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Scoring participation – how does change happen for women in the IGF

By Jennifer Radloff

During the years of my school and university studies, report cards caused me high levels of anxiety but with some underlying optimism. Report cards assumed all-knowing experts were making decisions around my abilities and progress. It would invariably be a measure of success or failure and would expose my weak points and (hopefully) highlight my positive traits. But they always had a judgemental and antagonistic picture in my mind...

Stripping the IGF bare: where are women´s rights?

By Flavia Fascendini and Katerina Fialova Global

GenderIT.orgi's editors, Flavia Fascendini and Katerina Fialova, speak with the APC WNSP members who took part at the Sixth Internet Governance Forum ithat took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 27-30 September 2011. In the interview, Chat García Ramilo, Dafne Sabanes Plou, Jac sm Kee, Jan Moolman, and Jennifer Radloff from the APC Women´s Programme offer their insights regarding gender ibalance and the presence of women's rightsi in the 2011 IGF agenda.

Gender Evaluation Methodology: Helping assess the gender impact of development work

By Sonia Randhawa Asia-Pacific, Global

“How exactly GEM can influence the discourse at the CSW, I think it is really to challenge the notion of development, or at least how governmentis understand it. “ The APC’s Angela Kuga Thas speaks with GenderIT.orgi editor about the Gender Evaluation Methodologyi, what it is and the value it adds to grassroots work on gender and ICTsi.

International Telecommunication Union

Global

The International Telecommunication Unioni, ITU describes itself as “the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technologies.” ITU membership is held by national governmentis, but private sector organisations (and perhaps others; there is some ambiguity) can become “sector members” in one or more of the ITU’s three core sectors bureaus: radiocommunication, standardisation and development. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and its membership includes 192 member stateis and more than 700 sector members.

Fatimata Seye Sylla: Not to have others speaking for us (video)

By Katerina Fialova Africa

Fatimata Seye Sylla is a key figure in the Senegalese interneti community. She worked for ten years within the Senegalese governmenti, and for nine years in the private sector. She conducted the first national project to introduce ICTi in the educational system. Fatimata shares with GenderIT.orgi why she came to Vilnius and what the IGF means to her personally and to women's rightsi.

Looking for gender in the IGF agenda

By Karen Banks

In 1993, Karen Banks formed (along with other women colleagues from the APC) the APC Women's Networking Support Programmei. She was responsible for coordination of APC's participation in the WSIS (World Summit in the Information Society), the Internet Governance Forum i(IGF) and OECD meetings. GenderIT.orgi has invited Karen to reflect on gains and losses of persistent advocacyi work of women's rightsi activists within various internet governancei spaces: "Fifteen years ago, a small but determined group of women's rightsi and media/ICTi activists fought to include media and ICTs as one of the 12 critical areas of concern in the fourth UN World Conference on Women Beijing Platform For Action . Remarkably visionary for it's time, the text, binding on all governmentis, called for the universal recognition of the rights of all women to participate in and 'have access to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication'..."

Sexual rights, openness and regulatory systems

By Sonia Randhawa

The summary of the 'Sexual rightsi, openness and regulatory systems' workshop co-organized by APC WNSP, Centre for Interneti and Society and Alternative Law Forum at the Internet Governancei Forum(IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania on September 14 2010. T.Q. from the Lebanon EroTICsi team speaks about the history of the local queeri movement which correlates with the development of the internet in Lebanon. Clarissa Smith, a UK-based researcher representing the Onscenity network, examines sexuality, porn and the internet from the users point of view. Joy Liddicoat, a New Zealand Human Rightsi commissioner, shares her experiences and views on developing regulatory systems that recognize and realize the rights of sexual and gender iminorities.

Latin America in the run-up to the IGF: global and regional synergy

By Flavia Fascendini Latin America

The Association for Progressive Communicationsi (APC), NUPEF and the Registry of Interneti Domain Nameis for Latin America and the Caribbean sponsored the Third Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum i(IGF), held in Ecuador in early August 2010. How might this regional meeting and the IGF impact each other? What recommendations and concerns emerged from the regional process? To what extent were gender iissues represented at the Latin American meeting? Valeria Betancourt, Latin America policyi coordinator for APC and Dafne Plou, regional coordinator of APC's Women's Network Support Programme (APC WNSP) in Latin America, have some answers.

Gender Assessments and Research

EROTICS: Sex, rights and the internet - an exploratory research study

By Jac sm Kee et al Global

How is the interneti a key public sphere for the struggle for sexual citizenship and the exercise of sexual rightsi? What is its value to a diversity of users, especially those most marginalised or discriminated against because of their sexual, gender ior other forms of social identity? Why do arguments for the regulationi of the internet anchor on the moral imperative to regulate sexuality? Who are the key actors influencing processes of decision making, and what are the ways in which the potentially liberatory impact of the internet is being constricted and narrowed? The 3 year EROTICSi research project delves into the complex world of sexuality and internet regulation, and uncovers interesting insights to these questions from Brazil, India, Lebanon, South Africa and the US. The full research findings and a synthesis chapter is presented in this report.

Reports

CITIGEN: April 2011 Review Workshop Report.

Asia-Pacific

The report collects inputs from the workshop organized by IT for Change in April 2011 in New Delhi. The workshop was the part of Asia-wide research programme 'Gender iand Citizenship in the Information Society i(CITIGEN)' and brought together researchers, scholars and practitioners to share their views on democracy and women's participation, new articulations of citizenship in the information society and other issues at stake. The CITIGEN programme seeks to inform policyi and practice through research and focuses on five thematic areas: local resistance and global solidarities; emancipation and the neo-liberal feminine subject; gender and public discourse in the emerging public spheres; new paradigms of local governancei and participatory development; and technology governance and gender politics.

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