Africa

Africa Grassroots Caucus has prioritised the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as part of development. This was the outcome of the second Grassroots Caucus Regional Consultation that took place in Lusaka, Zambia on 26-28 July 2005. The participants from Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo…

Two new mobile technology programs in South Africa and Kenya are helping HIV/AIDS sufferers and their carers cope with the challenges.

The Organisation of African First Ladies against AIDS (OAFLA) seeks to place women’s health issues on national and regional development agendas. They have embraced ICTs as a tool to advocate for social justice especially in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

A regional analysis on the status of women 15 years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The report maps out the progress, gaps and challenges under each of the critical areas of concern in the West, Eastern and Southern sub-regions, with emphasis on the period since the last review in 2004 (Beijing +10). For example, the report argues ,that the ICTs have…

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the consideration of gender issues in all research on radio, convergence and development in Africa. It is intended to guide the deliberations at our Butare roundtable (September 2009) discussion on a research agenda and to ensure that we put gender considerations front and centre as we design our research plans.

Two key debates are examined in the paper by Shereen Essof: censorship versus freedom of expression and privacy versus surveillance. She looks at the practices of VAW in a country with the world's highest reported rate of femicide and where there is little understanding of the strategic use of ICTs to support combating VAW as well as recognizing new avenues for perpetrating violence against women.

Aramanzan Madanda, Berna Ngolobe and Goretti Zavuga Amuriat look at how ICTs have been used to help provide spaces for women and sexual minorities. Sexual minorities have a presence on the internet to articulate concerns of members and raise awareness. Women’s mobile phone use is controlled by their husbands, who either give or withold permission to use and dictate when and how. Some women have…

The African Copyright…

Articles on intellectual property rights in Africa have been brought together by the International Environmental Law Research Centre. The site includes papers translated from Arabic, and topics covered include traditional knowledge, farmers rights, patents and comparisons between intellectual property regimes in different parts of Africa.

The findings of this research indicates there were attempts to identify and eliminate gender disparities in access and use of ICT within the Uganda national ICT policy development process. However clear-cut gender incorporation strategy was missing, and the ICT policy process was largely dominated by men. This The report includes a set of recommendations how to further enhance gender equality…