Considering all factors equal in capacitating and providing access to ICT, women and small holders will certainly be empowered. Let us take the example of the Bangladeshi women who were first organized as savings and loans groups  using the Grameen's Bank model. (We did the same in the GoP-EU funded agricultral project under the Department of Agriculture, with the different barangays of the 5 Cordillera Province of the Philippines at a time when ICT was limited to basic IECs (information, education and communication) and it worked. At this time several of these groups metamorphosed into bigger groups using cell phones and to some who can afford, laptops or PCs to do nusiness, etc).

Anyway, back to the recent Bangladesh experience, the Agriculture and Rural  Development Department in the World Bank reports that: "Perhaps the best known shared-use model  is the Village Phone model first launched in Bangladesh, wherein micro-loans enable women in poor villages to purchase a mobile phone and re-sell phone service at per-call rates to their neighbors. The increasing affordability of mobile handsets and pre-paid sevice, combined with innovations such as multi-account mobile phones, are permitting greater local innovation in sharing phone service among those who cannot afford their own phone. Technical innovations such as cell phone signal amplifiers are extending the range of mobile services, and many telecommunication providers  are extenending communicationss infrastructure further into rural areas to respond to new market opportunities."

Considering the history of what gave birth to  these womens' groups of Bangladesh and tracking how they evolved, I perceive it to be one great example of women empowerment. Before, they labored to eek out a living through micro-financing. Now they are able to sell and phone services at that! I cannot help getting excited about it because they represent a real and live example of women who did not allow themselves to stay within  the vicious cycle of poverty, believing that is their lot in life. Instead, they took control of the situation, shifted their paradigms and took the courage to make a choice - using, at this time,   one of their avenues of growth - ICT. They took slow but sure steps in chartering their progress. To me this is the kind of empowerment that will last a lifetime. I am sure this  has spill over effects on all aspects of their lives aside from improving their economic status.

It is important to note that the activities of these women, i.e. using the village phone model, have somehow impacted technical innovations motivating telecommunication providers to come up with innovations that  responds to the growing needs of the new market.

The role of the public sector is critical in supporting producers' organizations uptake of ICT. True many plans are being implemented and more plans are being mapped out. For me, part of these plans should integrate the role of the public sector to create an enabling environment in order to influence  the choices that producers' organizations make in terms of adopting the appropriate ICT that best suits their   particular needs. The public sector should help producers' organizations to assess and determine the ICT needs of the organization before deciding on what and when  assitance is to be infused. It is crucial to consider the readiness and appropriateness of the producers group to use/apply more advanced ICTs. Many times government intervention schemes and that includes ICTs, which are usually costly, are not successful in achieving the desired results because target beneficiaries are not ready coupled with other concomittant factors like the commitment to sustain the process of intervention even without the puiblic sector's support.

Let me illucidate my point by expressing that if a producer's group is doing well with the use of the radio and or television, the public sector should explore even exploit all possibilities to maximize its use. Then let the public sector take on the role of connecting these producer's group to other producer's groups, the market, and the global world, and develop  a feedback mechanism to the producers' group through the medium that they can relate to rather than insisting they use new media which at their level they could not appreciate for one reason or another. I think this will make everybody happy and productive. The producer's group attain what they need and the public sector is serving their purpose.

THe circumstances surrounding producers' organizations such as limited or scarce resources, low technical know how, poor access to relevant information creates a vicious cycle which underscores the great need for them to invest on ICT infrastructure and capacitating themselves to foster development. They should invest on training that will initiate them into the information age where they could explore and harness the possibilities of incorporating ICT and new media not only in their economic activities but in all aspects of their daily lives. However, we must recognize the fact that on their own it is next to impossible for them to do so because their priority is to put food on the table of their respective families. THis is where the government as well as non-goernemnt support should come in. Maybe support for capacitating leaders of producers' groups could be a good start coupled with PRovisions for ICT infrastructure.u

As articulated by Dr. Charulata Sing in an article published in the Global Media Journal-Indian Edition, "One source that liberates people from poverty And empowers them is knowledge. It is also now well understood that improvement of quality of life can be brought with application of ICTs." Even the UN in crafting the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) took various steps to ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially ICT's are within the reach of every one.

Before my current job i used to work with a special project of the Department of Agriculture which was jointly funded by the European Union. This was in the upland of the Cordilleras, in the northern part of the Philippines. For 15 years we were organizing farmers some producing rice, corn, coffee, etc. we helped them to organize themselves into producers groups so they can have access to credit, taught them basic principles of simple accounting, giving them trainings on applicable technology to increase yield, access to market outlets, repaired. Farm to market roads, etc. These were done notwitstanding the difficulty of reaching the areas which were mostly accessible by foot or four wheel drive vehicles like land rovers. Now where does ICT figure in? We were dealing with farmers who were mostly barely literate, living in areas where there was no electricity and whose daily lives or activties are dictated by their culture. Then here comes our organization bringing in televisions taking pains to lbring along generators if only to expose farmers to the so-called more advanced farming technologies through film showing of best pratices ofnareas with similar situations. Or in toher instances the use of flip charts written in cloth to motivate farmers to look at other ways of doing things which may help increase their production. Before theuse of cellphones, the project invested on installing two-way frequency radios to assistbthe farmers in updating themselves of prices of fertilizers and other farm inputs as well as current buying price of farm produce. These worked for a time but the use of ICT albeit in its simpler forms dwindled especially after the project ended.its sustainability was designed to be the responsibility of the loacl governent units as they were heavily involved in the project but it was left wanting in term of support to farmers groups. Now its the middlemen who continues to maximize the ue of technology to improve their lot while the farmers groups remain marginalized. With this experience - i believe ICT using Any tool to deliver information and knowledge managent can only be as effective as the commitment of individulas, groups and organizations to make it work, sustain its  efficiency, and continue to evolve more proactiv ways of harnessing ICT to make a difference in peoples lives.