Report of the Asian regional expert consultation on rural women in knowledge society

16-19 December 2002
Hyderabad, India

A document of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

This report documents the outcome of the meeting held from 16-19 December 2002 in Hyderabad, India. It was jointly organized by the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific Gender and Development Programme, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Commonwealth of Learning. The rapid advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the last decade have led to economic growth and have created opportunities for sharing information and knowledge.

Simultaneously, concerns have been voiced about the widening digital divide within and across nations, primarily caused by inequitable access to ICTs and the benefits deriving from their use. The digital divide is more alarming in the context of marginalisation of rural communities and the widening information and opportunity gaps between rural and urban communities. In FAO, the importance of ICTs is recognised, primarily as tools that serve the rural community by improving the access, quality and current relevance of information to support their livelihood and food security strategies. The international community has emphasised the importance of access to information from a rights perspective, and opportunities are now available that allow blending the rights approach to information with the sustainable livelihoods approach. Prior to the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), it is important that we examine the value of ICTs for every segment of global society, and particularly for those who have been marginalised in the previous phases of technological revolutions, namely rural communities, illiterate rural women and populations living in resource poor environment and isolated areas.

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