According to the World Wide Web Foundation (www.webfoundation.org), as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), world leaders have committed to strive for universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020, and to ensure that women and men have equal access to basic services, including technology, by 2030.Thus, these pledges have put the digital divide squarely on the international political agenda.
Internet is particularly relevant to social, economic and human development in Africa; and in order to fully benefit from its development potential, the Internet must be accessible, available and affordable for all persons in Africa.
ICTs and access to the internet provide basic infrastructure for the 21st century and a set of tools that when appropriately used can offer benefits for women in all spheres of life. The internet has real potential to mitigate or even remove barriers that have precluded women from participating more fully in digital society. This preclusion is termed as gender digital divide.
Digital divide is composed of a skill gap and a gap of physical access to information technology; therefore, gender digital divide is the variation in internet use and access between men and women. Gender divide is regarded as one of the most significant inequalities amplified by digital revolution.
African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms postulates that it is essential to address the gender digital divide, with factors such as; level of employment, education, poverty, literacy and geographical location resulting in African women having lower levels of access than men. These efforts should be geared towards ensuring the best possible level of Internet
connectivity at affordable and reasonable costs for all, with particular initiatives for
unserved and underserved areas and communities.
In other words, conscious that the online environment reflects the inequality that women and girls face in wider society, the core principles underpinning the Internet; decentralisation,
creativity, community and empowerment of users, should be used to achieve gender
equality online.
In Uganda, some individuals and groups in particular women and girls, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, and people living in rural areas; might be threatened with exclusion and marginalisation in relation to exercising their human rights in relation to the Internet and digital technologies.
According to Unwanted Witness Uganda (www.unwantedwitness.org), in Uganda, the gender divide within the digital space is apparent and reflected not only in the lower numbers of women ICT users compared to men but also in the persistence of gender specific structural inequalities that constitute barriers to access.
On raising to the occasion, Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in partnership with Centre for Multilateral Affairs (CfMA) are currently implementing a project under the theme, ‘Promoting Smart Policy Options in closing gender digital divide in Uganda’ funded by World Wide Web Foundation. The project intends to close the gender digital divide through policy advocacy.
The partners convened a multi-stakeholder civil society inception meeting at Fairway Hotel, Kampala-Uganda, on 5th August, 2020. The purpose of the Multi-stakeholder convening of Civil Society in Uganda was to bring Civil Society Organisations together to learn from each other in terms of what has worked well and what hasn’t worked as far policy advocacy is concerned within civil society and further identify policy gaps and devise common strategies for engaging with policy makers.
Civil Society organisations from different walks of life involved in gender equality advocacy, shared different policy advocacy strategies and devised a common agenda. The number of strategies included but not limited to; intensified litigations on gender digital divide related cases; intensified online women campaigns; skills development and information sharing especially to women living in rural areas; enhancing research to measure and better understand adoption, access, awareness and usage of internet from a gender perspective; and to advocate for a gender-responsive ICT policy curriculum to train policy makers in key policy areas to address the digital gender gap.
In conclusion, thus, closing gender digital divide in Uganda calls for a collective effort of all stakeholders in the country, and inevitably sooner should be addressed, since its benefits far out-weigh its cost. Gender digital equality is the crucial 21st century emancipatory hope for all digitally oppressed, suppressed and marginalised majority women and girls.
The African Union and its member states should adopt and implement the African Declaration of Internet Rights and Freedoms as a guiding framework for the policy and legal reforms needed to encourage innovation and freedom of expression online, protect internet users against cybercrime and hate speech, and establish transparent, necessary and proportionate limits on state use of digital surveillance powers.
