Blog

By Alice Aparo and Simone Toussi |

The 2023 theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) was “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality” and sought to highlight the need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education. This theme resonated with efforts on the digital inclusion of girls and women by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), which have included trainings, research and policy engagements. 

In commemoration of this year’s IWD, on March 10, 2023, CIPESA hosted a regional webinar titled “Tech4Equality: Advocating for Gender Inclusive ICT Policy and governance” that aimed to recognise and celebrate women and girls championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. The webinar assembled gender experts from a host of countries including Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

In Yaounde, Cameroon, CIPESA alongside Civic Watch and DefyHateNow engaged women journalists at a workshop on the opportunities for embracing technology while also being alive to the challenges inherent to journalism in the digital space. The workshop, which took place on March 17, 2023, was part of a wider series of IWD events organised by DefyHateNow  in Cameroon, including a virtual dialogue on the role of women in peacebuilding, another workshop on digital inclusion, as well as profiling women leaders in the country, including Sophie Ngassa, Pedmia Shetu, Caroline Mveng, Balbine Manga, Sandrine Moussima, and Ndi Nancy Saiboh.    

Additionally, CIPESA supported the Women and Media Symposium organised by the Uganda Media Women’s Association (UMWA), which took place on March 25, 2023. The symposium celebrated women journalists and addressed broader issues around gender-based violence against women. 

Collectively, these engagements assembled a wide spectrum of stakeholders from civil society, media, governance, and the private sector. The engagements echoed similar sentiments on the value of a safe and affordable access to the internet as an enabler of increased utilisation of digital opportunities by women. Speaking at the Cameroon workshop, multimedia journalist Comfort Musa stated that, “The internet is full of opportunities and solutions. It levels the playing ground and has solutions for women looking to start their own publications, create their own channels, find sources, engage audiences, find jobs, get scholarships, and training, make more money, verify information and collaborate with other journalists’’. 

At the regional webinar, Nashilongo Gervasius Nakale, a lecturer at the Namibia University of Science and Technology and also a founder of the Internet Society Namibia Chapter, stressed that a meaningful internet accessibility environment where women can learn, work, or conduct research could help shape innovation and an inclusive tech industry.

Despite the digitalisation progress in various countries across the continent, the gender digital divide has remained persistent and has been exacerbated by the growth in online violence against women, which has seen some women withdraw from online engagement and the expression of opinions publicly. This is particularly worrying as often these are voices needed to further critical discussions such on public service delivery, media freedom, good governance and civic engagement. 

At the webinar, Neema Lungangira, a Member of Parliament from Tanzania and the Chairperson of the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance, pointed out that online violence against women in politics was a growing threat to democracy, and it included all types of aggression, compulsion, and intimidation aimed at keeping women out of politics just because they are women. She added that online abuse against women was increasingly becoming part of deliberate political strategies used by non-liberal and anti-democratic forces to chill women’s and girls’ political goals and participation, reduce their presence and agency in politics and public affairs and limit their awareness to inform policy decision-making and legislative advocacy in parliaments. 

While women journalists face similar circumstances as women in politics, and both face gendered hate speech online. To address such concerns in countries such as Cameroon, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, DefyHateNow has developed a toolkit aimed at providing guidance to individuals and organisations on identifying and navigating divisive content online, including at a gender level.  

Indeed, while participants highlighted experiences at national level, these discussions resonated with Goal 5 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which also informed discussions at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The Commission is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to promoting gender equality and empowering women. This year marked the sixty-seventh session and saw the approval of conclusions focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the context of innovation, technological change, and education in the digital age.

Among these included the Commission recognising “the important contribution of the science and technology community to sustainable development, especially the important contributions of women and girls to education, science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation.” Further to this, the Commission also recognised the critical role digital platforms can play as spaces where all women can advocate, mobilise and participate fully, equally and meaningfully in public life. It emphasises that women’s and girls’ online contributions can foster inclusive and participatory public discourse and policy outcomes that take into account the interests, needs and perspectives of all women and girls.

By Ashnah Kalemera |

As the world commemorates the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, African media’s ability to operate effectively remains under threat as their safety continues to be compromised. According to a UNESCO Global Survey, online attacks against women journalists, whose representation in the sector at executive and editorial levels is already limited, are increasing exponentially. In an effort to build digital resilience in Africa’s media sector, the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) has supported work on online safety of journalists in various countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. 

In Ghana and Nigeria, ADRF’s support has seen iWatch Africa engage 20 newsrooms on online safety of women journalists. Leveraging the Keeping Journalists Safe Online: A Guide for Newsrooms in West Africa and Beyond, the newsrooms were supported to set up safety protocols and response measures to safeguard women journalists against abuse. 

Through a multiplier model, journalists from the supported newsrooms (10 from Ghana and 10 from Nigeria) also underwent a Training of Trainers programme on the use of filtering applications such as TRFilter which helps document and manage online harassment and abuse. Furthemore, the participants discussed strategies through which journalists, government agencies and civil society could push back more effectively against online violence. The training facilitators included practitioners from Thomson Reuters Foundation; iWatch Africa; Techpreneur Magazine; The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ); and Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII).

The trained journalists have since gone on to train an additional 100 journalists within their networks. A further offshoot from the project was the formation of a discussion forum for networking, sharing experiences and lessons learned amongst the supported newsrooms. 

The ADRF, an initiative of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has previously supported iWatch Africa to track, document and analyse online abuse and harassment against journalists and rights activists covering political and societal issues in Ghana. In partnership with the Ghana Police and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), iWatch Africa developed draft guidelines for the prevention of online abuse and harassment. The organisation has continued to undertake advocacy in the field while engaging stakeholders on offering legal support for victims to seek redress.

According to Gideon Sarpong, the Executive Director of iWatch Africa, ADRF’s support has helped raise awareness about the importance of protecting journalists and contributed to a safer media environment. “The cohort of journalists trained and their newsrooms could be the catalysts to curbing digital violence against women journalists in Ghana and Nigeria,” said Sarpong.

According to the State of Media Freedom and Safety of Journalists in Africa Report for 2022, trolling and online harassment of journalists has become a serious threat to press freedom. It notes that trolls threaten and silence critical journalists and harass many, particularly women, forcing some to abandon social media. According to the report, the low levels of digital security skills; poor reporting of online abuses to law enforcement agencies; the limited skills and interest of authorities in investigating and prosecuting cyber crimes; and the inadequacy of existing laws in tackling trolling and online violence especially against women, only exacerbate the problem.

The ADRF was established in recognition that technology had become pivotal to promoting livelihoods and human rights on the continent but there was a need to strengthen local capacity in evidence-based research, skills and knowledge, collaborative advocacy and impactful policy engagements responsive to regulatory and practice developments that affect internet freedom in Africa.

The ADRF’s supporters have included the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the Ford Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the German Society for International Cooperation Agency (GIZ), New Venture Fund (NVF) and the Omidyar Network.