IGF 2025 WS #479 Gender Mainstreaming in Digital Connectivity Strategies

Key note Presentaion: Challenges according to the APC Research on Integrating Gender in Policy and Regulation Guidelines for Community-Centred Connectivity Models 

Ms.Maathangi Mohan

• Community Networks are built and managed by the community.  Operate in underserved regions- locally driven. Allow the community to control the digital infrastructure. Strengthen education and healthcare systems
• Community Networks are gaining global recognition.
• Community Networks are not automatically inclusive. Women remain underrepresented, underpaid, and underserved, especially in infrastructure design and implementation.

Community Networks Regulation Status: 

• Kenya introduced a Community Network Service Provider License in 2021 and has a national gender policy that mentions digital inclusion. However, gender was not integrated into the licensing framework itself.
• Nigeria does not formally recognise CNs in policy, making both technical and gender-inclusive efforts difficult to scale.
• South Africa’s CN licensing framework is under review, but gender has not been systematically considered as part of the regulatory process.

Why the Gender gap?

1. Policymakers and regulators often lack the tools, data, and training to understand how gender operates within connectivity models. In many cases, there's limited awareness of what CNs are, let alone how to design them for inclusion.
2. Opportunity- even if motivated, there is still no clear way of where Gender fits in, even in funding opportunities
3. Motivation - Gender and women's inclusion are still viewed as a secondary or optional layer, overshadowed by other main agendas of connectivity.

In Eastern Cape, South Africa, Zenzeleni Networks operates in a region where over 70% of adults are women. Yet, strategic decision-making roles are still male-dominated. Women contribute by managing charging stations or fee collection (often unpaid) and face social norms that make speaking up in forums difficult or unsafe.

There are self-help groups in India, but still, gender inclusion is a challenge, for example, in e-commerce, financial planning, and control

Most women are left with tasks like caregiving.

1. Licenses and policies should have gender inclusion mechanisms embedded in them.
2. Introducing gender based initiatives (e,g women-only projects)
3. For financial institutions, there should be subsidies for smartphones (devices) for low-income earners.
4. Educational institutions should mandate ICT training programs through institutions and Community Networks hubs

As we bridge the digital divide, the gendered digital divide should be considered. Gender should not be an afterthought.

Recommendations

• ICT ministries: Require gender impact assessments in licensing, simplify application procedures to enable women-led collectives, and allocate Universal Service Funds specifically to inclusive CNs.
• Gender ministries: Set participation quotas, fund women-only training hubs, and address safety and online gender-based violence that deters access.
• Finance and Planning: Provide multi-year subsidies for low-income women to access smartphones and connectivity, recognising the need for long-term investment in social infrastructure.
• Education ministries: Ensure public digital training programs are gender-inclusive and partner with CN hubs to reach women in rural areas.

Crucially, the keynote emphasised that inclusion is not the same as access.
True inclusion means ownership, safety, and agency in digital spaces, and this does not happen by default. It requires intentional design, institutional change, and investment in the lived realities of the communities most often left out.

Section one: Framing the Challange

Lilian Chamorro. -  Challenges that women face when trying to build and sustain connectivity infrastructure

1. It is difficult for women to participate in the maintenance or implementation of a network.
2. Low self-confidence in most women
3. Access to technological knowledge - those with access may often feel ashamed to be part of the entire process (connectivity process)
4. Stereotypes - people have normalized the low ability of women in technology.
5. Women are rarely found in tech workshops
6. Low access to tech devices, or no appropriate technological tools that solve some of their problems.

Waqus Hassan (GDIP) - Why is the Gender Aspect Still Missing from Connectivity Conversations

From a holistic level, factors affecting gender inclusion are;

1. Lack of accurate data or information
2. There is a low awareness capacity

From observation:

• Connectivity strategies are still primarily developed from an infrastructure mindset; it has always been connectivity with broadband.
  • Providing access is not synonymous with inclusion. Infrastructure does not mean equitable access. There are structural barriers throughout the whole ecosystem that prevent women from using the internet despite having access.
  • Infrastructure development should include online safety and equality
  • There should be a change in  mindset, access should be a means, not an end goal
• Digital gender empowerment is still considered a social issue that requires a certain COST to be solved. But, it is and will never be just a social issue because there is undeniable evidence that it is actually a socioeconomic issue. For example, GDIP’s research found out that the exclusion of women from the digital economy in developing countries cost them a staggering $1 trillion in GDP over the last decade and if current trends continue, another $500 billion could be lost over the next 5 years. Therefore, we pursue with the governments that the digital gender divide is not just a women empowerment issue —it is an economic crisis.

Recommendation:

Gender should be integrated in connectivity policies (ICT Policies, broadband policies) and take concrete actions on it.

Dr Emma Otieno - What is at stake if we don't mainstream?

• There have been conversations on global and international levels not to leave anyone behind. Why? Because we have agreed both at the global and national level  the last person is connected.
• The subject of digital transformation should be inclusive, e.g, in ITU, ICANN, and so on.
• Why regulation exists is to create an enabling environment so that the government can achieve its broader socio-economic goals. 
• Leaving no one behind from a regulatory perspective, we must pursue goals and regulations that will ensure we reach 100%..
• Statistics show 2 categories of connectivity gaps 
  • Coverage Gap
  • Usage Gap
• For the two categories, women are still lagging behind. Licensing of Community Networks should also include supporting Women.

Ivy Tuffor Hoetu -  What is at stake if we don't mainstream?

Blindspots. We persuasive technology is gender neutral and will benefit everyone equally which is not the case. Most of the time the focus has been on connectivity matrix without disaggregated data. 

• The needs are diverse, but the solutions should be specific 
• There should be equitable access and gender neutrality to benefit everyone
• When gathering information, data should be analyzed based on gender specific needs, such as Children, Persons with disabilities, and Women.
• Policies have been generalized (they need to address specific needs)
• Issues should also be addressed holistically
• Data collected should be disaggregated.

Additional Points from Audience

1. Supports collaboration of Community Libraries and information centers to help bridge the digital gap.
2. Empowering women through digital skills using their local language. 
3. Collaboration- with community business, gender based or women-led businesses
4. Mastercard reports that most small and medium enterprises are led by women.
5. Impacting digital skills in these local businesses.

Section 2: Framing the Solution

Ms Maathangi Mohan

Actions necessary to establish women-led connectivity models, In practice,

• Has worked with self-help groups in India
• Supported artisan-led cooperatives to access digital information.
• To  address connectivity gaps, they have managed to have a shared hotspot system where women watch tutorials, such as network troubleshooting tutorials, and support each other

Recommendations: 

1. Licensing frameworks for community networks need to explicitly accommodate non-registered collectives and informal women’s groups
2. Funding mechanisms should figure out what works in the Community. These shouldn’t just be one-time grants, but multi-year funds that allow for experimentation, failure, and iteration.
3. Women’s participation in connectivity must be recognised as infrastructure work, not just social empowerment. That could mean:
   1. Paying stipends to local women managing WiFi or maintenance
   2. Recognising digital caretaking as a form of labor
   3. Embedding CN responsibilities into cooperative governance and not leaving it to individual champions

Ms Lilian Chamorro.

1. Establish financing funds for technology and training for special conditions for women's participation e.g in closing gaps in the basic use of technology devices and technological literacy fcilitate access to devices
2. Adaptive methodologies that transcend the technical approach for the community network and consider women's needs in support of the community
3. The diversification of roles in communicative areas promotes the promotion of women with support, and men should be involved in the administration and financial aspects of sustainability.
4. Support participation of women in leadership roles in the community without neglecting the care work that comes with community work.
5. Promote participation of women in inclusion spaces, make the fields visible sp that they can serve as a reference for other women in traditional masculinised scenarios.
6. Reflect on care, how to approach it, recognising its value and establishing a mechanism for distribution
7. Create women's circles to express their conditions, opportunities, difficulties, not only about technology but also about participation in the life of the community

Waqas Hassan

• Launched in 2024, the Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy marks a landmark achievement, supported by GDIP and other partners. PTA adopted a collaborative, evidence-based process, conducting multi-stakeholder workshops, expert interviews, and gathering primary data, including a large-scale public perception survey and an IVR survey reaching over 100,000 respondents. To drive implementation, six working groups now focus on priority areas critical for women’s digital adoption: Research and Data Collection, Affordability, Access, Safety and Security, Digital Literacy, and Inclusion, guided by a steering committee led by the Minister. GDIP jointly coordinates the implementation with PTA, with mandates that also include drafting policy and promoting community networks. This whole-of-society approach has already delivered impact: according to the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2024, Pakistan’s mobile internet adoption gap has narrowed to 25% from 38%—the largest reduction among surveyed countries—demonstrating the power of coordinated public-private action.

Dr. Emma.

• In terms of having frameworks. Most Africa countries are doing well, To  meaningfully measuring them and looking at them as contributors to social and economic development is what is lacking. 
• What we have not been intentional in terms of putting in these clauses in the policy regulation strategy? We are putting them as aspects of satisfying compliance. What is lacking completely is the intentional and meaningful tracking measurement of policies. What is the output, outcome, impact, and what is the pain point, how can we sustain etc
  • We must start to implement gender intentional digital infrastructure designs in terms of intentionally measuring, tracking, monitoring impact and feeding back to ensure we are not leaving anyone behind.
  • We must bring on board PPPs. The whole ecosystem partnership

Ivy Tuffor Hoetu

• We need a communique. To move and go with cross-sectoral collaboration to address gender specific needs.
  • Stakeholder framework. We need to conduct extensive consultation -  involve women-focused activists, consumer advocates, to understand their specific gender needs. We can think of focus groups. We are moving from equality to equitable distribution and targeting them specifically
• What IGF has done in the past is to involve members of parliament in this discourse and has made an impact in my country Ghana.
  • We need to involve eg, education ministries, finance ministries, the private sector, etc so that when they sit down to formulate sector-specific policies, they can have a budget and target contributing to the ICT sector. 
  • ICT is a cross-sector issue and is affecting every sector, and contribution towards building the ICT infrastructure should come from all sectors