The economic and political marginalization of women, especially in developing countries, is leading to their stunted growth. Gender discrimination in the access to information is hampering sustainable development. Several conferences and summits held on gender, in particular, the UN World Conferences on Women, Beijing and Beijing +5, have reaffirmed the need to focus on gender equality issues through ICT use. Keeping this in mind, Digital Opportunity Channel (www.digitaloppor-tunity.org) of OneWorld South Asia in partnership with i4d (www.i4donline.net) launched the email-based discussion forum on ‘Gender and ICT: Issues, Implications and Opportunities’ on September 12, 2003.

This forum provides stakeholders in these fields a medium to interact and debate about the implications of ICT applications in development and the opportunities that they offer. It also provides them with a platform to take their voices to policymakers in order to influence local and global strategies. This discussion moves a step ahead with the objectives of prior gender conferences to provide inputs to the upcoming Gender Caucus of WSIS 2003.

The platform attempts to increase sensitization towards gender, of policies and design of development tools. It will circulate information on resources, practices and events on how women globally are being empowered by ICT.

Already, the forum has over 150 participants. The postings are topic-based, leading to objective-oriented discussion. The focal themes include access to ICTs and their use, gender implications of ICT’s and capacity building and entrepreneurship till December 2003.

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