The Women'sNet Approach

The Women'sNet model rests on three pillars, information/content generation linked to networking and capacity building. Content development has gone hand-in-hand with capacity development of women's organisations. In the context of building networks for action, this is a tried and tested developmental model for ICT work, and has underpinned all Women'sNet capacity development and content generation activities.

This model ensures Women'sNet's sustainability and the sustainability of South African women's organisations in the long term. Without the engagement with women's organisations and efforts to build their capacity, content flow to the Women'sNet site will be impeded. As it is, most women's organisations lack the capacity and resources to use and engage with ICTs without some facilitation by Women'sNet. Furthermore, without women's organisations' active participation in content generation, Women'sNet loses its authenticity and uniqueness.

Women'sNet has developed a regional and international profile and a reputation as a project that both disseminates relevant information and supports other gender-aware organisations in their work to advance gender equality. Much of this profile rests on our networking and capacity development activities. Women'sNet is an active partner within an Africa-wide network of women in ICTs that have taken on the challenge of promoting ICTs for social development and gender transformation.

Women'sNet has been an active participant in regional gender and ICT advocacy and training through its membership within APC Africa Women and the global network, APC WNSP. Where ICT circles would not normally include gender issues, Women'sNet has been identified as a gender and ICT advocate and invited to these fora to make presentations. Women'sNet staff participated in the preparatory processes of the World Summit on the Information Society (2003, to 2005) and remain active in advocating for principles and action areas for the information society that are both gender-inclusive and sensitive to the specificities of Africa contexts.

Since its inception, Women'sNet has successfully implemented a number of projects as part of its mandate to support women in harnessing ICTs to facilitate women's empowerment through networking and special projects.

Women'sNet Strategic Priorities 1997 to date

The following strategic priorities were set out by participants from the women's movement in the first Brain-Storming Workshop in 1997, at the birth of Women'sNet.

• Making ICTs accessible to women, particularly disadvantaged women

• Providing responsive gender-sensitive training and support to use the internet more strategically

• Linking projects, people, tools and resources through the empowerment and support of technology planning processes within women's civil society organisations, and though the exploration of and awareness raising for free and open source software solutions (FOSS)

• Creating a platform for women's voices and issues though the Women'sNet website and though capacity development

• Facilitating the dissemination of information in formats accessible to women who are not directly linked to the Internet

• Facilitating collaborative web site development and the strengthening of women's networks

Strategic Objectives 2007 - 2010

For the next 3 year period, Women'sNet will seek to advance access to and support the strategic use of ICTs by:

• Deepening women's and other human rights activists' access to and production of relevant information and quality content, with a view to supporting their participation in diverse social and policy processes, including decision-making on issues that affect their lives at different levels, particularly by providing platforms for collaborative online content production and sharing, and amplifying voice.

• Facilitating access to content development, information-sharing and social networking toolsskills that can assist women and girls, women's organisations and feminist and other human rights networks to strengthen local, regional and global activism around the human rights issues of the day - including freedom of expression and communication rights, and access to and application of ICTs for human development - with a view to helping shape social change.and

• Facilitating poor and marginalised communities' access to economic empowerment and sustainable livelihoods by their access to and use of ICTs, through content development and training that build multiple literacies (including ICTs, financial literacy, etc) - - with an emphasis on the efforts of (rural) women and girls.

• Conducting research into the evolving ICT needs and usage of the community based development sector, with a view to helping facilitate their uptake and usage of existing and emerging ICT tools,

• Engaging in activities that deepen institutional capacity and capabilities within Women'sNet and strengthen our capacity and support to South(ern) African women's and human rights networks.

Programmatic areas:

• Deepening democracy , by amplifying the voices of marginalised communities and human rights networks' and creating/providing online and offline platforms and tools for quality content production and (social) networking

• Mainstreaming ICTs through the provision of free and accessible ICT tools, facilitating access to relevant training, as well as conducting ICT policy research and advocacy, among others.

• Impacting on livelihood strategies of poor and marginalised communities/groups in South(ern) Africa , through the collaborative exploration and application of accessible ICTs towards the solution of real development challenges.

• Strengthening Women'sNet organisational management and systems and processes, with a view to better support local, national, and regional networks for social change.