1. Gender and ICT Role of the World Bank Group
Presentation for PREM Learning Week
May 5th, 2006
Juan Navas-Sabater

2. The ICT Sector… much broader than Telecoms
WBG Involvement
Emerging
Appli
cations
e-Government & e-Business
New
Industry
IT, Content & Support Industries
The Sector
Infrastructure
Connectivity & Access
Core

3. ICT is a High Impact Sector
On Productivity
On Economic Growth
Without investments in ICT, Malaysia & Thailand would have had neg. growth
An increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people boosts GDP growth by 0.6% 6 4 2
A 1% increase in the number of Internet users increases total exports by 4.3%. -2 US -4
Germany
Philippines
Malaysia
Thailand
ICT Investment and ICT Production TFP
Other Factors

4. ICT increases Government Efficiency and Transparency
ICT increases Government transparency and efficiency. Three powerful cases:
1) Government Use, Contrast:
Singapore’s TradeNet: clearance is usually received within 15 minutes, every year, the average customs official in Singapore is able to clear $666 million dollars worth of goods.
Egypt, imports still face an average of three days of delays going through clearance procedures and the average customs official clears just $600,000 worth of goods a year
2) Governance: Uganda Uses Information to Deliver
Of 1991 central government grants, 2% of allocated resources reaches schools. Government publishes exact amounts transferred in newspapers/broadcast.
Funds reaching schools rose dramatically, from 2% in 1991 to more than 90% in 1999, and
Schools with their own access to newspapers increased their funds by 10% more than schools that lacked newspapers.
3) The example of the state of Karnataka in India shows both effects of ICT on Government reform. Through IT, 20 million land records pertaining to 6.7 million farmers were computerized, increasing efficiency. But with an investment of $4.2 million in IT systems, savings in bribes have been estimated at $18.3 million.

5. ICT-Driven Poverty Reduction
Bangladesh: Grameen Telecom extends telecom coverage to rural areas: average profits for village operators (mostly women) are $700 per year--more than twice the country's income per capita
Afghanistan: Driven by a competitive market and $200m in private investment, the mobile footprint already covers as much as percent of the country’s population. The sector directly or indirectly employs as many as 20,000 people.
China: average income change in villages that gained a telephone compared to change in villages that remained without a phone

6. Gender and ICT
ICT has much to offer for gender development in terms of:
Access to information and services which could save lives (nutrition, health, HIV/AIDS, remote education, etc.)
Opportunity to secure new jobs in the knowledge economy (media, web, programming, data entry, sales, etc.)
Women-friendly working models (can work from home, telecommuting) in cultures which do not allow women to circulate freely and mix with men in the office.
Access to education at all levels and at all times through elearning - beyond what is offered in the face to face traditional schooling system.
Access to micro-credit, possibility to make financial transfers (remittances)
Provides a voice (through , creation of web sites, chat rooms, distribution lists etc.) for women in ways that never existed before.

7. Mixed Levels of ICT Access and Affordability
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
1,400
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Million Subscribers
High income
Low & Middle income
Global Mobile Subscribers

8. Mixed Progress on Reform

9. Role for the Bank: ICT Enabling Environment
Bank Reform Projects Lead to Results…
…And Support for Access Works
In the 1990s, Countries with a WB Telecoms Project Saw:
Greater competition
Stronger regulation
Faster rollout
Greater access
Uganda:
Cellular coverage >>50% population
However, remote areas remain unserved
World Bank helps develop nationwide OBA scheme for public access ($10m Seed Funding):
Objectives: 1) at least one public payphone per sub-county and at least one per 2,500 inhabitants
2) one Internet Point of Presence per district capital

10. Uganda Village Phone
VillagePhone model based on GrameenPhone’s program in Bangladesh, which was the first program to merge micro-credit products with rural telecommunications
Initiated in 1997
Currently reporting 125,000 VP operators, 99% of whom are women
MTN Uganda VillagePhone program began in 2003 as a partnership between GFUSA and MTN Uganda following GF country assessment
Uganda has had a universal access (UA) strategy since 2001, and is currently rolling out the first universal access fund in Africa, the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF)
As of mid-June 2005, Uganda VP reported operating in 49 of 56 districts with 1,780 VillagePhone operators (VPOs)

11. Uganda Village Phone Overview
Mission statement* :
To establish 5,000 new “Village Phone” micro-enterprises and bring communication to over 19 million villagers in rural Uganda
Aimed to deploy at least 1,000 phones in the first year
Goal* :
To provide cellular phones to poor women through access to micro-credit, who will then use the phone to operate a business providing communications services to communities
Main Objectives* :
To provide rural communities of Uganda with valuable communications services to enable them to break the cycle of poverty;
To establish a replication model for the Village Phone program;
To validate, measure and document the model in a single country; and
To disseminate this learning to the commercial telecommunications sector and the worldwide development communities so as to establish a global village phone movement.
GrameenPhone’s experience with VP in Bangladesh was that the program offered a strong means of achieving universal access (UA) to telecommunications, while also providing rural poor women with new economic and social development opportunities.
Rationale for the deployment of VPOs in Uganda was based upon the fact that prior to VP deployment, Uganda – like the majority of countries in Africa and the developing world, had very low levels of telecommunication coverage outside of major centres in the country, especially in the rural areas. The Uganda VP program represented the first formal attempt at replicating the Bangladesh experience in Africa, hence the reference to this project being “a pilot”.
Three telecom operators were in existence at the time of the project’s inception: UTL, the fixed line incumbent; Celtel; and MTN.
Uganda was selected for the program based upon a pre-project assessment conducted by GFUSA; performance targets were drawn up based on an estimation of the market size and potential. Stable operating environment (both politically and within the telecom sector); willingness of the operator; MFI sector strength; and level of investment by the private telecom operators made Uganda a strong choice for the program.
GFUSA has committed approximately 10% of the entire Ugandan project budget towards a monitoring and evaluation program, which is to be conducted in partnership with UCLA. While a methodology framework had been completed, formal evaluation activities had yet to begin at the time of this study.
The project objectives and methodology are sound, and the Consultants support the need for VP-like activities to further the quality and opportunities of UA deployments in Africa and elsewhere. This report identifies some of the challenges of the VP program in the Issues and Recommendations sections.
*Source: 2003 SME-GFUSA Grant Agreement, p.6

12. What has GICT done on Gender issues?
Engendering ICT Study (2005)
Good practices to incorporate gender into ICT projects. Funded by Gov of Japan
Grameen Phone Project Financing (InfoDev)
Grameen Phone Replication Manual for Uganda and Nigeria (IFC)
INF gender indicators to be mainstreamed throughout INF sectors
DEC surveys to include collection of gender-related indicators
Gender and ICT Clinics Training Series in collaboration with PREM, WBI and e-Development Thematic Group

13. Gender and ICT Clinics Training Series
The Gender Dimension of ICTs: Case Studies from Australia, the UK, and Vietnam, January 24th, 2006; Gender and WSIS, September, 2005
Meeting with IT business leaders on the International Symposium, "Women and ICT: Creating Global Transformation" at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, September, 2005
Women Take the ICT Leap: Gaining Entry to Service Sector Employment,April, 2005
Video Conference Seminar - Bridging the Gender Digital Divide through Training at the Department of Women and Gender Studies (WGS), Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, May, 2004
Offshore Outsourcing of Information Processing Work and EconomicEmpowerment of Women , June,2004
World Bank's Programs on ICTs and Gender Equality with Bank Tokyo Office, Japanese Universities, and International Women's Tribune Center, Australia
ICTs and Female Labor Force Participation- Private Sector Opportunities in the East Asia Region, Nov 2004,

14. Juan Navas-Sabater jnavassabater@worldbank.org
Thank You!
Policy &
Regulation
GICT
Multi Donor
Grant Program
Investments
Juan Navas-Sabater