Research has shown that there is much evidence of the significant impact of gender analysis in development work. This is corroborated by the experience of several ICT projects around the world. This is our first question, and it seeks to explore what the specific gender issues are and what the gender "elements" are, that can improve the lives and livelihoods of women and men in rural areas. We would like to examine how ICTs accrue benefits to men and women rather than becoming a reason for gender based conflict and violence. We question how continuing public education around women's empowerment and gender equality generally could impact positively on ICT4D programmes. Welcome to the forum! We look forward to your input :) Jennifer Forum Moderator

Greetings everyone, I am Jenny Radloff based in Cape Town, South Africa working for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in the Women's Networking Support Programme. My role is to assist in facilitating this forum along with my colleagues. I may be absent for the first few days as I am travelling home. We are really looking forward to this forum and delighted to be collaborating with the folks from e-agriculture. APC is one of the five partners in the GenARDIS project (Gender, Agriculture and rural development in the information society) along with CTA, IDRC, IICD and HIVOS. Through the GenARDIS project, we have learnt much from the grantees and their projects. I would encourage you to visit the website at http://genardis.apcwomen.org and read some of the articles. We have constructed questions to guide the discussions here and I am sure that contributions will be both rich and informative. There is an experienced team of subject matter experts who are rooted in communities and in projects where ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) are being implemented in creative and sustainable ways and where women's contribution to livelihoods is valued. We look forward to this e-agriculture forum! Warm Regards, Jenny Radloff