Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

The World Summit on the Information Society
Both phases of the WSIS devoted sustained attention to the issue of women’s 
empowerment and gender equality, mainly through the prism of the gender digital divide:
The Tunis Commitment recognizes that a gender digital divide exists and reaffirms its 
commitment to women’s empowerment and to integrating a gender equality perspective 
to overcome this divide. We know that this gap exists both in countries from the North 
and the South and it is strongly linked to the structural conditions of women’s 
disempowerment since:
§ women have lower levels of literacy worldwide (they make up 2/3 of the illiterate 
population);
§ they make up the majority of the population in rural areas in many developing 
regions, since men often have to migrate to the cities to look for employment;
§ socio-cultural and religious customs often hinder women’s access to the internet.
Par. 12 of the Geneva Declaration states: “We are committed to ensuring that the 
Information Society enables women’s empowerment and their full participation on the 
basis of equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this 
end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that 
end”.
Overcoming the digital divide would be an effective tool of women’s empowerment 
because, when women have access to ICTs, they use them effectively! Indeed, experience 
shows that:
§ ICTs can increase income and access to employment for women, as well as 
participation in the formal economy and workforce at higher levels and with higher 
pay. Interesting experiences have been done in Bangladesh and India, with women 
working in village pay phones and web rural information kiosks earning almost the 
double of the average local salaries; 
§ ICTs can improve access to literacy and education at all levels. E-learning allows 
greater flexibility of schedules, lower overall costs and escaping the feeling of 
isolation in male-dominated classrooms. Women at all ages generally show a real 
interest in this new form of learning that allows them to better conciliate their double 
and sometimes triple workload as family care givers, money earners and community-
based activists; 

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Chapter IV – Equality and Opportunity | 75 
§ ICT s can increase access to technical education and training for women via training 
programmes that teach students how to design, build and maintain computer 
networks. This kind of field is still too little invested by women, but the potential is 
high and the interest is generally there;