IT TO BRIDGE THE GAP FOR TANZANIAN WOMEN

By: Heri Nderingo

Abstract.

This paper investigates the nature of life of Tanzanian women and problems they face and how Information Technology (IT) can help to solve some of their chronic problems. It also examines the factors which hinder women involvement in IT field as well as what is to be done in order to let them get involved.

Introduction

Some studies has shown that Tanzanian Women have a lot of problems, but most of which can be solved through science and technology, IT in particular.
According to The United Republic of Tanzania, 2002 Population and Housing Census, most women are residing in rural areas. The data shows that about 13.5 million of women do reside in rural areas whereas only 4.04 million do reside in urban areas. This uneven distribution of population has made them to lack unity and hence disintegration taking into consideration that infrastructure is not well developed in most areas of Tanzania.
Most Tanzanian women also live in total poverty (i.e. According to UN definition, they are consuming less than one USD per day). This is due to lack of employment and low productivity in agriculture as well as in business areas. Women poverty is denoted in the following table.

Poverty by Gender for PPA Surveys, World Bank and REPOA. Numbers in percentage of male/female.

.Level of Education: Percent Distribution By Sex, The Highest Level Of Education Attended, By Residence And Year.

Benefits Women Can Acquire Through IT
Getting Connected
Since most women are residing in rural areas, IT can connect them through Internet so that they can get whatever information and access to various resources easily as well as having communication with all over the world at their fingertips.
In rural Tanzanian societies, women play the elderly role, parental role, economic role and family caring role. With IT the roles could be performed better and timely by getting information easily, though it may be necessary to train most of them to use these technologies.

For Economic Empowerment
As most women in rural Tanzania have no employment, internet could help them to get information on job opportunities advertised worldwide and hence to be able to join the global fight for job opportunities.
IT can also liberalize women who are working in difficult conditions in manufacturing industries and construction sites by giving them non masculine jobs in IT itself or in other fields which need IT literacy. This can principally happen if they get trained in the use of facilities available in Information Technology.
IT through Internet can also highlight and provide market niche for women handicrafts. This is due to the fact that many Tanzanian women making some handicrafts such as "the batiks", pottery products, and other handicrafts, do not know where to sell or to shop for cheap and good quality raw materials. In most cases, middlemen have been exploiting them by buying their products at very cheap prices while selling at very high prices in the world market leaving them with minimal profits and low capital.
Moreover, with IT, women could advertise their products worldwide as well as getting cheap raw materials for their handicrafts.
Support of women's small scale enterprises can also be acquired through IT. By using various computer software systems, women can increase the quality of their products or services. Software can also help women in Decision Making by making analysis on inputs required for a certain particular output in order to reduce business risks. Software can also help them to perform some activities in their businesses such as sales monitoring and stock control.
As most women are residing in rural areas, increase of women productivity in agriculture can also be achieved through IT. Women agriculturalists can get their weather forecasts through the Internet and be able to make critical decisions on their agricultural activities. They can also get new ways of farming as well as new farming technologies on pesticides and even irrigation techniques.
For example, in India (a third World country like Tanzania), a telecentre was established in Thandari Village in Pondicherry with connectivity support from Foundation For Occupation Development (FOOD); villagers used it to learn how to package and market the herbs that they found in the surrounding countryside.
Such a telecentre can be implemented in Tanzania for women agriculturalists in rural areas to assist them in getting adequate knowledge on crop production and scientific animal keeping as well as packaging and marketing of farm products.

IT For Political Empowerment

IT can also help to increase women access to politics and political processes. According to the Parliament Information Section "Idara ya Taarifa za Bunge", only 63 members of the parliament out of the present 292 members (they are supposed to be 295) are women, whereby only 12 represent their constituents while the rest 51 are of women special seats. This means that the women in the parliament are only 21.58% regardless of their increased number compared to men in the 2002 Population and Housing Census. This gap has been caused mostly due to traditional factors and lack of information. IT through internet can help to expose women globally and give them confidence in politics through knowing how do other women politicians are performing politics globally. It can also expose them to government and national documents which will give them awareness on their political rights as well as different techniques in politics used by men and other model women.
IT can also increase the performance of women politicians in political parties, parliament and the government. This is because IT can help to link them worldwide and let them share experiences and problems. It will also give them simple and reliable information and knowledge to perform their daily duties.

IT For Education
Since most women play the parental role, IT could help them perform distance leaning while at home. This could be an easier way than using postal services for learning as through internet they can learn online while maintaining other roles. Getting educated, most Tanzanian women working under tough situations, exploitatively and oppressively could get other skills and knowledge to perform other simple non exploitative jobs.

IT for Women's Rights
Women's rights have been abused in many areas in Tanzania due to unfavorable traditional and religious norms. Women have been circumcised, forcefully married or re-married, illegally divorced, beaten (sometimes to death), trafficked and many other abuses. This has been happening partly due to lack of information on their legal and constitutional rights.
IT can help to make women knowledgeable of their rights by giving them access to knowledge through internet. It can also help them to share and exchange legal documents concerning women rights as well as helping women to change and eliminate the oppressive laws and norms in different societies through exposure to other societies which are non oppressive to women.

Problems Which Hinder Women Involvement in IT
High Cost For Internet Services.
Internet Services in Tanzania is not affordable by normal people. For example, installing a wireless internet service would cost you 500$(US) for initial cost and 45$ as a monthly payment (October 2003 data from "Kicheko.Com", ISP). This cost is even more than that of a dial up service which a client have to have a telephone line and pay for it as he uses the internet services plus the 25$ to the ISP as a monthly payment. Such costs are not affordable to a normal Tanzanian woman who may be consuming less than one USD daily being in rural or urban areas.

Computer/Internet Literacy
Most women in rural and urban areas do not have computer or internet skills. This factor hinders them from acquiring the fruits of IT directly.

Poor/No Infrastructure
To have internet services, one has to have a computer plus a telephone line or wireless devices to help him/her get connected. This pre requisite is not available in most rural areas where most Tanzanian women reside (about 13.5 million compared to 4.04 million in urban areas) as apart from not having telephone lines, even electricity is still a problem in rural areas. According to World Bank (ITU, UNESCO, and Jensen) study of 2002, out of approximately 816 million people in Africa (Tanzania inclusive), only about 0.7% (5.9 million) have a PC which is among a pre-requisite of having an internet connection and only 0.6 % (5 million) use the internet.
Moreover most women can not migrate to towns and cities for internet services as roads and other transport means are inadequate and their family commitments may not allow them to do so. Also community tele-centres are very few in Tanzania, only 5 (according to Dr. Batilda S. Buriani "Harnessing ICT for Development".

What To Be Done To Make Women Have Good Participation in IT.
Development of Technological Infrastructure in Rural Areas.
The government and the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should put efforts on reaching electricity and wireless devices or telephone lines at least to each district in the country where families can get internet access at lower prices and where women can easily be networked.
The government should also make sure that it executes the ICT policy especially the focus on ICT infrastructure and participate fully in the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) programmes which specify top priority ICT programmes namely the NEPAD e-school programmes, the East Coast of Africa Sub-marine Optical Fiber Cable and Land Locked Country Optical Fiber Cable Programmes, the NEPAD e-readiness programmes and the NEPAD Capacity Building Programmes for e-learning.
The East Cost of Africa Sub Marine Fiber Optical Cable Programme includes East African Countries Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda and involves linking Tanzania with the whole East Cost of Africa from Djibouti to South Africa. This programme is intended to provide enough bandwidth for cost efficient internet connection in East Africa, Tanzania inclusive.

Women Should Be Given Priority To Computer Literacy.
From family levels through elementary schools to higher learning level, women should not only be encouraged, but also given priority to computer studies so as to assist them in acquiring the computer and internet skills.
This would also make women potential users of IT rather than end users as most of women using computers in businesses such as banks do clerical jobs which are less paying.

Develop Community Access Points For Women.
At district level, centers for women to study the internet and use it should be developed in order to help those who can not afford having internet at home. This would also let women share their talents in groups. Women's participation is enhanced by women friendly and positive environment where women can explore and find relevant information to meet their interests and needs freely and not where young boys use to pop in for pornography any time they want.

Locate Women's Resources Online.
According to Scarlet Pollock and Jo Sutton, the amount of information on the internet is overwhelming for everyone. A range of tools and indexing to help direct women to relevant information, which is also inclusive information, is necessary for women who typically do not have time to browse for leisure. The website format of linking to other similar pages means that once women find useful source, they can more easily find other relevant material on a particular issue.

Present A Diverse Range Of Women's Content.
We need to ensure that our diversity online reflects our population and our issues, and that the range of concerns of women's groups are evident, to each other and to the global network using electronic communications.

References:

§ Dr. Batilda S.Burian (MP Tanzania) (2003) "Harnessing ICT as a tool for enhancing achievement of the millennium development goals (MDGs)-experiences from Tanzania". Paper presented at the 3rd infopoverty world conference in Milan, Italy.
§ Ammu Joseph (2002) "Working, watching and waiting. Women and issues of access, employment and decision-making in the media in India. Paper presented at expert group meeting on "participation and access of women to the media, and the impact of media on, and its use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women" Beirut, Lebanon
§ Dr. Mugabe (NEPAD) (2003) "Centers of excellence in science and technology for Africa's sustainable development". Paper presented at African ministerial conference on science and technology for development.
§ Mathew Chetty (CSIR), (2003) "Information and communications technologies (ICTs) for Africa's development". Paper presented at African ministerial conference on science and technology for development
§ Anne Goulding and Rachel Spacey (2002) "Women and the information society: barriers and participation" Paper presented at 68th IFLA council and general conference

§ Marlene Sanders (2002) "Older women and the media" paper presented at expert group meeting on "participation and access of women to the media, and the impact of media on, and its use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women" Beirut, Lebanon 12 to 15 November
§ The United Republic of Tanzania 2002 Population Census.
§ The Regulator (July-September 2003 release), Quarterly newsletter of Tanzania communications commission.
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