ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION
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Transcript of ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION
.
ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE
GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
REGION
UNPOG The UN Project Office on Governance is a focal point of promoting citizen-oriented,
efficient, effective governance among United Nations Member States. Key activities of the
Office has classified into three fields: (i) Research and Policy Development is to compile
research on ongoing trends in governance at any levels, analyze best practices in public
sector and provide useful policy recommendations on the basis of findings from research; (ii)
Capacity Development is about organizing international conferences, and workshops
building capacity of designing national policies for each UN member countries; (iii) through
Advocacy and Outreach, it distributes materials related to governance which are obtained
from research, workshop, conference.
Note
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this
publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on
the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal
status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities
concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not
imply any expression of opinion on the part of the United Nations.
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Table of Contents
List of tables and figures ..................................................................................................... ii
Glossary .............................................................................................................................. ii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 2
Executive Summary............................................................................................................. 2
1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 1
1.1 Research Objectives ............................................................................................... 2
1.2 Outline of the Report ............................................................................................. 3
2. CONTEXT OF E-GOVERNMENT IN GENDER EQUALITY ......................... 4
2.1 Expansion of e-Government ................................................................................... 4
2.2 ICT, e-Government and Gender Equality ................................................................ 6
2.2.1 Access to ICT ....................................................................................................... 8
2.2.2 ICT Capacity ........................................................................................................ 9
2.2.3 Contents and Services....................................................................................... 10
2.2.4 Participation and Advocacy for Empowerment ................................................. 11
3. MEASURING THE E-GOVERNMENT ENVIRONMENT .......................... 12
3.1 e-Government for Gender Equality: Analysis Framework .................................... 12
3.2 Infrastructure: Indicators of Women’s Access ...................................................... 14
3.3 Gender Development: Indicators of Women’s Capacity ....................................... 15
3.4 Outreach: Measurement on Service and Content for Women ............................. 16
3.4.1 Measuring the Outreach of e-Government for Women ..................................... 16
3.4.2 Methodology: Web Measurement Analysis ...................................................... 16
3.4.3 Evaluation Categories ....................................................................................... 18
3.5 Policy: Measurement of Advocacy and Participation for Women ........................ 20
3.5.1 Measuring perceived effectiveness of e-Government policy ............................. 20
3.5.2 Methodology: Policy Survey.............................................................................. 20
3.5.3 Responses ........................................................................................................ 22
3.5.4 Limitations and Verification of the Toolkit Framework ...................................... 23
4. COUNTRY ANALYSIS ......................................................................... 24
4.1 Bangladesh ........................................................................................................... 24
4.2 The Philippines ..................................................................................................... 31
4.3 Malaysia ............................................................................................................... 38
4.4 Korea .................................................................................................................... 46
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4.5 Indonesia.............................................................................................................. 53
4.6 Vietnam ................................................................................................................ 60
5. ANALYSING READINESS WITH THE TOOLKIT ...................................... 64
5.1 Findings of the Policy Survey ................................................................................ 64
5.1.1 Overview .......................................................................................................... 64
5.1.2 Service and Content for Women ....................................................................... 66
5.1.3 Network building and Participation ................................................................... 70
5.2 Recommendations: Toolkit Modules and Priorities.............................................. 75
5.2.1 Grouping of Countries ...................................................................................... 75
5.2.2 Recommendations on Infrastructure ................................................................ 77
5.2.3 Recommendations on Gender Development .................................................... 78
5.2.4 Recommendations on Outreach ....................................................................... 79
5.2.5 Recommendations on Policy and Institutional Readiness .................................. 81
5.2.6 Regional and International Exchange of Experience .......................................... 83
6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 84
7. REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 86
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List of Tables
[TABLE 1] E-GOVERNMENT: STAKEHOLDERS AND DOMAINS 4
[TABLE 2] POTENTIAL OF E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY 7
[TABLE 3] CHALLENGES TO WOMEN'S INCLUSION TO INFORMATION SOCIETY 8
[TABLE 4] ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK FOR E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY 13
[TABLE 5] MEASUREMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE DIMENSION 15
[TABLE 6] MEASUREMENT OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION 15
[TABLE 7] CRITERIA FOR THE WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 18
[TABLE 8] ORGANIZATION OF SURVEY 21
[TABLE 9] POLICY SURVEY RESPONSE RATES 22
[TABLE 10] BANGLADESH: KEY ICT INDICATORS 25
[TABLE 11] THE PHILIPPINES: KEY ICT INDICATORS 32
[TABLE 12] MALAYSIA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 39
[TABLE 13] KOREA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 47
[TABLE 14] INDONESIA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 54
[TABLE 15] VIETNAM: KEY ICT INDICATORS 60
[TABLE 16] TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES TO PROMOTE E-GOVERNMENT FOR WOMEN 66
[TABLE 17] AREAS AND TYPES OF ONLINE SERVICE DELIVERY FOR WOMEN 70
[TABLE 18] FACEBOOK STATISTICS 72
[TABLE 19] SOCIAL NETWORKING OUTREACH 73
[TABLE 20] SELECTION OF TECHNOLOGY: ICT FEATURES 77
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List of Figures
[FIGURE 1] E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA 6
[FIGURE 2] PERCENTAGE OF INTERNET USERS BY GENDER 9
[FIGURE 3] ITU DATA ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK 12
[FIGURE 4] TOOLKIT FRAMEWORK AND DATA COLLECTION 13
[FIGURE 5] STAGES OF WEB MEASUREMENT INDEX 18
[FIGURE 7] POLICY SURVEY RESPONDENTS CATEGORY 23
[FIGURE 8] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - BANGLADESH 24
[FIGURE 9] MOCWA WEBSITE 26
[FIGURE 10] BANGLADESH: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 27
[FIGURE 11] BANGLADESH: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 28
[FIGURE 12] BANGLADESH: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY29
[FIGURE 13] BANGLADESH: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 29
[FIGURE 14] BANGLADESH: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 30
[FIGURE 15] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - PHILIPPINES 31
[FIGURE 16] PWC WEBSITE 33
[FIGURE 17] THE PHILIPPINES: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 34
[FIGURE 18] THE PHILIPPINES: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 35
[FIGURE 19] THE PHILIPPINES: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 36
[FIGURE 20] THE PHILIPPINES: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 37
[FIGURE 21] THE PHILIPPINES: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 37
[FIGURE 22] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - MALAYSIA 38
[FIGURE 23] MALAYSIA: HOUSEHOLD USE OF INTERNET BY GENDER 39
[FIGURE 24] MWFCD WEBSITE 41
[FIGURE 25] MALAYSIA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 42
[FIGURE 26] MALAYSIA: CURRENT GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 43
[FIGURE 27] MALAYSIA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 44
[FIGURE 28] MALAYSIA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 44
[FIGURE 29] MALAYSIA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 45
[FIGURE 30] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - KOREA 46
[FIGURE 31] MOGEF WEBSITE 48
[FIGURE 32] KOREA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 49
[FIGURE 33] KOREA: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 50
[FIGURE 34] KOREA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 51
[FIGURE 35] KOREA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 51
[FIGURE 36] KOREA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 52
[FIGURE 37] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - INDONESIA 53
[FIGURE 38] MWECP WEBSITE 55
[FIGURE 39] INDONESIA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 56
[FIGURE 40] INDONESIA: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 57
[FIGURE 41] INDONESIA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 58
[FIGURE 42] INDONESIA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 58
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[FIGURE 43] INDONESIA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 59
[FIGURE 44] VIETNAM: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 62
[FIGURE 45] VIETNAM: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 62
[FIGURE 46] VIETNAM: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 63
[FIGURE 47] VIETNAM: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 63
[FIGURE 48] PERCEPTION OF CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN: MISSION65
[FIGURE 49] IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 67
[FIGURE 50] FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS: COUNTRY GROUPINGS 75
[FIGURE 51] E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY: TOOLKIT MODULES 76
[FIGURE 52] E-GOVERNMENT AS A KILLER APPLICATION FOR TELECENTRES 79
[FIGURE 53] E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT PATH FOR GENDER EQUALITY 84
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Glossary (Usually a “Glossary” refers to the meaning of specific words. This section should be called “Abbreviations” or “Acronyms”
APWINC Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center
CICT Commission on Information Communications Technology
CMA Communications and Multimedia Act
CMCA Communications and Multimedia Commission Act
DOST Department of Science and Technology
DPADM Division for Public Administration and Development Management
G4C Government for Citizens
G2B Government to Business
G2C Government to Citizen
G2E Government to Employee
GGGI Global Gender Gap Index
GII Gender Inequality Index
HDI Human Development Index
HNPSP Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme of Bangladesh
ICT Information Communication Technology
IDI ICT Development Index
IDRC International Development Research Centre
ITU International Telecommunication Union
KCC Korea Communications Commission
MDGs Millennium Development Goals
MOGEF Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of Korea
MOSICT Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology of Bangladesh
MOWCA Ministry of Women and Child Affairs of Bangladesh
MWECP Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection of Malaysia
MWFCD Ministry of Women, Family and Child Development of Indonesia
NIPA National IT Industry Promotion Agency of Korea
NRI Networked Readiness Index
PCW Philippine Commission on Women
SKMM Suruhanjaya Kmomunikasi Dan Multimedia Malaysia
UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNPAN United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance
UNPOG United Nations Project Office on Governance
WEF World Economic Forum
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Acknowledgements
Sincere words of thanks go to the experts from 37 countries who participated in the policy survey. The support is very much appreciated of: Haiyan Qian, Director of Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA); Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief of e-Government Branch,DPADM, UNDESA; Jong-moo Choi, Head of United Nations Project Office on Governance (UNPOG); Sunyoung Chang, Associate Research and Policy Development Expert, UNPOG; Vijay Parmar, Senior Governance and Public Administration Expert, UNPOG; and Jonas Rabinovitch, Inter-Regional Advisor, DPADM, UNDESA. The survey and web measurement analyses benefited from advice and guidance provided by country experts Yatty Maryati, Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, Indonesia, Siti Fatimah Khiriah M.Amin, Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, Malaysia, Truong Thi Phuong Dung, Vietnam-Korea Friendship IT College, Yoo-Jin Han, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Sookmyung Women’s University, YooRi Lee Deputy Director of Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center(APWINC), Haley Hyun, Head of External Affairs, APWINC, and Ruksana Akter at Sookmyung Women’s University. Editorial supervision was provided by S. Revi Sterling, Ph.D., Faculty Director of ICTD graduate studies at ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder. Editorial assistance was provided by Jinyoung Park. Creative design was executed by Kyungmo Yang.
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Executive Summary
Public service delivery and institutional capacity building are key areas for national development in many
developing countries. Recently, the adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for public
sector delivery particularly through e-Government initiatives has become a policy priority for many
developing country governments. E-Government services can play a significant role in development --
they can accelerate public service delivery, improve government accountability, encourage citizen
participation in decision making processes, and contribute to strategies that aim to increase the
representation of marginalized populations in the public sector, primarily women.
At the core, e-Government can improve opportunities for greater gender equality by reinventing how the
public sector responds to women’s needs. E-Government can have a transformational effect on women’s
levels of inclusion in three primary ways:
Improve the applicability and efficiency of government gender programmes, thus improving
institutional capacity to promote gender equality from within government structures. (Internal
government change)
Improve public service delivery targeted at women’s advancement, and strengthen gender-
disaggregated monitoring and evaluation across all government agencies that have an outward
service delivery component.(External government change)
Leverage technology to expand women’s online participation in the public decision-making process,
and establish a multi-stakeholder online network to support gender advocacy efforts. (Intra-
government change)
While e-Government provides a new opportunity for inclusive public service delivery and citizen
participation, it poses a significant challenge in terms of reaching marginalized members of society --
those who lack the socio-economic resources and abilities to engage in the networked information society.
The majority of people isolated from potential e-Government services is women, who currently lack ease
of access and relevant skills to utilize ICT to engage in e-Government efforts. Thus, there is a risk that
improper or inefficient deployment of e-Government programs could further marginalize women from
governance outreach.
In particular, the challenge of addressing women’s access and use of ICT and e-Government services can
be divided into four specific aspects including 1) the access, 2) capacity, 3) contents and services, and 4)
participation and advocacy.
To provide a Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender to explore the readiness and commitment
of e-Government programmes, this research adapts the ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit as a
main analysis framework and draws out the following four dimensions that warrant further attention.
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Aspects of
e-Gov Challenges Toolkit Framework Dimensions
Access Infrastructure General accessibility and use of ICT in
the society
Capacity Gender
Development
Capacity of women to utilize the e-
Government services and information
Contents/ Services Service
Outreach
Availability of relevant e-Government
services / online information for women
Participation/
Advocacy
Policy/
Institutional
Capacity
Policy and institutional capacity to
provide an enabling environment for the
promotion of e-Government services for
women
The data for the Toolkit Framework is pulled from three major data sources. Data for the dimensions of
Infrastructure and Gender Development comes from existing indices available from major international
organizations and research institutes. Data for the Outreach dimension was sourced from a Web
Measurement Analysis conducted on the official websites of government agencies concerned with gender
equality, such as a Ministry of Women. The data to support the Policy dimension was collected by a
survey of country experts who spoke to the perceived effectiveness of gender development policies at the
national level.
Out of the thirty-six countries originally invited to the Policy Survey, six countries exceed a 25% response
rate were identified as partners for a feasibility study for the Toolkit Framework which includes a larger
Web Measurement Analysis and a review of ICT infrastructure and gender development. These six
countries include Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.
The results from the Toolkit Framework feasibility study demonstrated important findings. First,
respondents had a positive view to the potential of e-Government as an information sharing vehicle. The
top recommendations for e-Government services included extended delivery of relevant content (quality
and quantity of content) as well as providing a forum for social dialogue through which women may
participate in public decision making process.
Second, respondents gave mixed results when answering if e-Government initiatives are “interactive”
and if service provision has improved the overall public service quality for women. These results have
dual implications: does the government, particularly the Ministry of Gender as the national flagship of
gender empowerment, have the institutional and human resource capacity to create online gender
empowerment services, both technically and conceptually; and do current “interactive” e-Government
services adequately reflect the needs of women?
In reviewing the results, it is important to consider how emerging countries with less-developed e-
Government and gender equality programmes can utilize their Ministry of Gender websites as a two-way
information source that women can interact with, supplying content as well as consuming it. It is
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important to move towards a technical model that provides two-way interaction with citizens. While this
requires a certain level of technical sophistication in website design and implementation, countries must
strive to provide fully-functional participatory e-Government services. One solution may be the
incorporation of popular social networking technologies.
While the scope of analysis in this research was limited to six countries, the following graphics highlight
four countries that represent the four dimensions of Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender with
respective priority areas -- infrastructure, gender development, outreach and policy competency. Further
study of these four dimensions, when applied to a country-wide model, illustrated the need to create
recommendation modules for each dimension.
(Comment: at this Point the reader may get confused. First the paper mentions three
transformational effects that e-Government can have on women’s level of inclusion: (1) Internal
government change; (2) External government change and (3) Intra-government change. Then the
paper mentions four aspects to address the challenge of enhancing gender equality through ICT: 1)
the access, 2) capacity, 3) contents and services, and 4) participation and advocacy. Then the paper
mentions four dimensions of the Toolkit Framework: 1) infrastructure, 2) gender development, 3)
outreach and 4) policy competency.
The question is: What concrete points is the paper trying to make? Are these sets of issues somehow
interconnected? How to perform the transition from purely analytical tools to actual policy-making to
address development goals?
The reader, particularly those without much knowledge on the connections between gender-related
challenges and policy-making, would greatly benefit from more clarifications on these aspects and
sharper focus for the paper.
Naturally the Executive Summary is not be the best place to elaborate on these issues. But considering
that most busy policy-makers may only read the Executive Summary, my suggestion is that you make a
reference in the Executive Summary to the page in which the subject is further developed, with concrete
examples.
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Dimension 1: Infrastructure
(Comment: the bullets below are extremely important as they highlight the practical policy-making
implications of what the paper is discussing. Whenever possible, as mentioned above, it would be
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tremendously beneficial for the paper and for the reader if you could make a reference to the page in
which examples could be found.
While choosing an appropriate technology to enhance socioeconomic service delivery for women,
issues such as access, cost, maintenance, interactivity, user-friendliness, availability, training and time
should be considered. Example in page x ?
Despite the disparities in mobile penetration world-wide, mobile phones are the most commonly used
ICT in most countries. To this point, m-government, an extension of e-Government to mobile
platforms, may provide additional advantages to women, such as emergency response services for
domestic violence or other crimes, as shown in the case of Korea. In page “y” the Korean case is
discussed, showing how this policy was implemented, including its main features and results.
Dimension 2: Gender Development
Promoting women’s overall socio-economic capacity is a critical component to creating women’s
demand for e-Government. ICT capacity building programmes need to be considered at both the level
of the individual and the larger networked society level. Example in page “z” ?
Telecentres can serve as a location where capacity building and service provision intersect –
telecentres may offer women a safe place to conduct online transactions as well as access training.
(a sensible analysis of telecentres in Southern Asia is presented in the ECOSOC paper on gender and
ICT and is summarized in page xx.)
Dimension 3: Outreach
Gender-disaggregated data collection of ICT access and use is required to adequately understand the
current gender gap and reflect any gender-specific o preferences for improved relevancy and impact.
The quality, relevancy and diversity of e-Government services should be considered, based on need
and demand. E-Government services may include:
a) Income generation: business management for women SMEs, market information, general
agricultural extension services
b) Education: Informal and formal adult education, with special emphasis on women’s information
needs
c) Health: AIDS, and STD awareness and prevention, child care and maternal care general First Aid
and advice, potential for e-Health opportunities
d) Financial services for individual and community needs, and
e) General public services including certificate issuance, taxes, land and voting records, and
registration of businesses.
(Comment: what is the source of these recommendations? If there is a concrete case study that inspired
this dimension/ recommendation, it should be cited and described in the body of the paper with a page
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number referenced here. If the recommendations above are coming from the consultants’ observations
but is not yet existing in practice, this fact should be mentioned as a pioneer recommendation.
Moreover, if the recommendation can be found in any document containing internationally agreed
development goals, such as the Beijing Declaration or the Millennium Declaration, then it should also be
mentioned here.
In summary, as a reader it is not really clear to me the source of these recommendations, whether they
reflect the conceptual thinking of those who answered the survey or whether they reflect state-of-the-art
existing case studies or whether they respond to a model being proposed by the consultants to advance the
issue of gender and ICTs. All these possibilities can be valid, but the paper should be more transparent
about it.
For each service topic area above, it is necessary that the appropriate technology and interface design are
chosen; usability tests should also be conducted. (Comment: more information about usability tests are
found in page “xx”).
Technical development should reflect the available infrastructure and technical sophistication of the
country. As suggested in the Toolkit, countries in the emerging stages of e-Government
development should consider utilizing existing social networks and established online-based services
to promote usability, ease of use and convenience,
E-Government service promotion is important to attract women’s participation and adoption. E-
Government efforts should include active marketing strategies to promote e-Government for women
as a “service,” particularly engaging with online women’s groups and established offline women’s
networks.
Dimension 4: Policy
It is important to establish a national model of interagency coordination (does this model exist
anywhere? Could you describe it a case study in promoting gender equality?) and thus identify an
entity across the government agencies to serve as a focal point of e-Government provisions for
women. To successfully accomplish this, three options should be considered:
a) There should be a grassroots approach where governmental gender equality organizations take
the initiative to provide initial information services for women and subsequently seek to
establish networks with national e-Government integration;
b) Simultaneously, there should be a top-down approach where the agency responsible for national
e-Government initiatives provides programmes relevant for marginalized citizens, including
women as a major subgroup;
c) Advocate for interim approaches to “privatize” e-Government services for women, taking
advantage of existing technical capacity of online services and expertise of online women’s
networks in order to expand service outreach.
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These three approaches are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combination appropriate to
each country. (In which countries were they used and with what results? Or are we talking in
theoretical terms based purely on our common sense? If this is the case, should not we highlight
“how” we propose that countries should develop it? If the body of the paper contains this
information it should be referenced here.
Institutional readiness is a key component. Training should be offered that covers technical issues,
content development, and e-Government service management among other topics. (Where is such
training available? Are there examples of capacity development exercises for gender awareness
programmes quoted in the paper? Or at least one example? The page where it appears should be
referenced here.)
From a legal and policy readiness perspective, e-Government services should be introduced as
programmes targeted specifically at women.
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1. Introduction
Public service delivery and institutional capacity building is one of the key areas of
focus of national development strategies for many developing countries. Recently,
the adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in public sector --
particularly through the e-Government initiatives -- has become a policy priority for
many governments in developing countries. E-Government services can play a
significant role in development -- they can accelerate public service delivery,
improve government accountability, encourage citizen participation in decision
making processes, and contribute to strategies that aim to increase the
representation of marginalized populations in the public sector, primarily women.
At the core, e-Government can improve opportunities for greater gender equality by
reinventing how the public sector responds to women’s needs. Women, thus, are one
of the important groups which warrant more attention in national and international
policy consideration.
The Beijing Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have
both encouraged the governments to adopt a gender perspective and to enhance
women’s rights in the public sector (United Nations, 1995). The emergence of e-
Government and online-based service delivery has created new opportunities for
women’s participation in public decision-making processes. The physical presence
of government is now being replaced by online participatory processes and
information dissemination systems. This change creates new occasions for easier
and more extensive citizen participation as information is mad available at the level
of the individual. However, if not thoughtfully designed, e-Government initiatives
can further marginalize women due to the inequities women face regarding ICT
access and use.
Motivated by this fact, this research aims to observe and analyze the development
of e-Government that mindful of content and service provision for women, identify
the challenges and opportunities in utilizing e-Government to achieve greater
gender equality in public service, and suggest policy recommendations.
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1.1 Research Objectives
This report seeks to gain insight into the current and future role of e-Government in
Asia Pacific countries to promote gender equality in and through public services.
Thus, it is important
a) To analyze the degree to which e-Government provides services and
participatory channels for women in selected countries in Asian and Pacific
countries;
b) To identify challenges and opportunities in utilizing e-Government to
achieve gender equality in public affairs;
c) To provide a toolkit to assess national e-Government readiness in gender
empowerment strategies.
In addition, this report aims to contribute to expanding the e-Government
knowledge base from a gender perspective, particularly by looking at different types
of e-Government services and participatory channels for women in six selected
countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines and Viet Nam.
The findings in this report may be useful to gender equality and e-Government
administration officials in countries where e-Government is either actively
promoted to increase gender equality in public service delivery, or is still under
limited capacity and aims for inclusive participation from women. Considering the
largely scarce body of knowledge that addresses the intersection of gender and e-
Government, this research can contribute to a better understanding of the following:
a) Varieties of appropriate services and content for e-Government for women;
b) Different mechanisms for promoting the e-Government to women, and
promotion e-Government as an empowerment strategy for women;
c) Perceived effectiveness of e-Government in gender equality efforts in six
selected countries;
d) Policy priorities suggested by experts from six selected countries to
improve e-Government for greater gender equality in public affairs.
Finally, the report provides a foundation for future data collection and research, and
advocates for a more gender-sensitive approach in e-Government development and
assessment, including but not limited to the implementation of the United Nations
E-Government Development Survey.
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1.2 Outline of the Report
The report is divided into six sections including the introduction and conclusion.
Following a brief introduction to this research, the report begins in Section 2 by
looking at the overall context of e-Government and gender equality. Section 2
provides an explaination of traditional issues of gender equality in public affairs,
and how the emergence of e-Government has the potentail to change this
perspective. Section 2 also presents several known challenges to women’s inclusion
in the emerging information and knowledge society, drawing on from previous
research and their implications in providing pro-women e-Government content and
services – especially in developing countries.
Section 3 introduces an illustrative model that demonstrated the various aspects of
e-Government development for women. Adopting the ITU e-Government
Implementation Toolkit (ITU, 2009), we present a framework with which countries
can assess the level of their e-Government readiness for gender equality.
Section 4 reports on the actual application of the Toolkit Framework to six selected
countries in the Asia and the Pacific, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea,
Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam, supplemented by an analysis of the
accompanying policy survey by in-country experts. The section provides a snapshot
of how e-Government services and participatory channels for women have been
developed and implemented, and presents findings for broader regional and
international application of the Toolkit Framework.
Section 5 included results of country-by-country analysis and presents policy
recommendations based on the four dimensions of the Toolkit Framework.
The report concludes in Section 6 with a discussion of areas for further research and
collaboration in e-Government development and promotion efforts that support
greater gender equality in public affairs and governance.
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2. Context of e-Government in Gender Equality
2.1 Expansion of e-Government
The adoption of ICT in public sector particularly through e-Government initiatives
has become a policy priority for the governments of many developing countries. For
the purpose of this report, e-Government is defined as “the use by government
agencies of information technologies such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and
mobile computing that have the ability to transform relations with citizens,
businesses, and other arms of government” (World Bank, 2009). These technologies
can serve a variety of different purposes including better delivery of government
services to citizens, improved interaction with business and industry, greater citizen
empowerment through access to information, and more efficient government
management (ITU, 2009). In this sense, e‐Government is more than just a
government website on the Internet. The strategic objective of e‐Government is to
support and simplify governance for all parties --government, citizens and
businesses – through the use of ICT (Basu, 2004).
Areas Types Goals
Stakeholders
and
Relationships
G2C
(Citizens)
To provide easier access to government information,
improved delivery of services and welfare benefits
To reinforce participation in the local community and
networks
G2B
(Business)
To allow transaction initiatives i.e. e-procurement and e-
commerce for reduction of cost and bureaucracy
G2G
(Government)
To integrate national, regional and local government
services and policies in a single point of access for
citizens
G2E
(Employees)
To provide learning and knowledge sharing opportunities
among government employees
Application
Domains
Administration To automate and computerize administrative tasks
Citizens To support connections and interrelationships among
governments and citizens
Society
To enable relationships and interactions beyond
boundaries, among public agencies, business and civil
society
[Table 1] e-Government: Stakeholders and Domains
Source: Heeks, 2001
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Recognizing the impact of e-Government on human development as essential to the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the international
community has produced several publications that study e-Government
implementations and promote knowledge sharing among countries. Notably, the
United Nations E-Government Survey, published last in 2010, is representative of a
wider endeavor to share the visions of global information society and the
transformation of public administration (UNDESA, 2010). The composite E-
Government Development Index provides a standardized instrument to measure and
compare the functionality, characteristics and effect of e-Government across
countries. Beyond the simple comparison of the strengths of national e-Government
provision, the index aids countries in determining key factors in e-Government
programmes such as technology, human resources, and policy frameworks, and to
identify areas for further improvement in their national initiatives (UN DESA, 2010)
(Comment: Apart from references to the U.N. e-Government Survey, the World
Bank and ITU, the paper could also acknowledge that the U.N. Survey does have a
very pragmatic approach to assess e-Government development through four stages
with corresponding indicators and concrete features in websites, including the
degree of interaction with users.)
The growing international interest in promoting e-Government, combined with
national efforts to streamline public services, has led to a dramatic expansion of e-
Government provision worldwide. According to the UN E-Government
Development Index 2010, 98% of governments have an online presence, primarily
in the form of a national portal or ministry-specific websites (UNDESA, 2010). The
overall quality of e-Government services has also changed significantly in recent
years from one-way information provision to a more interactive, participatory forum,
driven by the advancement of more inclusive technologies such as Web 2.0 and
social networking.
In Asia, however, the growth of e-Government services reflects the income
disparities within the region. Eastern Asia far exceeds the world average in e-
Government development, while the Southeastern Asian countries lag behind the
world average.
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[Figure 1] e-Government development in Asia
Source: UN E-Government Development Survey 2010
2.2 ICT, e-Government and Gender Equality
The Beijing Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals have both
encouraged governments to adopt a gender-sensitive perspective in order to support
women’s rights in the public sector (United Nations, 1995, 2000). The emergence of
e-Government and delivery of services online have created new opportunities for
women to participate in civil services and public decision-making processes.
The use of ICT is critical in reinventing relationships between the public and the
public sector, and enables citizens and civil service employees to interact in new,
more effective ways. The use of ICT can connect women and information in ways
that significantly promote gender equality. The following Table summarizes the
potential areas of transformation that an e-Government framework can provide to
increase gender equality across myriad stakeholders, relationships and domains.
(Ndou, 2004).
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Areas Types Goals Implication to
Gender Equality
Transformati
on Areas
Internal
To improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of
internal functions and
process of government by
connecting different
department and agencies
Strengthening efficiency of
gender programmes in the
government; improving the
institutional capacity of
national machinery of
gender equality
External
To improve transparency of
government to citizens and
business, allowing greater
access to information and
creating more interagency
collaboration
Improving public service
content and delivery
targeted for women;
strengthening gender
monitoring across
government agencies
Relational
To transform the
relationship between
citizens and government
through vertical and
horizontal integration,
increasing democratic
processes and structures
Expanding women’s online
participation to public
decision-making processes;
establishing a multi-
stakeholder online network
for greater gender advocacy
[Table 2] Potential of e-Government for Gender Equality
Source: Ndou, 2004
Despite the growing significance and potential benefits of e-Government to improve
gender equality, it is important to emphasize inclusiveness in e-Government
programme design. It is important that new forms of public service reach all citizens
regardless of their age, ethnicity, gender, and level of education. Much work has
been done to explore the contributing factors that limit ICT access and use by
marginalized groups in a society. It is well-documented that women who lack
access to ICT are further in danger of social and political exclusion as the number of
services and opportunities for participation are delivered through online spaces.
The challenges that women face regarding access to e-Government programmes are
the same challenges women experience in relation to all ICT access and use. As the
Table below outlines, previous research on the relationship between gender and ICT
has identified major challenges, including the ICT access, capacity, contents and
participation. ICT is affected by, and in turn affects the different opportunities that
exist for men and women in relation to education, training and skills development,
employment and working conditions, content development, and access to power
structures and decision-making processes (Hafkin & Huyer, 2007). As women tend
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to make up the majority of those who remain alienated from the access to ICT and
who lack relevant skills to utilize the ICT tools, e-Government programmes may
risk further marginalizing women (United Nations, 2010). The factors that affect
women’s ICT access and use are discussed as aspects and challenges that all e-
Government programmes should heed.
Aspects Challenges
Access
• Sociocultural factors (mobility, attitudes towards
technology)
• Rural-urban divide/ infrastructure
• Literacy
• Income inequality (affordability)
Capacity • Level of education/computer/technical skills
• Information literacy/ Trust in ICT artifact
Contents/ Services
• Language
• Content and information needs
• Gender patterns of technology use
Participation/
Advocacy
• Relevance of gender-friendly public admin.
approaches
• Lack of gender analysis
[Table 3] Challenges to women's inclusion to information society
Source: United Nations 2010
2.2.1 Access to ICT
One of the critical prerequisites for e-Government to support gender equality is
women’s access to ICT. Women do not have the same degree of access to ICT, and
thus use ICT less than men. This significantly limits women’s use of e-Government
services. This digital divide is not only confined to availability and affordability of
ICT, but is compounded by socio-economic factors such as cost, issues of mobility
and social biases towards women’s use of technology. As shown in the figure below,
women have lower access to ICT tools compared to men in both developed and
developing countries, reflecting the existing gender gap in the society.
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[Figure 2] Percentage of Internet users by gender,
non-European economies, (Latest available year, 2008-2010)
Source: ITU
2.2.2 ICT Capacity
The use of e-Government also requires a certain level of ICT capacity by the user,
which includes basic literacy and numeracy. However, the existing gender
education gap is reflected in women’s opportunities to attain technological skills
training and development. The majority of the world’s illiterate are women, and far
fewer women than men possess computer literacy skills (United Nations, 2010).
This lack of women’s ICT capacity limits women’s general use of ICT and further
excludes them from the potential advantages of e-Government, including utilization
of online-based services and channels for citizen participation.
Another important factor in building ICT capacity is information literacy, which
centers on users’ critical thinking abilities to make adequate decisions while online
(Dorner, 2006). This is critical in e-Government, where users may be accessing
formal documents and personal information. As the density of the global network
grows daily, the range and impact of cybercrimes and other negative side effects of
the Internet have also increased. Thus, ICT users must be able to distinguish
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relevant information from malicious online content, and prevent any potential harm
that can result from the adverse effects of ICT-based deception and crime. Women
who only have novice ICT skills and low information literacy are disproportionately
more vulnerable to such threats, which may further prevent and discourage
women’s active use of e-Government services, which are often complicated until
the user learns how to navigate and use the service. Combined with the challenges
of ICT access, a lack of ICT capacity can significantly limit women’s access to e-
Government services, and may even exacerbate women’s exclusion from the
Information Society.
2.2.3 Contents and Services
Another important issue regarding women’s e-Government use is the availability of
relevant services and content that adequately reflects women’s information
and service needs. Information becomes knowledge when it is embedded into the
local contexts (Avgerou, 2010). Thus, linking information to the users’
environments and cultural contexts is critical to knowledge exchange, which has
implications for women and e-Government (Hafkin, 2003).
The relevance of content and services often serves as a strong incentive for users to
adopt new technology (Avgerou, 2010). Amid the explosion of new ICT products
and platforms, users often adopt technologies and services that they perceive as
“killer applications” – an Internet-slang term that denotes a highly useful and
widely adopted tool (Alampay & Umali, 2007). Additionally, the ease of use of the
application also plays a key role in users’ decision of technology adoption and use,
which echoes the need to understand the abilities, needs and concerns of target users.
The availability of content and information that is relevant to women is the key
factor in e-Government service adoption and the critical element in nurturing
women’s demand for e-Government services. However, in practice, the
importance of relevant content is often neglected by a larger focus on technology,
not data. The emphasis on technology over content may be one of the greatest
barriers to women’s use of e-Government. Relevant content for women should be
determined through a thorough needs assessment, as well as ongoing usability
testing. However, these activities are often limited in quality and quantity due in
part to the low demand from women, which results in a limited incentive for women
to adopt e-Government efforts. This negative cycle of constraints presents dual
challenges to the overall supply and demand for e-Government from women.
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2.2.4 Participation and Advocacy for Empowerment
The specific objectives of e-Government vary in each country, although e-
Government is universal in its aim to increase efficiency of government services
and processes, allowing social, political and economic transparency and thus
supporting human development and social justice. The provision of more efficient
services is not enough; nor is reducing the bureaucratic load of public institutions
and designing a new architecture for state administrative processes (Betancourt,
2006). The true potential of e-Government lies in changing the paradigm of
participation and representation, and ultimately, transforming the relationship
between the government and its citizens.
Creating a mechanism for the participation for women in e-Government innovation
represents a significant opportunity to addressing the deep socio-economic
inequalities women face. However, with myriad obstacles including access,
capacity, and contents and services, this potential is yet to be realized. Most e-
Government applications are recent developments, so we expect that many
developing countries are focused on deploying e-Governance strategies at a general
level, and not yet addressing the specific needs of marginalized groups including the
women. In summary, the potential of women’s online participation to transform the
offline reality has not bloomed.
The following section provides an illustrative model that displays different aspects
to consider when developing e-Government efforts that support gender equality, and
presents a Toolkit Framework which can be tailored for use by other countries to
assess their level of e-Government readiness and commitment to gender equality
through e-Government.
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3. Measuring the e-Government Environment
3.1 e-Government for Gender Equality: Analysis
Framework
This research adapts the ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit as a main
analysis framework to explore the capacity and commitment of e-Government
programmes to promote gender equality (ITU, 2009). As e-Government efforts to
improve gender equality are relatively new in many developing countries in the
Asia and Pacific region, adopting and culturally contextualizing an established
toolkit may increase the usefulness and adoption of the toolkit, as it is founded on
well-researched indicators, case studies and other useful resources.
The ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit was originally developed to
measure the readiness of a national e-Government environment without a particular
concern to a gender perspective. It uses the four dimensions already mentioned to
understand different aspects of e-Government readiness including Outreach,
Governance, Policy and Infrastructure (ITU, 2009). Each dimension is composed of
a series of sub-indices and toolkit modules as shown in the figure below. Overall,
the toolkit provides a composite measure to assess the level of country readiness on
e-Government, making it easier to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses in
each dimension and to identify priority areas for future action.
.
[Figure 3] ITU Data Analysis Framework
Source: ITU (2010)
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For the purpose of this report, the analysis framework from the ITU e-Government
Implementation Toolkit is revised to reflect the four dimensions of women’s needs
in e-Government adoption as discussed in the previous section. The revised Analysis
Framework for e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality as shown in the Table
below aims to help identify a country’s willingness and readiness to integrate
gender equality in e-Government strategies. To this end, we have renamed the four
dimensions to Infrastructure, Gender Development, Outreach, and Policy. The Table
below illustrates the Toolkit Modules that support each of the four dimensions.
Dimensions of
Women’s
e-Government Use
Dimensions of Toolkit Framework
ICT Access Infrastructure General accessibility and use of ICT in the society
ICT Capacity Gender
Development Capacity of women to utilize the e-Government services and information
Services /
Contents
Service
Outreach
Availability of relevant e-Government
services / online information for women
Participation/
Advocacy Policy
Policy and institutional capacity to provide
an enabling environment for the promotion of e-Government services for women
[Table 4] Analysis Framework for e-Government for Gender Equality
[Figure 4] Toolkit Framework and Data Collection1
1 Demand side of Outreach dimension was not included in the Framework. More details can be found
under the 3.4.1.
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The Figure above summarizes the data analysis framework for Toolkit Framework
and indicates individual variables that support each dimension, and the weight of
each variable in the overall assessment.
The data for the Toolkit Framework is designed to pull from three major data
sources. Data for the dimensions of Infrastructure and Gender Development comes
from existing indices available from major international organizations and research
institutes, including the ICT Development Index (IDI) from the ITU, and the
Human Development Index (HDI) from the UNDP. Data for the Outreach
dimension was sourced from a Web Measurement Analysis conducted on the
websites of official government sites of government agencies concerned with
gender equality, such as a Ministry of Women. Third, the data to support the Policy
dimension was collected by a survey of country experts who spoke to the perceived
effectiveness of gender development policies at the national level.
Further details on data collection for the four dimensions are discussed below.
3.2 Infrastructure: Indicators of Women’s Access
This dimension mainly concerns the general physical connectivity of e-Government
services. Even though it would be ideal to utilize gender-disaggregated data for the
purpose of this study, the lack of such comparable data availability significantly
limits this possibility.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 72 countries out of
192 ITU's total membership countries havecollected ICT use data through official
surveys from 2010 forward. 34 developing countries have collected ICT use data
between 2008 and 2010; most of these countries collect data disaggregated by
gender (ITU, 2010). However, the dataset available does not fully reveal the
different dimensions of the gender divide in ICT access and use between countries
with sufficient details.2
Due to this limitation, the Infrastructure dimension data adopts the non-gender-
2 AL-Rababah and Abu-Shanab suggest the gender-ICT data should be placed within the policy
environment, with historical information, the policy context, comparative information from other
jurisdictions and community-based information and studies, where appropriate (AL-Rababah & Abu-
Shanab, 2010). Such lack of data availability leads to the lack of gender analysis in the telecommunication and e-Government policies, resulting from the assumption that men and women
have equal access, capacity and similar needs.
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disaggregated statistics on ICT access and use from the ITU ICT Development
Index (IDI) 2010 as shown in the Table below.
Dimension Variables Measurement Sources
Infrastructure
ICT Access
- Fixed-telephone lines per 100 inhabitants
- Mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
- International Internet bandwidth (bit/s)
- Percentage households with a computer
- Percentage households with Internet
IDI, 2010
ICT Use
- Percentage individuals using the Internet
- Broadband Internet subscriptions per 100
- Mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100
IDI, 2010
[Table 5] Measurement of Infrastructure Dimension
Source: ITU 2010
3.3 Gender Development: Indicators of Women’s
Capacity
This dimension measures women’s empowerment in each country as a proxy to
assess women’s capacity to use ICT to access e-Government services. These data
have been mainly derived from composite indices from the Global Gender Gap
Index (GGGI) published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Gender
Inequality Index (GII) published by the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP). The table below shows the specific composition of indices used to
measure the gender equality dimension.
Dimension Variables Measurement Sources
Gender
Equality
Economic
Participation - Labor force Participation rate
- Wage equality GII, 2010
Education Attainment
- Primary/secondary education for women
- Tertiary education for women
- Women’s literacy rate
GII, 2010
Political
Empowerment
- Women’s freedom of movement
- Seats in parliament
- Women in ministerial positions
GII, 2010 GGGI,
2010
[Table 6] Measurement of Gender Development Dimension
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3.4 Outreach: Measurement on Service and Content for
Women
3.4.1 Measuring the Outreach of e-Government for Women
The Outreach dimension refers to the status of the e-Government services offered
by a government and its administration (ITU, 2009). It can be further divided into
two aspects: the supply side, which refers to the country government’s supply of
outreach activities to promote gender equality and; the demand side which refers to
the patterns of usage of such supply of e-Government services.
For this study, the supply side of Outreach dimension has been further
operationalized to discuss the extent to which ICT supports national gender equality
agendas. This is determined by looking at the relevant information and
products/services that the national government provides to women3. Adopted from
the UN e-Government Development Index4, these dimensions have been measured
by analyzing the web content of national government gender equity offices and
programmes. The analysis examines the type and scope of e-Government services
for women, the effectiveness of the provision of content and services reflecting
women’s needs and interests, and the provision of opportunities for women to
participate in policy making process. However, due to the lack of data availability
and standardization across countries, we have not included demand-side services in
the calculation of the Toolkit Framework.5
3.4.2 Methodology: Web Measurement Analysis
As discussed, this research adopted the Web Measurement Analysis methodology
from the UN e-Government Development Survey to conduct an assessment of the
3 Regarding the importance of ICT to support national machineries for gender equality, refer to “ICT
and Gender Equality: New opportunities and challenges for public administration to implement
internationally agreed development goals including MDGs” (United Nations, 2010). Even though the official titles of such machinery differ from country to country, this report will use “Ministry of
Gender” as a general term indicating the central machinery of gender equality in country. 4 UNDESA’s “UN E-Government Survey Web Measure Index” presents data collected from the
assessment of online government services offered through the websites of the Ministries/Departments of Health, Education, Social Welfare, Labor and Finance. 5 Out of the six countries surveyed, data for this dimension was available only from Korea and
partially from Malaysia. Due to the differences in their data collection level, a meaningful international
comparison of these statistics was not possible. For future application of the framework, this dimension may address the actual usage data of the e-Government services including but not limited to
the number of site visits, page views, visitor profiles and feedbacks received.
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Ministry of Gender websites from six selected countries in the Asia and Pacific
including Bangladesh, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.6 The
Table below outlines the criteria used to evaluate the four categories.
Aspect No. Criteria
Information
dissemination/
Outreach
(Emerging State)
1 Existence of ministerial websites pertaining to gender equality or any
institute performing equivalent functions
2 Existence of an effective and useful portal for women
3 Existence of an e-Government section under the ministry website
4 Sources of archived information
5 News and/or updates on government policies relating to women
6 Access to back-office applications
7 Information concerning government officials responsible
Entre409
8
Personal accounts/profiles of women, with the objective of enhancing
dialogue between government and women
9 Information /contents
10 Information for citizens/women on how to use the website
Access/Usability
(Enhanced Stage)
1 Search feature
2 “Contact us” feature
3 Audio and video features
4 Multiple languages available
5 Use of wireless technology to send messages to mobile phones or devices
6 Security (secure link) feature available/indicated
7 Electronic signature feature
8 Online payment by credit, debit, or other card methods
9 E-mail sign-up option, either as a formal list-serv or simply for news
items
10 Existence of features to enable access for people with disabilities
Service Delivery Capability
(Transactional
Stage)
1 Downloadable/printable forms
2 Online forms
3 Job opportunities
4 Online transactions/ services
5 E-mail alerts for e-participation
6 The country analysis was conducted by researchers from the respective countries who are knowledgeable in the gender development issues. Details of the analysis will be provided in the
following section.
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[Figure 5] Stages of Web Measurement
Index
Source: UN e-Government
Development Survey
6 Real Simple Syndication (RSS) use for e-participation
7 Set turnaround time for government to respond to submitted forms
Citizen
participation/
Interconnectedness (Connected Stage)
1 E-participation policy or mission statement
2 Calendar listings of upcoming participatory activities
3 Archived information about past participatory activities
4 Participatory tools to obtain public/women’s opinion
5 Provision for publishing the results of users feedback
6 Archive of responses by government to citizen’s questions
[Table 7] Criteria for the Web Measurement Analysis7
The four different aspects are divided into specific categories by function: 1)
information dissemination, 2) access and usability, 3) service delivery capacity, and
4) citizen participation and interconnectedness. The first category looks at features
that would likely appear on an official gender ministry website. The second
category is concerned with access and usability. The third category addresses the e-
service delivery capacity of the website. The fourth category is concerned about
factors related to citizen participation and interconnectedness.
3.4.3 Evaluation Categories
Overall, the measurement analysis looked
at the ease of use and the usefulness of
contents/services provided through the
Ministry of Gender website. This
evaluation revealed the degree to which
the website serves as an effective e-
Government site for women. The results
of the Web Measurement Analysis have
been categorized according to the four
stages of e-Government development
suggested by the UN e-Government
Development Survey as shown in Figure
5. The result of each individual country
assessment is presented in Section 4.
7 Adopted from the UN E-Government UN E-Government Survey Web Measure Index (2010)
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Box 1.
Characteristics of e-Government Development
(UN e-Gov Survey 2010)
Stage I - Emerging: Government web sites provide information on public policy,
governance, laws, regulations, relevant documentation and government services
provided. They have links to ministries, departments and other branches of
government. Citizens are easily able to obtain information on what is new in the
national government and ministries and have links to archived information.
Stage II - Enhanced: Government web sites deliver enhanced one-way or simple
two-way e-communication between government and citizen, such as
downloadable forms for government services and applications. The sites have
audio and video capabilities and are multi-lingual. This also includes some limited
e-services where citizens can request non-electronic forms and request for
personal information, which will be mailed to their house.
Stage III - Transactional: Government sites engage in two-way communication
with their citizens, including requesting and receiving inputs on government
policies, programmes, regulations, etc. In this stage, transactions require some
form of electronic authentication of the citizen’s identity to successfully complete
the exchange.
Stage IV - Connected: Government sites have changed the way to communicate
with their citizens, and they are proactive in requesting information and opinions
from the citizens using web 2.0 and other interactive tools. The e-services and e-
solutions that are available cut across the departments and ministries in a
seamless manner. Information, data and knowledge is transferred from
government agencies through integrated applications.
Excerpted from UN e-Government Survey Homepage at
http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/egovernment_resources/Spotlights_2010.html
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3.5 Policy: Measurement of Advocacy and Participation
for Women
3.5.1 Measuring perceived effectiveness of e-Government policy
The Policy dimension addresses the perceived effectiveness of a country’s e-
Government policies on gender equality in terms of integrating gender concerns into
public administration and improving the overall gender equality in the society
through participatory measures. It also measures the extent to which current
national e-Government initiatives reflect gender concerns in their service design and
provision. Additionally, this dimension gauges the perceived readiness of
institutional capacity -- such as the ICT competitiveness of its human resources,
commitment from top leaders, as well as the degree to which the mission is shared
among the Ministry staff.
3.5.2 Methodology: Policy Survey
The perception of policy effectiveness and institutional readiness was measured five
ways, including: 1) scoring the goals and perceived effectiveness of e-Government
policies; 2) e-Government’s stated impact on gender equality; 3) visual or
conceptual obstacles to women’s use of e-Government services; 4) gender policy
priorities and; 5) activities promoted by the Ministry of Gender websites. The
formation of survey questions reflected the challenges and opportunities discussed
in the Section 2, and integrated past research about gender equality in the public
sector and the general use of ICT by women. The table below outlines the survey
questions.
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Section No. Content
Policy Goals of
current
e-Government
policies
1 ICT access
2 ICT capacity building
3 Linkage to e-Government
4 Women's equal access to government services
5 e-participation
6 Networking building
7 Online service development
8 Gender advocacy
9 Monitoring of gender impact
Perception of
effectiveness of
current
e-Government
policies for women :
Effectiveness
1 ICT access
2 ICT capacity building
3 Linkages with e-Government
4 Women's equal access to government services
5 e-participation
6 Networking building
7 Online service development
8 Gender advocacy
9 Monitoring gender impact
Impact of
e-Government to
promote gender
equality
1 Overall contribution to gender equality in public sector
2 Improved women's access to government services
3 Delivery of online social services for women
4 Strengthened the service quality of Ministry of Gender
5 Promoted women's participation in political process
6 Supported women parliamentarians
Obstacles to
women’s use of
e-Government
1 Socio-cultural factors
2 Rural and urban divide
3 Income inequality between women and men
4 Lack of language support
5 Lack of content relevancy
6 Different gender patterns of technology use
7 Attitudes of women towards technology
8 Lack of gender analysis in the telecom industry
9 Lack of gender framework in public administration
Policy priorities
1 Identify women's e-Government service needs
2 Design online public services reflecting women's needs
3 Improve delivery of e-Government services for women
4 Develop institutional/ staff capacity
5 Build a stronger alliance with national e-Government strategy
6 Monitor gender impacts of e-Government services
[Table 8] Organization of Survey
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3.5.3 Responses
The data were collected via online survey sent to 722 experts with sufficient
knowledge in the current gender and ICT development in their respective countries
from thirty six Asian and Pacific region countries8. Recipients received an initial
email and up to two reminder emails depending on their completion status. If
available, the research team called experts to remind them about survey completion.
The research team set the threshold response rate at 25 percent for each country, and
excluded countries from the final analysis based on a response rate below this
threshold. Six countries surpassed this threshold and were included in the research.
The six countries finally selected -- Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, and Viet Nam – accounted for 38 percent of the overall response rate.
Country Total Sent Total Received Response Rate
Bangladesh 22 8 36%
Indonesia 68 28 41%
Korea 56 24 43%
Malaysia 48 14 29%
Philippines 55 25 45%
Viet Nam 40 22 55%
Total 322 121 38%
[Table 9] Policy Survey Response Rates
Due to variability of response rates per country, the results are insufficient to
establish generalizable conclusions at regional level, although country-specific
analysis was conducted. In addition, different types of experts responded in each
country. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, participants from the government accounted
to the majority while in Korea and Viet Nam, representation from the academia
formed the majority. In Malaysia and the Philippines, the majority of respondents
had affiliation with civil society organizations.
8 The pool of 722 survey recipients was identified in a variety of ways. The research team tapped into
1) the existing network of gender and ICT experts maintained by the Asia Pacific Women’s
Information Network Center where the principal researcher of this report serves as the Executive
Director, 2) gender and ICT focal points from ASEAN and APEC, and 3) direct contacts to the Ministry of Gender in other Asia Pacific countries where adequate quantity and quality of respondent
pool was not established from the use of the first two methods.
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[Figure 6] Policy Survey Respondents Category
3.5.4 Limitations and Verification of the Toolkit Framework
Due to the limitations of the methodologies used, as well as regional differences, the
Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender Equality cannot claim definite
conclusions. Despite the limitations, the formation of this assessment and policy
tool with its targeted advice and action plan may serve as a starting point for future
research in gender-sensitive e-Government research.
In the following section, the data collected from the six countries and analyzed with
the Toolkit Framework are discussed in detail to examine important implications for
policy recommendations. Additionally, the analysis section serves as a pilot
assessment to evaluate the feasibility and validity of using the Toolkit Framework in
a broader context.
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4. Country Analysis
This section provides an analysis of six country cases including Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Viet Nam. Adapting the Analysis
Framework for e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality discussed in Chapter
2, each country-based case study examines the overall climate of e-Government
strategies and their focus on gender equality, as determined by the four dimensions
(ICT access, gender empowerment, e-Government service outreach for women, and
the availability of participation and advocacy measures via policies). Each country
case is structured in four parts: a brief description of the country’s ICT
infrastructure as measured by key international indicators, a discussion of the status
of women, the web measurement analysis of the national official gender websites,
and the results of the subsequent policy survey conducted with in-country experts to
determine the perceived effectiveness and contribution of e-Government
programmes that promote gender equality.
4.1 Bangladesh
Overall, Bangladesh displays a comparatively low level of readiness in terms of
gender equality programmes delivered through e-government efforts. Though
Bangladesh scored below the mean of the six countries across the four dimensions,
the infrastructure and outreach dimensions warrant further study and improvement
over the others.
[Figure 7] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Bangladesh
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ICT Infrastructure
The country’s ICT infrastructure is among the lowest in the world. According to the
IDI 2011, Bangladesh is part of the low-development group, ranked 137th out of 152
countries. The percentage of individuals who use the Internet is 3.7%. The
percentage of active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 0.2%9.
The governing agency of ICT in Bangladesh is the Ministry of Science and
Information and Communication Technology (MOSICT). Notably, the National
Information and Communications Technology Policy (2002) has outlined a number
of measures for the introduction of ICT education in public and private universities,
teacher training in ICTs, the deployment of virtual ICT teachers and web-based
services (Tandon, 2006).
Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011*
Overall 1.52 137
ICT Access 1.91 130
ICT Use 0.13 140
UN
e-Government
Index 2010**
Overall 0.3028 134
e-Readiness 0.3028
Web Measurement 0.3556
e-Participation 0.1000 102
[Table 10 ] Bangladesh: Key ICT Indicators10
Gender Development
According to the 2010 Gender Inequality Index (GII), which is part of the UNDP
Human Development Index (HDI), Bangladesh is ranked 112th out of 187 countries.
This score is relatively high considering that the overall HDI rank of the country is
146th, but the value nevertheless places Bangladesh among the low development
group.
The national mechanism of gender equality in Bangladesh is the Ministry of Women
and Child Affairs (MOWCA). MOWCA was established in 1978 to fulfill
government commitments toward women’s development. In the same year, the
9 ITU IDI 2011 index 10 The rank in the IDI 2011 is out of 152 countries. The rank in the UN e-Government Index 2010 is
out of 192 countries.
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[Figure 8] MOCWA Website
country-wide development plan recognized the unique needs of women and
provided gender-disaggregated allocation programmes. The main goals of MOWCA
to promote gender equality are four-fold:
• Undertake a social audit and analysis to determine the poverty status of
women in all sectors and in rural and urban settings.
• Reinforce the mechanism to implement laws affecting women to encourage
women’s full and equal participation to social activities.
• Advocate for implementation and allocation of resources for Gender
Equality Strategy and Maternal Health Strategy within the Health, Nutrition
and Population Sector Programme (HNPSP).
• Creating effective safety-net programmes for distressed and vulnerable
women and children through social protection programmes
Outreach: Web Measurement Survey
Overall, the analysis of the MOWCA website revealed that e-Government content
and services targeted towards women in Bangladesh remains at the emerging
level.11
As shown in the Figure below, the website
is structured in four categories: News and
Updates, Ministry Information, Policy
Archives and Feedback. However, beyond
simple information dissemination, the
website does not offer basic search
features and does not support interactive
communication. Under a separate feedback
section, citizens can electronically submit
an online form to the Ministry on general
topics, but the feature supports only text
submissions and citizens can not directly
contact officials responsible for a specific
programme or project under the Ministry.
The site offers one text-based service that
lists of job opportunities; however, the
information is not up-to-date. .
11 http://www.mowca.gov.bd
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[Figure 9] Bangladesh: Web Measurement Analysis
Policy: Expert Survey
The result of the policy survey from experts in Bangladesh revealed that basic ICT
capacity building and provision of ICT access should be the key to government’s
effort to promote e-Government services to women. The experts also believed that
overall, the presence of MOCWA website as a focal point of women-specific
information services contributed to increased gender equality in public service, but
did not contribute to increasing opportunities for women to be involved in public
participation.
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[Figure 10] Bangladesh: Current e-Government Policies for Women
To the question regarding the policy goals of e-Government for women, all of the
responding experts replied that the enhancement of women’s ICT capacity and
access to ICT are very critical (Figure 10). Such unanimous result is notable as it
shows that the experts from Bangladesh place a strong emphasis on the strategic use
of ICTs to promote women’s inclusion in the knowledge-based society.
The experts identified interagency monitoring of gender as a key aspect in
promoting gender equality in public affairs. Interestingly, the MOWCA website
provides, in text-only format, achievement reports of a number of different agency
programmes containing quantifiable gender-based outcome statistics. Overall,
experts ranked e-Government participation and advocacy as least important,
indicating that the key e-Government strategy for women should be in providing
expanded access and capacity building for women.
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[Figure 11] Bangladesh: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
When asked to identify the top two policy priorities, respondents from Bangladesh
identified the importance of needs assessment and service delivery (Figure 12). One
reason for these selections is that Bangladesh is at the initial stage of the national
ICT promotion and e-Government development, and policy priorities are commonly
clustered around the needs assessment and service development. The selection of
the two tasks, usually conducted at the beginning stages of a policy cycle, echoes
with some of the recommendations suggested by the survey participants that “e-
Government should be a means to an end” and “ICT can help delivering the
programmes to more women.”
[Figure 12] Bangladesh: Top Two Policy Priorities
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Participants were asked to rate the effectiveness of the MOCWA website in
disseminating relevant information to women and extending the outreach of the
Ministry’s activities (Figure 13). The review was generally positive, reflecting the
belief that the site is useful for improving gender equality in public sector. However,
the data revealed two areas where the experts thought the website fell short of
expectations -- interactive engagement with women through participatory measures,
and monitoring and evaluation of women’s online usage.
[Figure 13] Bangladesh: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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4.2 The Philippines
The Country profile of the Philippines displays relatively high competency in the
area of gender development and policy, but scores lower in ICT infrastructure and
service outreach.
[Figure 14] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Philippines
ICT Infrastructure
ICT development in the Philippines is in the medium country level, according to the
IDI 2011. The country is ranked at the 92th out of a total of 152 countries. The
percentage of individuals over 25 using the Internet was 25% of the total population
in 2010. The broadband Internet subscription rate per 100 inhabitants was 1.8
whereas active mobile-broadband subscription per 100 inhabitants was 16.6 12 .
Considering the geographic constraints of this archipelago country, infrastructure
readiness remains the weakest link of the overall ICT development, as the ICT
access sub-index of the Philippines is 101th, one of the lowest in the medium
development group countries in the IDI.
However, other aspects of ICT and e-Government development in the Philippines
exhibit a strong upward trend in recent years, as exhibited in Table below. Even
though such index cannot capture the entire picture of the ICT usage in population,
12 ITU IDI 2011 index
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it gives a strong indication of governmental effort to promote ICT for public service
initiatives. The Information Communication Technology Office (ICTO) is the
central body governing the ICT development in the country.13
Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011*
Overall 3.22 92
ICT Access 3.14 101
ICT Use 1.49 83
UN e-Government
Index 2010**
Overall 0.4637 78
e-Readiness 0.4637
Web Measurement 0.3937
e-Participation 0.1857 64
[Table 11] The Philippines: Key ICT Indicators
Gender Development
The Philippines is one of the most gender-equal societies in the Asia and Pacific
region, with high index scores across economic, education, health and political
indicators. The GGGI of the Philippines in 2011 was 0.769, which ranked the
country 8th among 135 countries. More specifically, the country has the highest
GGGI score among the 33 lower-middle income countries. In particular, the country
has a reputation for strong representation of women in managerial and leadership
positions, especially in the public sector. However, the Gender Gap sub-indexes
display that the weakest link in the country’s overall strong performance in gender
equality is the women’s labor force participation rate, which has been decreasing in
recent years and is currently ranked at the 94th place in GGGI 2011.
The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) is the government agency that
serves as the national entity for the promotion of gender empowerment and
women’s rights. PCW was established in 1975 by a Presidential Decree, and is
responsible for planning, implementing and assessing the National Plan for Women
as well as providing cross-agency monitoring of gender-responsiveness.14 In 2009,
the Magna Carta of Women was signed by the President. It presents comprehensive
13 The shaping of ICTO as a new body of ICT coordination has occurred very recently, with a change
in its legal status from formerly as a presidential commission to a standing committee under the Department of Science and Technology (DoST). 14 http://pcw.gov.ph/
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[Figure 15] PWC Website
women’s human rights laws that aim to eliminate discrimination against women.
The bill emphasizes women’s inclusion in society, women’s rights to information
and participation. This climate may help promote e-Government services that
support gender equality.15
The major functions of the PCM are as follows:
• Track gender responsiveness of national development plans and coordinate
the preparation, assessment and updating of the National Plan for Women,
ensure its implementation and monitor the performance of government
agencies in the implementation of the Plan at all levels.
• Undertake continuing advocacy to promote economic, social and political
empowerment of women and provide technical assistance in the
deployment and strengthening of mechanisms on gender mainstreaming.
• Ensure that the gains achieved by Filipino women due to Philippine culture
and tradition shall be preserved and enhanced in the process of
modernization.
Outreach: Web Measurement Analysis
The PCW website is an example of a site
at the Enhanced Stage of e-Government
development. It offers enhanced one-way
and simple two-way online
communications for citizens. The website,
which serves as the “Gateway to Gender
Development in the Philippines,”
provides information on women-related
policy, governance, laws and regulations,
and relevant documents. Citizens can
view and download relevant programme
documentations with relatively ease. The
website also provides a search feature to
help users retrieve relevant information,
adding to the overall usability and
accessibility of the website. Another user-
friendly feature e includes the FAQ menu to help with troubleshooting.
15 Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women Act of 2009
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The website provides job and bidding opportunities, where users can view
vacancies and bidding invitations, send the posting to their personal email, obtain
contact information for the hiring manager, and download application forms. Users
can also share posting via the social networking service Facebook.
However, the website is limited in its interactive features. Users cannot submit
forms online or register to receive automatic updates on PCW activities. Currently,
the features that allow a minimum level of two-way communication are the
“Contact Us” form, a simple electronic form to send text-based messages to the
webmaster and a link to Facebook where users can share links and add comments.
[Figure 16] The Philippines: Web Measurement Analysis
Considering the strong gender development track record of the country as well as
the variety of programme information on the site, , the PCW website seems ready to
move towards the next level of e-Government development by furthering efforts to
strengthen “transaction” and “interaction” with citizens and other organizations.
This may include developing specialized public services and content-, e-learning
options, and electronic form submission systems. In addition to service delivery,
the PCW homepage could better serve as a central platform for all gender related
issues. Two-way communication functionality such as forums, email alerts, and
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discussion boards are essential to provide a formal but open space for citizens’
participation.
The PCW website is not linked with other government agency websites. It would be
advantageous to users to create these linkages so that PCW can share content with
other agencies and monitor gender equality integration on other sites. This could be
an essential part of the PCW’s work as the central body responsible for the gender-
responsiveness of public policies in the Philippines.
Policy: Expert Survey
The result of the policy survey in the Philippines revealed that the experts perceive
the national e-Government strategy for gender equality is effective and contributes
to women’s participation in political and democratic process. While the level of e-
Government sophistication still remains at the bottom second phase of the Web
Measurement Index, the largely positive responses from the experts may come from
the strength of the Philippines’ gender development policy development and
implementation records itself, rather than the advancement of electronic delivery
measures represented by the e-Government per se.
[Figure 17] The Philippines: Current e-Government Policies for Women
Experts identified a variety of e-Government and gender topics as equally important,
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from improving basic ICT access and capacity building for women to monitoring
and advocating for gender-sensitive public service and participation. The experts
highlighted “building women’s online communities and networks” as an important
goal of e-Government policy (Figure 17).
[Figure 18] The Philippines: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
In general, respondents valued the effectiveness of e-Government provisions very
highly (Figure 14). Particularly, the respondents stated confidence in the system’s
contribution in promoting women’s participation in political and government
service, as well as providing information on women-related government services.
The PCW website currently does not provide extensive participatory “online”
features and thus the positive results may reflect the country’s underlying emphasis
on gender equality and participation in civil service rather than a simple review of
the PCW site. Under this context where gender concerns are first addressed by a
strong network of local civil society organizations, it may be less critical to upgrade
the PCW website. As revealed in the Web Measurement Analysis, the PCW website
provides an extensive list of partnering NGOs with which PCW jointly shapes
policies and programmes for gender development. Combined with the fact that the
survey participants chose “building women’s online networks” as an important goal
of the e-Government provision, the survey sheds light to an alternative model of e-
Government development for women that utilizes the networking aspects of ICT to
promote participation and improve service delivery.16
16 This aspect will be discussed further in the Section 4.
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[Figure 19] The Philippines: Top Two Policy Priorities
The survey respondents replied that institutional and human resources readiness
should be the top two policy priorities for gender-sensitive e-Government strategies.
They stated that this is critical both within and across PCW and other government
agencies (Figure 20). One of the respondents mentioned that the ICT capacity of
programme managers should be improved to facilitate better design and delivery of
online services for women. Considering that the e-Government development in the
Philippines has been vigorously pushed forward by the government, more seamless
interconnectedness of inter-agency e-Government services may further facilitate the
efforts for effective system integration as well as wholesale gender development.
[Figure 20] The Philippines: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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4.3 Malaysia
The Framework Analysis of Malaysia demonstrates that the country supports strong
service outreach efforts geared towards providing gender-specific online services to
women. The country also shows above-average readiness in terms of the ICT access
(infrastructure), overall gender development and policy and institutional
competitiveness as shown below.
[Figure 21] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Malaysia
ICT Infrastructure
ICT infrastructure in Malaysia has exhibited a significant advancement in recent
years, and is currently ranked at 58th in the IDI index with the score of 4.45. In 2010,
the percentage of individuals using internet was 55.3%. Broadband internet
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 7.3 and the active mobile-broadband
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 27.2%17.
17 ITU IDI 2010
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Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011
Overall 4.45 58
ICT Access 4.70 65
ICT Use 3.15 50
UN
e-Government Index 2010
Overall 0.6101 32
e-Readiness 0.3028
Web Measurement 0.3556
e-Participation 0.6571 12
[Table 12] Malaysia: Key ICT Indicators
Notably, the government of Malaysia collects basic sets of gender-disaggregated
ICT data. According to the Household Internet Survey conducted by the SKMM of
Malaysia in 2009, 51.3% internet users were male and 48.7% were female. The
percentage use of cellular phone in 2007 was 56.4% male and 43.6% female
(SKMM, 2008). The number of internet users in the household has increased from
2.26 per 100 inhabitants in 2008 to 2.75 in 2009 (SKMM, 2008).
[Figure 22] Malaysia: Household use of Internet by Gender
Malaysia was ranked 31st in the e-Government development Index 2011, which
places it in the high development group of 192 total countries. The Malaysian
government’s strong drive to promote ICT is evident from closer examination of
NRI; the scores for the government’s readiness, use and promotion of ICT are
among the top 15. However, gender-based usage of e-Government data is not
available at the national level. As a proxy, according to household use of the Internet
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in 2008, Malaysian Internet users count information acquisition as the most
important purpose (94.4%) ,and an increasing number of users engage in e-
Government transactions (19.8%) (SKMM, 2008).
Currently, the Malaysian government is actively promoting the online services
through the official government portal.18The portal includes an e-transaction center
where individuals can access online services and download forms required to
interact with various government agencies and local authorities. There are
approximately 1,000 forms available for download. The portal also has “quick links”
to the government directory, government tenders, job vacancies, laws and policies,
weather information, as well as a place for public complaints, feedback and inquiry,
and immigration and customs service feedback.19
Another notable policy is the ICT Policy for the Ministry of Women, Family and
Communication Development (MWFCD) of Malaysia. The Policy, enacted in 2007
by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) of
Malaysia, sets ICT guidelines and programmes for the MWFCD to develop the ICT
capacity of its staff and to improve service efficiency. The Policy has three
components: the ICT Public Policy, the Equipment Policy and the Security policy.
The policy serves as a means to encourage institutions to actively promote e-
Government initiatives.20
Gender Development
Malaysia was ranked 97th out of 135 countries in the 2011GGGI report, with an
overall score of 0.653. Among its upper-middle income peer group countries, the
country’s gender equality score from the GGGI is lower than the average. It falls in
the lower 25% quintile.
The national organizational mechanism for gender equality in Malaysia is the
MWFCD. Following the Beijing Declaration in 1995, efforts to establish a cabinet-
level body to elevate the status of women led to the establishment of the MWFCD
on January 17, 2001. Among the four departments under the Ministry, the
Department for Women’s Development serves as the main hub for women’s
development, with its mission to integrate the needs of women into the mainstream
18 Malaysian National e-Government Portal at www.gov.my 19 Data provided by county focal point for this report. 20 For details, see http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/documents/10156/57314f9d-6c79-452f-9164-
699c7e87134f
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[Figure 23] MWFCD Website
and strengthen the family institution for increased social welfare. In particular, the
Ministry has the following objectives: 21
• Increase the participation and active role of women, families and
communities as contributors and beneficiaries of development.
• Preserve the rights of women, families and communities with fair and
equitable treatment
• Extend equal opportunities to women and society in social, economic and
political arenas
• Strengthen the family institution.
Outreach: Web Measurement Analysis
The results of the MWFCD Web Measurement Analysis show that it has currently
reached at the Enhanced Stage, and is in transition towards the Transactional level
development.
Even though there is not yet a
standalone e-Government portal for
women, the MWFCD website provides
a number of online content and services
tailored to the needs of women.22 The
website is organized into five main
categories, including News and Updates,
Policy Archives, Ministry Information,
Services and Citizen Participation. The
first three categories focus on
information dissemination and outreach,
outlining the core work areas of the
Ministry. It provides documentation,
multimedia features, statistics about
women and children’s development and
information about the Ministry’s
organizational structure. Under the Service category, the MWFCD website offers a
number of links to information where citizens can directly receive online-based
services including e-learning courses on reproductive health and online forms for
21 Ministry website http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/ 22 http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/
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financial assistance. The services provided include programmes for women’s
economic participation, education, health, social inclusion child care. Additionally,
usage statistics of such services are also available through a separate Transaction
Statistics page.
[Figure 24] Malaysia: Web Measurement Analysis
However, in order to transition from the third for the fourth and top phase of e-
Government development, the MWFCD website would need to increase its
capabilities to support seamless citizen engagement between the MWFCD website
and the national e-Government portal23. There is no significant integration at this
point. Such a low level of insitutional connectedness may be due to the nascent
nature of the site, and the site does feature citizen feedback and inetragiotn with
social networkign services like Facebook and Twitter.
Policy: Expert Survey
The result of the policy survey showed an overall positive perception of e-
Government as a mechanism of women’s empowerment.
23 www.gov.my
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[Figure 25] Malaysia: Current Government Policies for Women
In particular, the respondents considered ICT diffusion a key goal of e-Government
promotion for women (Figure 25). More than 70% of respondents identified that the
enhancement of women’s ICT capacity and access should be a top policy goal,
compared to the relatively low level of importance placed on the policy integration,
application development, and policy monitoring (29%). As noted, the access to
technology, combined with the capacity to utilize the technology forms a multi-
faceted challenge of women’s ICT access. Considering that the ICT access serves
as a basic requirement of women’s e-Government usages, such emphasis put on the
ICT diffusion resonates with the overall policy priority in Malaysia.
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[Figure 26] Malaysia: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
When asked to determine the two most pressing policy priorities to promote e-
Government for women, the greatest number of respondents stated that it was
essential to identify women’s ICT and e-Government service needs (Figure 27). In
this case, where the level of e-Government for women is near the transaction level,
this result may indicate a key need for policy development. Another notable result is
the respondents’ desire (43%) for the site to offer stronger linkage with other
national e-Government strategies, and to provide a seamless, integrated service for
its citizens.
[Figure 27] Malaysia: Top Two Policy Priorities
The majority of experts responded that the MWFCD website has contributed to
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enhance gender equality in the public sector, particularly through the delivery of
online social services and dissemination of information on government policies and
programmes (Figure 28). Notably, the Ministry provides a variety of online-based
services and content for women in reproductive health and social safety online. The
respondents from Malaysia valued the role of ICT in improved information delivery
and outreach, but they did not rank participatory engagement features very highly,
implying a perceived low level of effectiveness in this area.
[Figure 28] Malaysia: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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4.4 Korea
Overall, the Framework Analysis of Korea shows that Korea is actively pursuing e-
Government service provision for women, as the country scores high on all four
dimensions, particularly in ICT infrastructure. The Outreach and Policy dimensions
are well above the average of six countries sampled in this report.
[Figure 29] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Korea
ICT Infrastructure
Korea was ranked at 1st in the 2011 IDI 2011, with a score of 8.40. ICT use, one of
the sub-indexes, is by far the highest as well, although the score for ICT access is
lower -- 10th place out of the 152 countries. The percentage of individuals using
Internet was 83.7% and the broadband internet subscription per 100 inhabitants was
36.6 while active mobile broadband subscription per 100 inhabitants was 91.24 The
Korean government is committed to supporting e-Government initiatives, which
explains way the country is at the top of the 2010 e-Government Index.
Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011
Overall 8.40 1
ICT Access
(Infrastructure) 8.21 10
ICT Use 7.85 1
24 ITU IDI 2011
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e-Government Index 2010
Overall 0.8785 1
e-Readiness 0.3028
Web Measurement 0.3556
e-Participation 1.0000 1
[Table 13] Korea: Key ICT Indicators
ICT development in Korea has been driven by a series of comprehensive
development policies under the 1996 National Informatization Plan, which focused
on achieving such strategic priorities as information infrastructure development
(1996-2000), broadening of domestic ICT demand via education and creation of
employment opportunity in ICT (1999-2002), e-Government development (2003-
2007), and currently, ubiquitous infrastructure development (2008-2012).25
As part of the Basic National Informatization Plan and Telecommunications
Framework Act, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) has a set of
strategic goals designed to further increase efficiency and effectiveness of e-
Government by following the national Enterprise Architecture (EA) plan.
According to the statistics from KCC and NIPA in 2010, the ratio of male to female
internet users above 3 years old was 53.6% and 46.4%. 72% of women population
used the Internet while 28% were non-users. 83% of men were Internet users while
17% were not. Regarding the gendered-use of ICT, men and women in Korea had
different patterns of the Internet use. While both genders used the Internet primarily
for information acquisition (91.8% and 91.5%), men tend to use more e-
Government services (20.5%) while the percentage of women using e-Government
services was only 13.3% (KCC & NIPA, 2010)
Gender Development
Korea is ranked 107 out of 135 countries in the Global Gender Gap index from
2011, which places the country at the lower bottom of the pyramid. There are
significant gaps in men and women’s economic participation and pronounced wage
inequality.
The national center for gender equality in Korea is the MOGEF (spell out). The
Ministry was established as part of the Presidential Commission on Women’s
25 NIPA http://www.nipa.kr/main.it
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[Figure 30] MOGEF Website
Affairs in 1997, following the enactment of the Gender Discrimination Prevention
and Relief Act. Since its inception, MOGEF has served as a central planning and
coordination body for women’s policies across the government.
The MOGEF has the following objectives:
• Planning and coordination of women's Policy, and enhancement of
women's position including the promotion of women's rights
• Establishment, conciliation, and support for family and multicultural family
policy, and children related duties for healthy family business
• Fostering, welfare and protection of youth
• Prevention and protection of women, children and youth against violence
Outreach: Web Measurement Analysis
In terms of the supply side of the e-Government services for women, the result of
the web measurement analysis indicates that Korean initiatives are at the Connected
Stage. The MOGEF website serves as a platform through which women can access
to various e-Government services and contents specifically targeted for women’s
information needs, public service requirements and participatory channels.
Overall, the website is structured by six
different categories, including 1) electronic
petitions, 2) citizen participation, 3) news
and updates, 4) policy and laws archive, 5)
major areas of MOGEF works, and 6)
overview of the MOGEF.
Notable features from an accessibility and
usability perspective includes a mobile
version of website that supports the growing
number of smart phone users in the country.
From the service delivery perspective,
MOGEF website has developed several
online-only features that can significantly
increase public service provisions for women.
For instance, on the separate web service
homepage “Women Net,” there is expert consulting in four major areas: 1) women’s
labor issues, 2) career issues, 3) family law issues, and 4) real-time consulting
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offered 24/7 via online chat to discuss urgent domestic violence, sexual harassment
and other relevant issues. In addition, it provides free e-learning courses on ICT,
business, foreign languages and entrepreneurship development to build women’s
capacity.26
[Figure 31] Korea: Web Measurement Analysis
From a citizen participation and interconnectedness perspective, the MOGEF
website is well-integrated with the other national e-Government portals. For
instance, the MOGEF website provides an embedded form that is connected to the
central Government for Citizens (G4C), so that proposals and petitions pertaining to
the work areas of MOGEF can be electronically filed and submitted either via the
national G4C web portal or the MOGEF website.
Overall, the result of Web Measurement Analysis in Korea indicates two interesting
findings. First, the generally high score given to gender-related services and content,
26 According the user statistics, the number of registered users of the site has showed a dramatic
increase over the years, 42,000 in 2002 to almost 500,000 in 2010. Number of visitors also leaped
from 420,000 in 2002 to almost 2,000,000. More than 80% of the registered users are women in the 20s to 40s, who tend to use free e-learning courses and career mentoring services, exhibiting their
needs for career and skills development to increase social and economic participation.
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particularly regarding participation, are possible due to the high level of overall e-
Government presence in the country. Second, the MOGEF website has developed
specialized services for women that can reach its constituencies even more
effectively via online channels than traditional channels of delivery. For instance,
online consulting services that run 24/7 on topics such as domestic violence and
sexual harassments provide secure channels for women to seek expert opinions on
discrete matters. Free cyber-mentoring and e-learning courses to improve women’s
entrepreneurship development and career building also serve to contributing to
achieving gender equality in public service delivery.
Policy: Expert Survey
[Figure 32] Korea: Current e-Government Policies for Women
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[Figure 33] Korea: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
[Figure 34] Korea: Top Two Policy Priorities
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[Figure 35] Korea: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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4.5 Indonesia
The country profile of Indonesia paints a picture of relatively strong service
outreach efforts compared to its lower level of ICT infrastructure, even though the
scores of four dimensions are below the average of the six countries addressed in
this report.
[Figure 36] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Indonesia
ICT Infrastructure
Indonesia is part of the medium development group according to the IDI, ranked
101th in 2010. The percentage of individuals using the Internet was 9.9% in 2010.
Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 in habitants was 0.79.27 Notably,
Facebook penetration of Indonesia is the second in the world following the United
States as of August 2011, as almost 16% of the population in Indonesia has an
account.28
Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011
Overall 2.83 101
ICT Access
(Infrastructure) 3.13 102
ICT Use 0.69 105
27 ITU IDI 2011 28 http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2011/Material/MIS_2011_without_annex_5.pdf p. 127
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e-Government Index 2010
Overall 0.4026 109
e-Readiness 0.3028
Web Measurement 0.3556
e-Participation 0.1286 86
[Table 14] Indonesia: Key ICT Indicators
The National ICT Council, an oversight body for ICT promotion in Indonesia, was
established in 2006 to accelerate ICT growth through policies that would
synchronize the ICT programmes of all government departments, ministries, and
units. The Council has seven flagship programmes: education, procurement, budget,
National Single Window e-Government, national identity number, software
legalization and fiber-optics provision. Additionally, the State Ministry of Research
and Technology serves as a focal point for ICT infrastructure development through
telecommunications and Internet development, development of energy-saving and
low-cost computers, and open source applications.29
In Indonesia, e-Government was officially introduced to public administration by
Presidential Directive No 6/2001 on Telematics, which states that the government
of Indonesia has to use Telematics technology to support good governance. 30
According to the UN e-Government survey 2010, Indonesia is ranked 109 and is
grouped under the medium development countries designation (UNDESA, 2010).
Gender Development
Indonesia is ranked 90th out of 135 countries in the 2011 GGGI, which places the
country in the middle of its lower-middle income peers. Out of the four aspects
comprising the GGGI, political empowerment for women is ranked higher in the
sub index compared to the other three aspects, including the economic participation
and opportunities, educational attainment and health and survival. The relatively
high score in the political empowerment sub-index is due largely due the presence
of its women political leaders. The Indonesian GGGI scores showed a gradual
downward trend since 2006, dropping 22 places due to falling economic
participation.
The Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (MWECP) was
29 http://web.idrc.ca/openebooks/456-7/#page_201 30 http://www.aseansec.org/13757.htm
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[Figure 37] MWECP Website
established in 1978 to support gender equality and child protection. Its mission for
gender development is to encourage gender-responsive policies to improve the
quality of life and to fulfill development goals. Notably, in 2000, the President
announced the Gender Mainstreaming in National Development initiative, which
stipulates that gender mainstreaming would be implemented in all national policies
and development programmes. The MWECP has spearheaded many programmes
and efforts to raise awareness and promote these values, even introducing a
comprehensive gender equality law to Parliament.
Notably, the MWECP established the “Development Policy on Improvement of
Women’s Lives 2010-2014”, which sets out five priorities including education,
health, economic activities, political participation and society and culture. The
education priority includes activities designed increase the number of women in
science and technology, which includes ICT access and use; the economic activities
priority specifically supports women’s access to capital and technology.31
Outreach: Web Measurement Analysis
Overall, the MWECP website serves as a
comprehensive gateway for gender
equality in Indonesia. 32 The Web
Measurement Analysis reveals that the
website has reached the Enhanced Stage
for e-Government provisions, moving
towards the Transactional Stage.
The website is composed of five main
categories including the Ministry
Information, News and Updates, Data and
Information Archive, online services
including an Intranet portal and
Suggestions and Questions. The Ministry
Information section provides information
on the vision, missions, organizational
structure and contact directory of the
Ministry as well as major laws and policies regarding gender empowerment and
31 http://www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/gender/pdf/e10ind.pdf 32 http://www.menegpp.go.id/
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child protection. It has a separate news and update section where information about
latest events, publications and project updates are distributed via text-based
messages and multimedia forms. Additionally, in the Data and Information section,
citizens can search the documents catalogue and download relevant data ranging
from Ministry publications and legal documents to project performance reports
from government agencies.
[Figure 38] Indonesia: Web Measurement Analysis
From a usability and accessibility perspective, the website, originally offered in
Bahasa Indonesia, provides the Google translation tool embedded at the Website
navigation menu to reduce potential language barriers. There is also a
comprehensive for gender, child protection and other areas of the Ministry’s work
areas. The glossary, which can be either viewed online, downloaded as a PDF
document, printed or emailed to the user’s designated email account, provides
working definitions of key terms and concepts used in the field.
In addition, the website provides several online-based services for both general
citizens and the MWECP staff. For example, a link to the Intranet service offers
three category options including the Auction Announcement for public viewing,
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webmail for MWECP staff, and a link to a stand-alone online library service.
Policy: Expert Survey
The result of the Indonesian policy survey revealed that the respondents agreed that
the goal of e-Government is to serve as a tool to improve government service
delivery for women. They perceived e-Government programmes for women to be
effective means in improving gender equality in the public sector.
[Figure 39] Indonesia: Current e-Government Policies for Women
Almost 80% of respondents from Indonesia replied that e-Government should
ensure women’s access to ICT (Figure 40). Around 60% of respondents identified
that ensuring women’s equal access to government services is also an important
goal of e-Government promotion. The result displays a broad variety of participants’
perceptions about the importance of streamlining e-Government service delivery for
women, ranging from individual concerns about ICT capacity building, to
community level priorities regarding women’s online networks, to more
institutional level issues such as e-Government service integration and support of
online participation channels.
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[Figure 40] Indonesia: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
Overall, almost 80% of survey participants agreed that e-Government for women
have contributed to gender equality in public sector. The majority of respondents
replied that the e-Government provisions available via the MWECP website
contributed to the online service quality of the Ministry (57%) and improved
women’s access to information on government services (54%). However the
participants generally expressed a lower level of confidence in the political
empowerment aspect of e-Government; less than 40% of participants replied that
the MWECP website promoted women’s participation in political and democratic
process and supported women parliamentarians.
[Figure 41] Indonesia: Top Two Policy Priorities
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A majority of survey respondents replied that developing institutional and staff
capacity to carry out e-Government programmes and services is the most important
policy priority in Indonesia. Respondents from Indonesia mentioned that the e-
Government expertise in Indonesia is still in its beginning stage; thus it is critical to
improve the awareness, within the institutional setting, about the efficiency and
effectiveness that e-Government could potentially offer.
40% of the respondents stated that it was important to monitor the gender impact of
e-Government. Given the national push for gender mainstreaming, one of the
important role the MWECP plays is to ensure gender-responsiveness of government
policies across all government agencies from design to implementation. E-
Government can serve as an effective means to coordinate and streamline gender-
responsiveness monitoring across different government agencies.
[Figure 42] Indonesia: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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4.6 Vietnam
ICT Infrastructure
Ranked at 81st in the IDI index with the score of 3.52, Vietnam is displaying
constant growth in the ICT development. Especially, it was selected as one of the
most dynamic countries in terms of “ICT diffusion and uptake”, according to the
ITC 2011 issue on IDI.33 In 2010, the percentage of individuals using internet was
27.6% and broadband internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 4.1.
Furthermore, active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants were
12.8%. Notably, in terms of access sub-index, it showed the highest increase
between 2008 and 2010 in the Asia Pacific region, along with Islamic Republic of
Iran. From another indicator of the ICT infrastructure, the e-Government Index,
Vietnam was ranked at 90th, as shown below.
According to the Viet Nam Internet Network Information Centre in the Ministry of
Information and Communications, the internet penetration has increased by twenty
points over the last five years, from 3.8 per cent of the population in 2003 to 24.4
per cent in 2008. International bandwidth increased even more spectacularly over
the same period from 1 Gbit/s to 50 Gbit/s. One factor has been strong government
support. The Vietnamese government has targeted the ICT sector as a key industry.
It has rolled out infrastructure through state-owned firms and introduced a degree of
managed competition between them. It has not neglected rural areas, with telephone
services rolled out to all of the some 9 000 communes.
Source Indicators Score Rank
IDI 2011
Overall 3.53 81
ICT Access (Infrastructure)
4.39 72
ICT Use 0.69 105
e-Government
Index 2010
Overall 0.4454 90
e-Readiness
Web Measurement
e-Participation 0.0857 110
[Table 15] Vietnam: Key ICT Indicators
Furthermore, the government recently signed an agreement with the Bill and
33 ITU IDI 2011
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Melinda Gates Foundation for a pilot project to provide Internet connectivity at 99
public access points in rural areas. The project will also provide training on
computer and Internet usage. The access points include post offices, libraries,
schools and hospitals.
Viet Nam’s sustained economic output of over five per cent a year for the last two
decades has driven a rise in incomes, making access to ICTs more affordable.
Although government commitment and economic growth has contributed to the
availability of infrastructure and affordability, Viet Nam faces a major barrier in
terms of content, given that it has a unique national language and alphabet. However,
literacy is high at 90.3 per cent, ranking it 69th in the world. Access to alternative
sources of news and information over the Internet has been a big driver of demand
and its large market of 21 million Internet users has attracted content development
and applications.
Gender Development
Vietnam is ranked 79th out of 135 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2011,
scoring 0.6713 overall. Health and survival and educational attainment seemed to
play significant roles in placing Vietnam at the current level in terms of gender
equality. While having economic participation and opportunity slightly lower, due to
the comparatively low equality rate in the legislators, senior officials and managers’
category, political empowerment was lagging far behind compared to other sub-
indexes.
The Department of Gender Equality, under the Ministry of Labor-Invalids and
Social Affairs, is the Vietnamese governmental body responsible for gender equality.
The objectives of the department to foster gender equality and social equality are as
follows:
a) Providing guidelines of implementation of social equality as
specified by laws.
b) Taking part in evaluation of gender equality integration into legal
document preparation.
c) Data collecting and making reports to authorized bodies on gender
equalities as specified by laws.
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Policy: Expert Survey
[Figure 43] Vietnam: Current e-Government Policies for Women
[Figure 44] Vietnam: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
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[Figure 45] Vietnam: Top Two Policy Priorities
[Figure 46] Vietnam: Evaluation of Ministry Website
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5. Analysing Readiness with the Toolkit
5.1 Findings of the Policy Survey
5.1.1 Overview
This section provides an analysis of the data collected about the perceived
effectiveness of e-Government initiatives targeted for women to promote gender
equality in the public sector. Before presenting the results, it is important to note
that analyzing significant patterns within these survey results does not mean that the
findings can be generalized on a cross-country level. Conversely, the aim of this
summary lies in providing a point for further research about the implications of e-
Government provision for women’s empowerment that originate within specific
initiatives of national machinery of gender equality while acknowledging the
different cultural contexts.
By and large, the policy survey results from six countries revealed a generally low
level of readiness to develop targeted e-Government initiatives for women, except
for Korea. Taking into account of the relatively new history of e-Government
promotion in the developing countries, the virtual void of initiatives that overlap the
two domains of e-Government and gender development warrants further attention.34
The recommendations provided by the respondents across the six countries draw
attention to broader policy issues surrounding e-Government for women, from
prerequisites such as ICT access and capacity to concerns about advocacy and
marketing for improve outreach and participation. The status of e-Government and
gender equality programmes across the featured countries may account for the
respondents’ different perceptions about priority policies for future e-Government
initiatives in their countries.
Notably, as shown in the figure below, respondents from the countries that comprise
the emerging level of e-Government replied that improving women’s ICT access
and capacities are the most critical, whereas they identified gender advocacy for
improved outreach and participation as less important. On the other hand, countries
in the connected stage, in particular Korea, placed more importance on gender
34 As one of the survey respondents mentioned, “There is nothing to study at the moment.” The general lack of discussions at the Ministry level, setting aside the specific policies and programmes
produced was prevalent in the surveyed countries except for Korea.
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advocacy and monitoring, and displayed a significantly different pattern from the
rest of the countries.
[Figure 47] Perception of current e-Government policies for women: Mission
In particular, the respondents identified the following as major concerns to improve
the e-Government: Institutional and human capacity of the Ministry; how to ‘add
value’ by applying e-Government; finding the right balance between ‘gender policy
focus’ and knowledge of ICT operations; improving integration of national e-
Government policy and Ministry initiatives; developing clarity between the
respective roles of ICT department and policy development/implementation
department; improving measurement of e-Government performance; and improving
communication with stakeholders including women’s’ networks and other
government agencies; identifying women’s ICT and online service needs; building
demand base of women for e-Government services.
The respondents identified a variety of obstacles to the development and adoption
of e-Government for women in their countries. As shown in the table below, access
and capacity divides (rural and urban divide, income inequality) came up for
Malaysia, Philippines and Bangladesh. Content and service relevance was
considered important in Malaysia and Indonesia. Respondents from Korea, Viet
Nam, Indonesia and Bangladesh mentioned that understanding socio-cultural
aspects such as women’s attitudes and usage patterns of ICT as well as society’s
perception women’s use of ICT as very critical.
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Country Policy Priorities
Korea Lack of gender framework in public administration (79%)
Different gender patterns of technology use (67%)
Malaysia
Lack of content relevancy (86%)
Rural and urban divide (79%)
Income inequality between women and men (79%)
Viet Nam Socio-cultural factors (77%)
Attitudes of women towards (73%)
Philippines Income inequality between women and men (84%) Rural and urban divide (72%)
Indonesia Socio-cultural factors (71%) Lack of content relevancy (64%)
Bangladesh
Rural and urban divide (88%)
Income inequality between women and men (75%)
Different gender patterns of technology use (75%)
[Table 16] Top Two Policy Priorities to Promote e-Government for Women
5.1.2 Service and Content for Women
Even though the different national contexts make it difficult to generalize the results,
the survey revealed an interesting pattern regarding service and content provision.
First, the respondents shared a similar belief on the impact of e-Government to
promote gender equality. Most of the respondents recognized the actual
contribution that e-Government programmes have made to enhance gender
equality in public sector. In most countries, respondents stated that the most
important factor in supporting gender equality was effective information
dissemination (Figure 49).
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[Figure 48] Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality
To different degrees, a majority of the respondents agreed that their e-Government
programmes for women serve as a hub of information dissemination about policies
and programmes targeted for women, and an effective means through which the
Ministry can extend the service outreach to women (Figure 49; Columns 1 and 2).
The recognition of e-Government as an effective mechanism for information
outreach confirms that e-Government, as a new outlet of public service, is
considered capable of reaching out to marginalized groups with targeted, relevant
content and information. Women gain additional access point to public services
through the e-Government, and in turn, provide input and feedback to the Ministry
via participatory online channels, creating a positive cycle of influence contributing
to a greater inclusiveness of public service and participation. Adding to this point,
one interesting finding from the of survey respondents across the countries was that
e-Government initiatives strengthened the service quality of the Ministry of Gender
(Figure 49; Column 4). Accountability of government is increased by having an
online presence that is held responsible for providing relevant content and services.
Extrapolating from the data, it is our belief that e-Government programmes for
women can offer two very important foundations from which to build other
programmes -- first, extending the service delivery for women in quality and
quantity, and second, providing a forum for social dialogue through which
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women may participate in public decision making process. It will be critical to
follow this research to determine if both are realized.
686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868
686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868It is
unclear at this point to recommend a certain level of interactivity for each country.
While interactivity is considered a good way to improve two-way communication, it
will be interesting to see which e-Government initiatives incorporate truly
“interactive” characteristics in the service provision and if this interactivity
improves overall public service quality for women.35
The question has dual implications; first, whether the government, particularly the
Ministry of Gender, has the institutional and human resource capacity to
translate their programme knowledge in gender empowerment to functioning online
services, both technically and conceptually. Are there services that are specifically
appropriate to interactive design? Determining how to best utilize sophisticates
online channels to expand service outreach and improve effectiveness should be one
of the primary capacities of the Ministry of Gender.36
Second, it is important to determine if “interactive” services support women’s e-
Government service needs. In most of the surveyed countries, respondents
reported that it was important to determine the most important services for women –
this was one of the top two important policy priorities for most countries.37 Even in
Korea and Malaysia, where the Ministry website provides a number of specific
online services for women, the survey results revealed respondents’ concerns that
online services are only valuable to the extent they reflect actual women’s needs.
The specific areas for further needs assessment will differ from country to country.
From the follow-up interviews conducted selectively, respondents from Indonesia,
Malaysia and Viet Nam mentioned the difficulties of collecting gender specific
information and service needs. The access to nation-wide baseline data about
women’s ICT and service requirements is extremely difficult to get, despite its
critical importance to successful design and implementation of e-Government
programmes for women.
35 As described in the previous section, the instructiveness is a characteristics that distinguishes responsive, two-way communication between the government and women from a static, one-way
provision of information 36 Interestingly, the survey respondents from the countries where their Ministry of Gender website
remains at the emerging stage of development pointed out that developing institutional and staff capacity is one of the priority areas of policy concern; Viet Nam, Philippines, Indonesia 37 Except for the Philippines
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Table below shows the major types of online services provided through the Ministry
of Women websites in six surveyed countries, grouped by the stage of the e-
Government development. Types of service include women’s health, education,
employment, childcare, and social safety nets. Even with a small sample size across
six countries, it is evident that employment services and information is a significant
need across all four levels of e-Government development.
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Areas
e-Government Development Stages
Emerging Enhanced Transactional Connected
General
Policy
• Policy Archive
• Online petition form
• Policy Archive (Search)
• Opinion Polls
• CS Survey
• CS Survey Archive
(Searchable)
• Policy Review
Forum (Search)
• Single Window Citizen Proposal
• Single Window Citizen Petition
• Single Window
Information Disclosure
Request
News • Bulletin
Board
• E-Newsletter
• Blogs
• RSS • SNS
Health
• Partner Clinic Links
• Partner Clinic Search
• Online Mammogram
Self Evaluation
• E-Learning on reproductive
health
/prevention of
sexual harassment
• Mammogram subsidy
management
system
• N/A
Education
• N/A • Resource Library
Catalogue (Search)
• e-Learning (ICT, Health)
• N/A
Employment
• Job Listings bulletin board
• Job Listings (Downloadable
Forms)
• Talent Pool Registration
• Online Capacity
Assessment Tool
• Real-time Chat Career Coaching
Child Care
• N/A • Forum based mentoring
• Forum-based mentoring
(Search)
• Real-time Chat mentoring
Social
Institutions
• Single Parent support
network links
• N/A • Counselor registration
system
• Real-time Chat Legal Counseling
Feedback
• Email/ Form Submission
(One-way)
• Bulletin • Searchable Archive of
Feedbacks
• Web-mobile linkage
[Table 17] Areas and Types of Online Service Delivery for Women
5.1.3 Network building and Participation
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Another aspect to consider is the relationship between e-Government provisions and
women’s participation in public decision making (Figure 20; Column 5). . Our
results across countries exhibited an interesting pattern. Even though the
respondents acknowledged the importance of e-Government services to disseminate
information, this recognition did not necessarily result in a positive perception of e-
Government’s role in women’s participation and gender advocacy in public sector.38
For example, in Korea, despite the actual provision of e-participation methods such
as e-petitions and citizen proposal features, respondents were not fully supporting of
this effort to improve women’s participation. The results were mixed in Indonesia
and Malaysia. However, all the six country cases showed a sharp decrease of the
perceived effectiveness of e-Government to promote women’s participation in the
public sector as compared to other gender issues.
This result may suggest that even though the respondents perceived e-Government
as a mechanism useful to outreaching to women and delivering information and
services, their perception of the capability of receiving gender-related inputs may
require a separate consideration. How should Ministry of Gender websites, faced
with technological constraints and societies with deeply-rooted gender inequalities,
effectively contribute to women’s online participation in public affairs? How should
it play a role to process the demands and thereby bring about a substantial
difference in the public sphere to change the “offline” reality of gender inequality?
It will be interesting to see how countries with lower levels of e-Government
development and gender equality utilize their Ministry of Gender website as an
“input” mechanism, moving beyond a simple “execution” mechanism.
A closer look at the survey respondents’ recommendations provides valuable insight
on this front. Many respondents identified the increasing role of social media in
their outreach and network building efforts, implying the possibility of a
“Networking model” of e-Government for gender empowerment.
In fact, the use of Social Network Services, or SNS, in e-Governance arena has
gained importance in recent years as an intelligent intermediary (Betancourt, 2006).
Particularly, the 2010 Survey of UN e-Government Development Index emphasizes
online service provision and networking with citizens, engaging and empowering
them to be part of the governance process (UN DESA, 2010). The report also
mentioned that social networking tools enable governments to consult with citizens
38 Except for Philippines
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and expand opportunities for participation in decision-making processes, to garner
feedback and opinions, and elicit support for public policy (UN DESA, 2010).
In this light, we are optimistic that four of the countries had incorporated SNS
functionality in their websites -- Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. As
shown in the table above, in most of the countries surveyed, the national mechanism
of gender equality has at least one account on major SNS sites such as Facebook
and Twitter. The SNS pages and accounts were linked to the Ministry websites in
two ways: outbound, where visitors can share the contents of the Ministry website
on their personal SNS account; and inbound, where the visitors can follow the
Ministry activities directly using the interface of the SNS.
In the Philippines and Korea, their official government Facebook pages provided
“softer” content such as news updates, multimedia resources and event schedules.
Moving beyond the simple information provision, the pages support basic “input”
mechanisms using the default features of the SNS. Visitors can leave direct
comments and feedback on specific posts, request information and resources, and
participate in online polls (Box 2). In addition to the outreach aspect, the Ministry’s
SNS pages serve as a space where women’s organizations, both physical and virtual,
can create online communities and further facilitate women’s networking.
Country Total users Penetration
of population
Penetration of
online
population
Male/Female
ratio
Bangladesh 2 million 1.43% 364.94% M: 76%/ F: 24%
Philippines 27 million 27.06% 91.02% M: 48%/ F: 52%
Malaysia 12 million 46.10% 71.35% M: 53%/ F: 47%
Korea 5 million 11.01% 13.58% M: 56%/ F: 44%
Indonesia 41 million 17.19% 139.26% M: 59% /F: 41%
Viet Nam 3 million 4.03% 14.86% M: 53%/ F: 47%
Sri Lanka 1 million 5.50% 66.59% M: 67%/ F: 33%
[Table 18] Facebook Statistics
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Country SNS Account Contents
Number of
Followers/
Visitors
Presence of
Designated
Account
Manager
Last
Updated
Philippine
s
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/philippine.
commission.on.wo
men?ref=search
Info
Photos Events
Notes
Videos
FAQs
Poll
848 Yes 2011.12.15
Indonesia Facebook:
https://www.facebo
ok.com/pages/Kem
enterian-
Pemberdayaan-
Perempuan-
Republik-Indonesia/
Info
Photos
Videos
Contacts
116 Yes 2010.11. 4
Malaysia Twitter:
http://twitter.com/k
pwkm
Photos
Policy updates
1469 Yes 2011.12.20
Blogspot:
http://kpwkm.blogs
pot.com/
Introduction
Contact us
17 Yes 2010.3.9
Korea Facebook:
http://www.facebo
ok.com/mogef
Info
Fan Pages
Blog
YouTube
Events
Notes
Photos Videos
SNS Address book of
Government
agencies
Online Campaign
2,958 Yes 2011.12.21
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/
mogef
Policy updates 7,643 Yes 2011.12.20
Blog:
http://blog.daum.ne
t/moge-family/
Notice
Events
Schedules
Policy Newsletter
Videos
Photos
3,145,057
(Number of
visitors)
Yes 2011.12.21
[Table 19] Social Networking Outreach39
In this regard, even though the degree to which the SNS linked pages provided up-
39 As of December 21, 2011
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to-date information differed from country to country, the significant SNS presence
of the Ministry across countries implies the emerging “networking” aspect of e-
Government for women.
However, this approach also has limitations, as the scope of outreach is confined to
those who already have access to SNS, which consequently relies on ICT access
and capacity. Nevertheless, since many developing countries still lack the technical
sophistication to furnish fully functioning e-participation modules, a Social
Networking model of e-Government can provide a practical, viable alternative to
ensure a two-way interaction with the citizens.
Box 2.
Social Networking Aspect of e-Government
PCW, the Philippines
The PCW of the Philippines utilizes its Facebook page to provide additional
information on its current programmes and activities as well as updates on the
new legislation, notably the Magna Carta of Women. The Facebook page is
actively managed and maintained by a designated staff member from the PCW,
whose role includes answering inquiries received from Facebook users, and
sharing video and audio links relevant to the gender development issues in the
Philippines. Considering the limited technical sophistication at the level of
emerging e-government development, such usage of social media as an
alternative outlet to “receive” input as a participatory channel can be a viable
option for many developing countries.
This social networking model also resonates with the gender pattern of Internet
use. Even though specific results may differ across countries, recent research
found that women tend to use the Internet more for social networking compared
to men. In case of Philippines, for example, the total number of Facebook users
is about 27,000,000. This accounts for about 27% of its population and 90% of
online population. Notably the male and female user ratio on Facebook is 48% to
52%, showing women’s active usage of social networking compared to men.
Another benefit of this networking model of e-government in the Philippines is
the collection of links to relevant networks provided through the PCW website,
which spans local governments, relevant public institutes, academia, and private
sector partners to the civil society.
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5.2 Recommendations: Toolkit Modules and Priorities
5.2.1 Grouping of Countries
One of the primary objectives of this report is to explore factors that may contribute
to increasing the level of e-Government readiness to promote gender equality in the
public sector. The graphical overview of the four different Framework indicators as
tested in the country analysis provides a quick tool to assess the overall readiness of
a country. However, the lack of internationally comparable data on gender use of
ICT, coupled with the limited scope of this research to supplement global data for
policy and web measurement aspects, limits country-specific visualization of the
four pillars of e-Government readiness at an international level. Nevertheless, the
value of this tool lies in exploring these major pillars of e-Government readiness to
promote gender equality, testing the concept through analysis of six countries in
Asia and the Pacific region, and last not but least providing recommendations for
countries that comprised each level of e-Government development.
The following graphics highlight four countries that represent the four dimensions
of e-Government readiness as previously stated -- infrastructure, gender
development, outreach and policy competency. The categories were determined by
the results of Analysis Framework discussed in the previous section.
[Figure 49] Framework Analysis: Country Groupings
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The small sample number limits the ability to generalize categorization according to
the four pillars of the Analysis Framework beyond the scope of the six countries
surveyed. However, for the purpose of providing targeted policy and action
recommendations for country groups within the scope of this research, such
categorization may provide useful information helping governments identify their e-
Government priorities.
Based on the needs and challenges identified in this Framework for each of the four
dimensions, the topics addressed in the proposed modules of the e-Government
Toolkit Framework have been ranked according to their level of priority, high,
medium, and optional, respectively. This prioritization, illustrated in the Figure
below, aims to direct the attention of decision makers from a particular group to the
modules that might be most relevant to their current level of readiness.
[Figure 50] e-Government for Gender Equality: Toolkit Modules
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The following section discusses the rationale for the topics proposed under the each
of the four dimensions, pointing out the group of countries that should find
particular modules the most germane.
5.2.2 Recommendations on Infrastructure
While choosing an appropriate technology to enhance socioeconomic service
delivery for women, issues such as access, cost, maintenance, interactivity, user-
friendliness, availability and speed should be considered (Baste, 1995). In
selecting appropriate technologies for delivery, efficiency may vary in terms of
outreach capability, flexibility, interactivity, and other factors. (Tobing, 2002). The
table below outlines the key ICT features to considerwhen determining the most
appropriate technology for e-Government service delivery to and from women.
Feature Points for Consideration
Directionality (Cast) Broadcast, unicast, multi-cast (to selected users)
Ease of content creation High, medium, low (depending on training and equipment)
Content ownership / control Centralized, decentralized, hierarchical
Total costs per user Quantifiable (depending on penetration rate)
Speed of dissemination Instant, delayed
Richness (multimedia) Textual, audio, video (effectiveness may vary depending on
users’ literacy levels)
Trust Subjective/qualitative
Robustness Reliability of service
[Table 20] Selection of Technology: ICT Features40
Despite the disparities in penetration between world regions and countries, mobile
cellular phones are the most commonly used ICT in most countries (ITU, 2009).
Even though gender disaggregated data for women’s mobile access is not available,
the relatively low cost of hardware and infrastructure deployment cost, combined
with the affordable usage rates and mobility, make mobile phones a powerful tool
for the provision of e-Government service, particularly to women in developing
countries and regions without sufficient infrastructure (ITU, 2009). The mobility of
the device poses an advantage for women; women can access to the e-Government
40 Adapted from Hussain & Tongia (2010)
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services even from home, without a need to travel to cybercafés and telecentres to
access internet-connected computers when the home connection is not available.
In this regard, m-government, the extension of e-Government to mobile platforms,
may provide additional advantages for women, particularly regarding emergency
response services for domestic violence or other crimes, as shown in the case of
Korea.
5.2.3 Recommendations on Gender Development
Promoting women’s overall socio-economic capacity is a key factor to increasing
women’s demand for e-Government services. ICT capacity building is important to
address, so that women can access the services and content necessary for
development. Capacity building happened at two levels – individual and network.
At the individual level, the most frequently referred to method is ICT trainings. In
regions where ICT infrastructure is not in place, telecentres can serve as training
sites for increased capacity building. . In addition to technical capacity building,
efforts to demystify technologies used for e-Government and information services
can lead to greater efficacy with technology and wider participation by women.
At the supporting network level, improving ICT capacity of women’s cooperatives
and organizations is important. Moving offline networks online can significantly
strengthen both the organization and the technical capacity of women. It is also
critical that national, regional and local cooperation in terms of programme and
resource sharing be encouraged.
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[Figure 51] e-Government as a Killer Application for Telecentres41
Source: Alampay & Umali, 2007
5.2.4 Recommendations on Outreach
Outreach activities span a number of initiatives, including gathering baseline data to
gauge programme demand, feedback on service and content, and the
implementation and the promotion strategies required to encourage women’s use of
e-Government.
First, on the demand side, it is critical to map the current status of women’s ICT
access and e-Government use as well as potential service needs through extensive
data collection. The outreach aspect should always be based on the analysis of key
characteristics of women and their areas of information needs. In this sense,
gender-disaggregated data collection of different dimensions of ICT
environments is critical, to adequately understand the current gender gap and use
the findings to create policies for improved relevancy and impact.
41 http://www.apdip.net/resources/e-governance/killerapps/egovCeC.pdf
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In addition to the gendered-ICT data collection at the individual level, it is also
important to collect and understand the needs of women’s development
cooperatives and grassroots networks, as well as women-owned businesses.
Targeted need assessment of these established groups and businesses will
strengthen the presence of gender networks in online spaces and subsequently
support the development and dissemination of relevant services for women through
collective need and intelligence.
In order to assess the actual use of services by women, a well-designed monitoring
system should be put in place to analyze trends and performance. This technical
aspect of outreach should be implemented in coordination with the national
statistics agencies to ensure the data compatibility and to maximize the utilization of
data.
From a supply perspective, ongoing improvements in the quality, relevance and
diversity of e-Government services should be considered. As discussed in the
findings of the Policy Survey, areas of content service most often include:
Income generation: business management for women SMEs, market
information for women cooperatives and SMEs, and general agricultural
extension service,
Education: women’s lifelong and adult education for economic
empowerment and disaster response,
Health: AIDS, STD awareness and prevention, child care and maternal
care,
Financial service: for individual and community, and
General public services including certificate issuance and registration, etc.
For each topic area, appropriate technology selection and service design should
follow, along with feasibility tests to gauge the usability of each area by target
women.
The choice of technologies for e-Government development s should reflect the
current level of infrastructure maturity across the country. As suggested in the
Toolkit, countries in the emerging and interacting stages of e-Government
development should consider utilizing existing social networks and established
online-based services to promote the usability, ease of use and convenience fore-
Government programmes for women. However, in the long run, the Ministry of
Gender website should serve as a single gateway through which women can access
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gender-specific information and services that are seamlessly integrated with other
national e-Government web portals.
E-Government promotion depends upon identifying appropriate incentive
mechanisms to promote participation from women and women’s groups. The effort
should accompany active marketing strategies to promote e-Government for women
as a “service,” engaging with established online and offline women’s groups.
Additionally, utilization of SNS can help extend promotion and outreach.
5.2.5 Recommendations on Policy and Institutional Readiness
The policy and institutional readiness dimension refers to the institutional will of
administrational entities, their capacities to carry out e-Government for improved
gender equality, as well as the existence of laws and policies supportive of such
efforts.
First, it is critical to establish a model of interagency coordination and thus
identify an entity across the government agencies to serve as a focal point for e-
Government provision for women. As the results of the policy survey demonstrated,
even though there are designated government agencies responsible for national e-
Government initiatives, issues of gender are largely ignored at this central level.
Consequently, in most of the countries surveyed, online services for women that
were originally sponsored by the Ministry of Gender remained isolated, and their
interconnectedness with other national e-Government initiatives were weak.
To successfully accomplish this, three options should be considered:
There should be a grassroots approach where governmental gender
equality organizations take the initiative to provide initial information
services for women and subsequently seek to establish networks with
national e-Government integration;
Simultaneously, there should be a top-down approach where the agency
responsible for national e-Government initiatives provides programmes
relevant for marginalized citizens, including women as a major subgroup;
Advocate for interim approaches to “privatize” e-Government services for
women, taking advantage of existing technical capacity of online services
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and expertise of online women’s networks in order to expand service
outreach.
These three approaches are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combinations
to supplement the situation faced by each country.
Second, from an institutional capacity aspect, the ICT capacity of the Ministry
staff should be strengthened so that staff members understand the technical process
of e-Government development, such as ICT needs assessment, e-Government
programme design and implementation. The adequate level of staff ICT capacity is
a prerequisite to make sure that the e-Government initiative serves as an efficient
means to an end rather than being an end in itself.
The policy survey and field data collected from country experts identified that the
scarcity of trained human resources is one of the roadblocks toward establishing an
effective e-Government and information service network. Training areas should
include technical issues, content development, and e-Government management
among others. Regular training for personnel in the Ministry and resource pooling
can also ensure the operational sustainability of e-Government initiatives, and is
vital to long-term sustainability beyond the initial period. Additionally from the
institutional aspect, political leadership and commitment from the top level officials
should be secured to ensure long-term support for women’s e-Government
initiatives.
Finally, from a legal and policy readiness perspective, proactive measures should
be taken to introduce an e-Government for women’s development. Currently, e-
Government for women is considered a luxury in many countries at the early stage
of national e-Government development. However, in order to prevent further
marginalization of women in the public space, it is imperative to launch a proactive,
response to a quickly-changing world where technology and policy rapidly affect all
countries.
In addition to the establishment of relevant policies and regulations to support e-
Government for women, these services should be monitored and evaluated as part
of a legal mandate to support transparency and track gender impact.
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5.2.6 Regional and International Exchange of Experience
In the spirit of international collaboration, a collective of e-Government services
for women should be compiled in order to share knowledge across countries. The
International community can work together to collect good practices in national e-
Government initiatives for women around the world so that best practices and tools
are available to all.
Additionally, as mentioned in the previous section, international efforts to advocate
for the collection of gender-disaggregated data on ICT and e-Government use at
national level should be promoted with the utmost priority. Currently, the challenge
of accessing gender-disaggregated data collection remains insurmountable in many
countries. This is supported by the new UN Women initiative, Data Edge, which
may help remedy this situation if there is global cooperation.
The list above can not be properly visualized. There seems to
be a text missing at the bottom.
Box 3.
Check List for e-Government Initiative
E-Government delivery is not an ICT initiative — own the process and
partner with ICT professionals.
Don’t worry about 100 percent consensus, it’ll never happen.
Ensure a strong Ministry leadership
Have a clear vision and goals — why go digital?
Get buy-in from key stakeholders.
Clarify roles
Start a pilot programme — it’ll turn into practice.
Provide a digital product that users can’t live without.
Provide close support programmes to ensure sustainability.
Collect data from every step of the way – start building a data repository of
women’s needs/use of ICT
Conduct regular, objective assessment of programme performance
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Conclusion
In the knowledge society, e-Government presents an opportunity to improve public
service delivery as well as to broaden opportunities for citizens to participate in the
public decision-making process. However, this opportunity also presents the
challenge of inclusiveness that already pervades in ICT access and use. The lack of
representation from marginalized groups, particularly women who still suffer from
gendered aspects of the digital divide in many countries, can further marginalize
these groups from government service provision and participation. It is crucial to
develop e-Government strategies targeted specifically towards women’s
advancement if the digital divide is to close.
The policy surveys and Web Measurement analysis of the national operations for
gender development in six selected countries, while limited in their generalizability,
demonstrated that e-Government provisions for women still remain an emerging
policy issue which warrants more attention from the national governments. This
report identified modules of policy recommendations reflecting the range of
different country contexts regarding the country’s gender development goals, e-
Government sophistication and ICT infrastructure.
[Figure 52] e-Government Development Path for Gender Equality
At the analysis level, this report has discussed why governments should take
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proactive initiatives to provide women-specific services. Additionally, at the design
and implementation level, the following points have been made as findings and
recommendations:
Many programmes designed to increase women’s ICT adoption fail due to
the lack of relevant content for women
E-Government adoption depends on the ease of use as well as usefulness
of service and content
This “usefulness” should increase, with sites providing richer and more
relevant content and services, as well as multiple ways to access content
As the services expand, it is critical to encourage women to participate in
decision-making in the public sphere, so that their needs are recognized
and considered.
It is only through increased participation that e-Government can sustain and scale to
have greater impact on women’s development.
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