York, June 7 2000
Read the declaration and submit your own ratification electronically.

Global Media Monitoring Project 2000 - from the The World Association for Christian Communication

Policy Documents and Declarations

Statement made by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) to point "J "in the Beijing Plan of Action:

Information and Communication Technologies: A Women's Agenda
A proposal to engage women in an open dialogue about critical Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) issues & concerns, to mobilise for action. (Prepared for the 43rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, March 1999. Available in English, French and Spanish.

Gender and Information Technology: The Right of Women to have equal access to computer communications technology and networks.
A Proposal of the Assocication For Progressive Communications(APC) Women's Networking Support Programme to the Fourth World Conference on Women, September 1995.

NGO Communications Strategy Proposal for follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women
A communications strategy for follow-up to the UNWCW and NGO Forum, September 1995, designed to support the dissemination and implementation of the resolutions of these events and to increase women’s access to communication and media.

Research and Evaluation

African Women Speak on the Internet - Research report electronic survey WomenAction Africa
Ellen Kole conducted research in 1999 in which many of our web site users participated, on HOW you wish to use Information Communication Technologies in communication and information processes. The results are now available!
Many users filled in the WomenAction 2000 questionnaire. This gave Ellen Kole information on what kind of skills you have and what you need to acquire, what language you prefer to communicate in, how you want to search for Beijing +5 information, and so on. The questionnaire results will also be used in the Beijing +5 lobbying for Section J of the Platform forAction: 'Women and the Media'. Ellen Kole will use some results for her PhD study, which will result in a booklet for NGOs in developing countries on how to improve electronic networking.

Gender analysis of telecentre evaluation methodology
This document sets out to address the question of how gender can be meaningfully integrated into telecentre evaluation methodologies. It is animated by African experiences and examples and specifically by South African experiences and examples. Specifically in terms of primary research with women and men working as telecentre operators and managers, with women and men in communities serviced by telecentres and an investigation of similarities of these experiences across countries and continents in the developing world.

Women Working in ICT: Experiences from the APC Women's Networking Support Programme
In September 1995, a team of 40 women representing the Programme provided communications services and support to over 30,000 women attending the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing, China.
This document provides a summary of the research which was undertaken by a team of researchers associated with the Programme. Over forty women who worked on APC communication activities around the UNWCW were surveyed by E-mail to explore their experiences working with information and communication technologies and to gather feedback on the Programme.

Gender and Information Communication Technology: Towards an Analytical Framework
This paper presents a range of perspectives on gender and information and communication technology (ICT) drawn from a review of the literature. The aim is to present some of the major debates and critiques of ICT to highlight some important issues of concern for women. It also provides an analytical framework from which to view women’s global participation in, need for and critique of computer networking. The framework builds on an initial one developed for our second research study: Women Working in ICT .

Building Gender Considerations Into ICT Evaluation Work
This paper introduces our approach to, and practice of evaluation, and shares some experiences and lessons learned applying the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Audit Framework, an evaluation tool to learn more about the role and impact of ICTs on development projects.

Global Networking for Change: Experiences from the APC Women's Networking Support Programme
In September 1996, the Programme surveyed over 700 women's groups and individual women by E-mail to identify women's electronic networking needs and opportunities.Summarised findings are available in English, French and Spanish. The full report is available in English.

Articles and Publications

Access to Media: Best practices, obstacles and challenges
Over the last five years, women have made significant advances in gaining access to media. They have also become aware of important hurdles. This document, included in the CSW Media Caucus Information Pack, attempts to unpack these experiences.

Women's International Network of AMARC - World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
Community radio is a great way for women to communicate. Check this document for important names, numbers, e-ddresses and background information on how to get involved.

Some of the questions which will frame the contents of this section are:

• How are women using ICTs, including regional specifities?
• Have women increased their use of ICTs? What strategies have women used to increase this access and has that increase impacted their ways of working?
• Has the adoption of ICTs improved the ability of women's organizations to develop solidarity networks?
• Why do women get on the internet and what do they do with it???
• Do we have evidence that ICTs are increasing or decreasing the gap between women who have access and those who are excluded?
• What advances have been made in the presence of women on decision-making bodies relating to media and ICTs?
• What gender analysis and/or policies has been implemented in media and ICT development?
• Have there been policies implemented to attempt gender mainstreaming in ICT development?
• How has ICT development changed the power relationships within the women's movement and more broadly?
• Have their been concrete examples of presence of women in decision making bodies at different levels, and have they been implementing or proposing gender policy?
• Is the situation of girls different from that of women; have new education systems improved the access of girls to media and new media?
• Best practices question-- Who has access, experiences of repackaging and disseminating information?
• How have governments brought decision making processes closer to the citizen through ICTs (cyber-democracy)? Or conversely, how has planned 'cyber-democracy' actually decreased the citizen's access to the decision making process?