Question 4 (opens 20 Nov.)
Question 4: Does ICT empower or marginalize women or smallholders in producer organizations? Support examples with specific reference to an organization, the technology tool(s), and content delivered.
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A gentle reminder that this forum is focused on the context of Producer Organizations. Please ensure that your comments respect this.
There are many important issues around gender and ICT, as well as the impact mobiles have on rural communities. The e-Agriculture Community has previously helf forums on these topics and continues to curate information on these issues under the "Key Topics" menu item. However, this points are too broad for the current forum.
Noted and appreciated...
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Strengthening rural women’s leadership in farmer and producer organizations is a fundamental step aside from technical training in order to increase production. The economic empowerment of women, increased knowledge and skills are essential preconditions to improve status and livelihood to be able to assume effective roles in producer organizations.
Many leadership training programs fall short of their goals because when women return to their producer groups they are under-represented in decision-making roles, and the organizational culture favors a leadership style more often associated by aggressive and masculine tendencies.
ICT's improve women entrepreneurs' marketing skills in Zimbabwe by linking the production end of the value chain to the markets.
HOMENET Philippines is a twelve-month project to replicate DWMA (Distributed Work Management System, cloud based ICT application) platform promotes marketing the women’s products as Fair Trade products, using DWMA will help lower transportation/communication costs, respond faster to buyer enquiries, group source raw materials and group market products to large buyers.
ICT as a tool should help empower women in producer organizations by preparing women members as leaders and change agents in their organization.
I would like to share this research I got from the Bulacan State University authored by Myrna S. Guia and Susan Santos. The paper entitled " Capacity Enhancement of Women in Bulacan for Small Business through Gender and Development. The Gender and Development Program was implemented by Bulacan Agricultural State College to enhance the capacity of women in Bulacan in establishing strong associations and its significance in the growth of rural enterprises as alternative means to raise the standard of living in rural areas. The program aimd to strengthen the organizational and leadership capacities of women in mobilizing their own resources that can provide viable and sustainable services to their members while provided with funding from the said program.Livelihood projects were initiated that can increase women's access to income generating opportunities. Selected cooperative associations from each municipality were the beneficiaries. A staring capital of Php 3,000 was provided to each association with an interest rate of 6% for six months. Trainings on livelihood projects and community-based resource management were condcuted to help women become competetitive and develop their skills in entrepreneurial activities. The trainings were about fruit,fish, vegetable, and meat processing focusing on indigenous products available in the localities such as banana,tilapia,santol etc... Technical assistance was also provided to the associations in terms of capital, technologies, and marketing for estabslishment of small rural enterprise. The beneficiaries gained more than 50% monthly return on investment from the initial capital. The results showed that the livelihood projects helped increase the income of the beneficiaries for six months of operation and sustained the daily needs of the family.
I know that this is not about ICT and women, but about empowering the women in helping their families.
Noted and appreciated...<div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">
Kiringai,
An interesting example of how one small ICT device, a digital weighing device, can have a positive impact on empowering women. Could you explain in more detail what you mean by "The results are transferred via GSM to a mobile storage device"? A nd what would bebthencostmimplications of such a set up?
Thanks
john
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<div class="gmail_extra"><p style="font-family:verdana;font-size:1em;margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important">Thanks John,</p><p style="margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important">
<font face="verdana"><span style="font-size:1em">During weighing, weighments captured using the digital scale are either stored in the scale memory, printed on a portable thermal printer or relayed to a hand held tablet or relayed to the producer collective action server using mobile GSM communication, which is real time while the others call for data to be delivered to the server when the produce collection/</span><span style="font-size:12px">weighing</span><span style="font-size:1em"> track gets to the server room.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important"><font face="verdana"><span style="font-size:1em">The cost for the field solution for each option is different with the cost of just having the scale storing the data being US$ 900, 950 with a thermal printer, 1000 with a </span>Bluetooth<span style="font-size:1em"> scale and 1500 with the GSM data transmission scale. You can also have smart/mayfare cards recording going with the scale integrated with the Bluetooth scale. Where the tablet is used, the costs are higher as the tablets come from different suppliers from the scale and introduce new dimensions in terms of data security..</span></font></p>
<p style="font-family:verdana;font-size:1em;margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important">I trust that is sufficient explanation.</p><p style="font-family:verdana;font-size:1em;margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important">
Regards,</p><p style="font-family:verdana;font-size:1em;margin:10px 0px 0.9em;border-bottom-width:0px!important;border-top-width:0px!important">Kiringai</p><div class="gmail_quote">On
Hello Everyone,
As per various experiences in the our city, there have been numerous projects illustrating how ICT can empower women and smallholders in producer organizations. Some of these examples are:
1. SCALA - the Sharing Computer Access Locally and Abroad (SCALA) program of the City has had numerous scholar beneficiaries who have been trained with basic computer skills. Many of the graduates of this program are workers and smallholders in producer organizations composed mainly of women such as the dried fish producer organizations, basket or mat weaving producer organizations, etc. The program has allowed the women members of these producer organizations to assist their organizations in the field of ICT and hence, improve operations.
2. The Local Council for Women and Children - a program implemented through the initiative of the Department of Interior and Local Government has allowed smallholder members of cooperatives and producer organizations to improve their stakes in their businesses by giving free trainings on the use of internet and the entrepreneurial applications of mobile technology specifically to women cooperative and producer organization members.
3. The CSWDO Bakery Project - smallholders in the City's project which established a bakery business for young adults with disabilities have been recipients of small instructional sessions on accounting and auditing software for use in their business.
Clearly, in all of these examples, women and smallholders are empowered in terms of their stakes in their respective organizations. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the reason why trainings specific to the needs of women and smallholders are conducted is because they are in fact, marginalized, and so, ICT knowledge and skills acquisition contributes to their removal from the margins, specifically, because they have become more capable in the applications of ICT to their respective fields.
Regards,
Bryan