November 6 2003, UK: Gender and the World Summit on Information Society

On November 6 2003, members of the DTI invited representatives from the Civil Society sector to discuss their concerns about the representation of gender issues in the WSIS process.

Amongst the attendees were:

Civil Society: Valerie Evans (NAWO/EWL), Rosario Gracia-Luque (WSIS GC and humanITy), Njeri Matenjwa and Diana Mercorios (ABANTU)

Government: Paul Alexander, Natalie Davies and Jean -Jacques Sahel from the DTI, Margaret Batty, Liz Chennells, Patricia Karlinger and Marina Laudazi from the Women and Equality Unit.

Paul Alexander reinforced the idea of the importance of the multistakeholder nature of this process. The UK delegation was very much interested in providing a forum for discussion and means of consultation for the Civil Society and the Business sector so that their points of view could be appropriately represented at the project.

With regard to the Action Plan, there was some discussion about how the different points were going to be implemented in the UK. It was mentioned that the DfID was planning to invest some funds to put into practice specific projects.

Diana raised the question that as it stands right now, the funding is more of a bilateral nature between Governments. She proposed that if it was wished to have more participation from the Civil Society in this implementation, the process should be revised.

Paul specified that there is still time to make contributions and continue with the dialogue during PrepCom 3 bis, the Summit in December and until Tunis 2005.

Liz Chennels emphasised that the WEU is very much concerned with 5 points:

1. Women should not be portrayed as vulnerable but as full actors in society;

2. Importance of a gender perspective in education and training;

3. Increasing opportunities for women employment in the IT sector;

4. Concerns around pornography in the Internet and also about the traffic of human beings and how new technologies have    facilitated this; and

5. Importance of gender mainstreaming of the process.

Natalie Davies informed about different initiatives that the DTI has taken to tackle these problems.

Information about those projects can be found as follows:

1. www.intellectuk.org/women  All the Women in IT forum research and useful information is held;

2. www.e-skills.com/women You can do IT too film is streamed online and also contains lots of other useful information about "Computer Club for Girls", and other programmes that they are undertaking;

3. www.equalitec.com Great portal where information on Workplace issues is shared. The DTI were key in funding the initial concept;

4.  www.trainingforlife.org/index.asp - Charity Training for Life. The DTI is working with them in a truly public, private & Voluntary business model. There is information about their Networking Women programmes and other ITEC related skills programmes that they are running. The focus here is on creating Social Enterprise; and

5. www.dti.gov.uk/topics/skills/itec_strategy.html Natalie's team's website -that shows some more links to other programmes.

The representatives from the Civil Society appreciated the invitation to the meeting.

There was a common feeling that the communications with the UK Delegation have been good. However there is a need for more involvement from the Civil Society.

Paul Alexander was very keen in increasing the Network and is eager to learn about other organisations that would be interested in getting in touch with the UK Delegation. Any comments, suggestions should be addressed to Marina.Laudazi@dti.gsi.gov.uk

The DTI and the WEU appreciated the efforts that gender activists have put into the inclusion of gender in the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan and they encouraged us to keep the UK Delegation updated with our advocacy programmes.