News Location:
UVIRA, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Having recently emerged from a civil war, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still struggling to catch up with its development initiatives, especially where ICTs are concerned. Small-scale women farmers in the Uvira region could greatly benefit from increased access to ICTs. The Sisters Informing and Supporting Sisters Initiative (SISSI) by the “Initiative des Femmes pour le Développement, l’Autho-promotion et la Paix” (IFDAP) aims to build the capacities of these women farmers, so that they can learn to access the information they need and gain a competitive edge in the increasingly competitive agri-food industry.
Agriculture has always been the heart of the economies of the DRC. Agriculture contributes to food security, occupation and income for rural communities. However, the agricultural sector in the Eastern region of the DRC especially in Uvira has been facing a number of development challenges, which has resulted in loss of markets and declining income. This can be attributed in part, to the lack of proper organisation and the delay in the use of ICT in the agricultural sector.
Only just emerging from a civil war, the DRC has for many years proved difficult for development initiatives to work in. This is especially the case when dealing with ICTs, which many people do not consider a developmental imperative. Research shows that 95% of organisations, NGOs, small businesses do not even have a computer and amongst those that have, 50% do not have the capacity to use them (Alternatives, 2006).
Women in the rural Uvira who are war survivors and run small-scale agricultural projects do not use technology as much as their male counterparts. Virtual, safe spaces offered by ICT such as FOSS, community radios, mobile phones and the internet to meet, communicate and share their experiences as well as access to relevant agricultural information; all of these ICTs have the potential to help small-scale rural women farmers gather information from country records, government plans, and policy proposals in order to identify opportunities for strategic interventions.
What are the gender and ICT issues to be addressed?
The empowerment of individual rural women farmers can build the community’s capacity to develop, as the women’s ability to rise above their circumstances and contribute effectively to the welfare of their family is crucial to rural Uvira’s development. The core problem that these women face is the integration of ICTs in their daily agricultural activities for economic sustainability. Their main constraint is their ‘immobility’ as compared to their male counterparts. Being housebound, their access to ICTs resources for their business opportunities is limited. The road to economic sustainability for these women requiresknowledge of the market/opportunities and the ability to access these markets to sell their products and services. ICTs must be easily accessible to these beneficiaries and the usage/maintenance must not compound their existing disadvantaged situations. By specially-assisting the women in effective usage of ICTs, ICTs can empower them as individuals, improve their chances of networking in agri-food business endeavours, and thus economically and socially empower them.
How ICTs can help
The Initiative des Femmes pour le Dévelopment, L’autho-promotion et la Paix, IFDAP, agricultural programmes involve women-connecting-women activities to promote food security, enhance social functioning of women and change the existing disadvantages women face and empowering them. We believe that women, especially the disadvantaged, could actively participate in the knowledge-driven economy if they could generate income from agri-food activities to sustain their families.
The “Sisters Informing and Supporting Sisters Initiative” (SISSI) project is a sub-project of the existing agricultural project conceptualized to train, assist and support small-scale rural women farmers in basic ICT skills, with the aim of preparing them to integrate the use of ICTs to enhance their agricultural productivity and profitability. It also aims at challenging gender inequalities in the use of available ICTs in rural Uvira.
The entire concept of this proposal to GenARDIS is geared towards gender empowerment. The SISSI project proposal is one component that will address critical gapes that have been identified in agricultural sector and gender related challenges in Uvira and the Eastern Province of the DRC.
