Understanding ICTs for Social Change in Your Context

Context analysis includes a review of all factors on different levels: individual organizational community macro, eg. socio-economic, political, and cultural which create specific environment of your ICT projects or can affect its implementation.

The analysis of your project context help you to identify: identify critical gender and ICT issues, set the indicators understand your evaluation findings.

WML Context Situations: ICT as a tool to increase women's political participations Situation Analysis: High number of women mayors are elected in small impoverished rural localities where men were not interested to take the responsibility for poorly paid and hopeless positions Remote rural communities paid higher cost for ISPs services. Access to some ICT tools like computers or ICTs skills, is lower in small cities, which have to operate with smaller budgets. (Local city budgets are based according to the number of inhabitants.) How they used ICTs? To collect information on women mayors To foster cooperation between women mayors

WML Context Situations: ICT as a tool to increase women's political participations Critical Gender and ICT Issues: Women mayors’ access, use and control of ICT tools Women mayors’ access to resources like trainings and funds

Fifth Women Context Situations: ICTs as tool in campaigning against violence against women Situation Analysis: the potential of using the Internet was much higher than was originally estimated in the design of the campaign (People visited the website 11 times more than was estimated) the several problems were experienced on internal communication via s, and phones, like frequent misunderstandings and late or even missing getting feedback often hindered the decision-making process How they used ICTs? To provide a background information about the campaign, and the issue of violence against women To gather feedback on the campaign from the public

Fifth Women Context Situations: ICTs as tool in campaigning against violence against women Critical Gender and ICT Issues: Strategic use of ICTs in the VAW campaigns Women from NGOs face difficulties in dealing with ICTs

Isis-WICCE Context Situations: ICTs as tool in campaigning against violence against women Situation Analysis: the diversity of women’s information needs especially in rural areas the high rate of poverty in rural communities was due to lack of relevant information, knowledge, skills and capital to invest in viable projects How they used ICTs? both old and new information and communication technologies were used to enable women leaders at the grassroots generating, processing and disseminating information of concern to rural women’s issues

Isis-WICCE Context Situations: ICTs as tool in campaigning against violence against women Critical Gender and ICT Issues: Usefulness of the available ICTs to rural women’s day to day activities Extent to which the available ICTs are being utilised by women leaders

GROUP WORK Q: Why did you decide to use ICTs as the most appropriate tool to address the issues you are working on? Q: What social, cultural, political, etc. factors did you consider in planning your project?