ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

.

ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE

GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC

REGION

UNPOG The UN Project Office on Governance is a focal point of promoting citizen-oriented,

efficient, effective governance among United Nations Member States. Key activities of the

Office has classified into three fields: (i) Research and Policy Development is to compile

research on ongoing trends in governance at any levels, analyze best practices in public

sector and provide useful policy recommendations on the basis of findings from research; (ii)

Capacity Development is about organizing international conferences, and workshops

building capacity of designing national policies for each UN member countries; (iii) through

Advocacy and Outreach, it distributes materials related to governance which are obtained

from research, workshop, conference.

Note

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this

publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on

the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal

status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities

concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not

imply any expression of opinion on the part of the United Nations.

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Table of Contents

List of tables and figures ..................................................................................................... ii

Glossary .............................................................................................................................. ii

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 2

Executive Summary............................................................................................................. 2

1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 1

1.1 Research Objectives ............................................................................................... 2

1.2 Outline of the Report ............................................................................................. 3

2. CONTEXT OF E-GOVERNMENT IN GENDER EQUALITY ......................... 4

2.1 Expansion of e-Government ................................................................................... 4

2.2 ICT, e-Government and Gender Equality ................................................................ 6

2.2.1 Access to ICT ....................................................................................................... 8

2.2.2 ICT Capacity ........................................................................................................ 9

2.2.3 Contents and Services....................................................................................... 10

2.2.4 Participation and Advocacy for Empowerment ................................................. 11

3. MEASURING THE E-GOVERNMENT ENVIRONMENT .......................... 12

3.1 e-Government for Gender Equality: Analysis Framework .................................... 12

3.2 Infrastructure: Indicators of Women’s Access ...................................................... 14

3.3 Gender Development: Indicators of Women’s Capacity ....................................... 15

3.4 Outreach: Measurement on Service and Content for Women ............................. 16

3.4.1 Measuring the Outreach of e-Government for Women ..................................... 16

3.4.2 Methodology: Web Measurement Analysis ...................................................... 16

3.4.3 Evaluation Categories ....................................................................................... 18

3.5 Policy: Measurement of Advocacy and Participation for Women ........................ 20

3.5.1 Measuring perceived effectiveness of e-Government policy ............................. 20

3.5.2 Methodology: Policy Survey.............................................................................. 20

3.5.3 Responses ........................................................................................................ 22

3.5.4 Limitations and Verification of the Toolkit Framework ...................................... 23

4. COUNTRY ANALYSIS ......................................................................... 24

4.1 Bangladesh ........................................................................................................... 24

4.2 The Philippines ..................................................................................................... 31

4.3 Malaysia ............................................................................................................... 38

4.4 Korea .................................................................................................................... 46

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4.5 Indonesia.............................................................................................................. 53

4.6 Vietnam ................................................................................................................ 60

5. ANALYSING READINESS WITH THE TOOLKIT ...................................... 64

5.1 Findings of the Policy Survey ................................................................................ 64

5.1.1 Overview .......................................................................................................... 64

5.1.2 Service and Content for Women ....................................................................... 66

5.1.3 Network building and Participation ................................................................... 70

5.2 Recommendations: Toolkit Modules and Priorities.............................................. 75

5.2.1 Grouping of Countries ...................................................................................... 75

5.2.2 Recommendations on Infrastructure ................................................................ 77

5.2.3 Recommendations on Gender Development .................................................... 78

5.2.4 Recommendations on Outreach ....................................................................... 79

5.2.5 Recommendations on Policy and Institutional Readiness .................................. 81

5.2.6 Regional and International Exchange of Experience .......................................... 83

6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 84

7. REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 86

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List of Tables

[TABLE 1] E-GOVERNMENT: STAKEHOLDERS AND DOMAINS 4

[TABLE 2] POTENTIAL OF E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY 7

[TABLE 3] CHALLENGES TO WOMEN'S INCLUSION TO INFORMATION SOCIETY 8

[TABLE 4] ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK FOR E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY 13

[TABLE 5] MEASUREMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE DIMENSION 15

[TABLE 6] MEASUREMENT OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION 15

[TABLE 7] CRITERIA FOR THE WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 18

[TABLE 8] ORGANIZATION OF SURVEY 21

[TABLE 9] POLICY SURVEY RESPONSE RATES 22

[TABLE 10] BANGLADESH: KEY ICT INDICATORS 25

[TABLE 11] THE PHILIPPINES: KEY ICT INDICATORS 32

[TABLE 12] MALAYSIA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 39

[TABLE 13] KOREA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 47

[TABLE 14] INDONESIA: KEY ICT INDICATORS 54

[TABLE 15] VIETNAM: KEY ICT INDICATORS 60

[TABLE 16] TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES TO PROMOTE E-GOVERNMENT FOR WOMEN 66

[TABLE 17] AREAS AND TYPES OF ONLINE SERVICE DELIVERY FOR WOMEN 70

[TABLE 18] FACEBOOK STATISTICS 72

[TABLE 19] SOCIAL NETWORKING OUTREACH 73

[TABLE 20] SELECTION OF TECHNOLOGY: ICT FEATURES 77

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List of Figures

[FIGURE 1] E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA 6

[FIGURE 2] PERCENTAGE OF INTERNET USERS BY GENDER 9

[FIGURE 3] ITU DATA ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK 12

[FIGURE 4] TOOLKIT FRAMEWORK AND DATA COLLECTION 13

[FIGURE 5] STAGES OF WEB MEASUREMENT INDEX 18

[FIGURE 7] POLICY SURVEY RESPONDENTS CATEGORY 23

[FIGURE 8] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - BANGLADESH 24

[FIGURE 9] MOCWA WEBSITE 26

[FIGURE 10] BANGLADESH: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 27

[FIGURE 11] BANGLADESH: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 28

[FIGURE 12] BANGLADESH: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY29

[FIGURE 13] BANGLADESH: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 29

[FIGURE 14] BANGLADESH: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 30

[FIGURE 15] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - PHILIPPINES 31

[FIGURE 16] PWC WEBSITE 33

[FIGURE 17] THE PHILIPPINES: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 34

[FIGURE 18] THE PHILIPPINES: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 35

[FIGURE 19] THE PHILIPPINES: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 36

[FIGURE 20] THE PHILIPPINES: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 37

[FIGURE 21] THE PHILIPPINES: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 37

[FIGURE 22] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - MALAYSIA 38

[FIGURE 23] MALAYSIA: HOUSEHOLD USE OF INTERNET BY GENDER 39

[FIGURE 24] MWFCD WEBSITE 41

[FIGURE 25] MALAYSIA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 42

[FIGURE 26] MALAYSIA: CURRENT GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 43

[FIGURE 27] MALAYSIA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 44

[FIGURE 28] MALAYSIA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 44

[FIGURE 29] MALAYSIA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 45

[FIGURE 30] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - KOREA 46

[FIGURE 31] MOGEF WEBSITE 48

[FIGURE 32] KOREA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 49

[FIGURE 33] KOREA: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 50

[FIGURE 34] KOREA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 51

[FIGURE 35] KOREA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 51

[FIGURE 36] KOREA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 52

[FIGURE 37] E-GOVERNMENT READINESS FOR GENDER EQUALITY - INDONESIA 53

[FIGURE 38] MWECP WEBSITE 55

[FIGURE 39] INDONESIA: WEB MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS 56

[FIGURE 40] INDONESIA: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 57

[FIGURE 41] INDONESIA: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 58

[FIGURE 42] INDONESIA: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 58

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[FIGURE 43] INDONESIA: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 59

[FIGURE 44] VIETNAM: CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN 62

[FIGURE 45] VIETNAM: IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 62

[FIGURE 46] VIETNAM: TOP TWO POLICY PRIORITIES 63

[FIGURE 47] VIETNAM: EVALUATION OF MINISTRY WEBSITE 63

[FIGURE 48] PERCEPTION OF CURRENT E-GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR WOMEN: MISSION65

[FIGURE 49] IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY 67

[FIGURE 50] FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS: COUNTRY GROUPINGS 75

[FIGURE 51] E-GOVERNMENT FOR GENDER EQUALITY: TOOLKIT MODULES 76

[FIGURE 52] E-GOVERNMENT AS A KILLER APPLICATION FOR TELECENTRES 79

[FIGURE 53] E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT PATH FOR GENDER EQUALITY 84

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Glossary (Usually a “Glossary” refers to the meaning of specific words. This section should be called “Abbreviations” or “Acronyms”

APWINC Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center

CICT Commission on Information Communications Technology

CMA Communications and Multimedia Act

CMCA Communications and Multimedia Commission Act

DOST Department of Science and Technology

DPADM Division for Public Administration and Development Management

G4C Government for Citizens

G2B Government to Business

G2C Government to Citizen

G2E Government to Employee

GGGI Global Gender Gap Index

GII Gender Inequality Index

HDI Human Development Index

HNPSP Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme of Bangladesh

ICT Information Communication Technology

IDI ICT Development Index

IDRC International Development Research Centre

ITU International Telecommunication Union

KCC Korea Communications Commission

MDGs Millennium Development Goals

MOGEF Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of Korea

MOSICT Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology of Bangladesh

MOWCA Ministry of Women and Child Affairs of Bangladesh

MWECP Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection of Malaysia

MWFCD Ministry of Women, Family and Child Development of Indonesia

NIPA National IT Industry Promotion Agency of Korea

NRI Networked Readiness Index

PCW Philippine Commission on Women

SKMM Suruhanjaya Kmomunikasi Dan Multimedia Malaysia

UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNPAN United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance

UNPOG United Nations Project Office on Governance

WEF World Economic Forum

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Acknowledgements

Sincere words of thanks go to the experts from 37 countries who participated in the policy survey. The support is very much appreciated of: Haiyan Qian, Director of Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA); Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief of e-Government Branch,DPADM, UNDESA; Jong-moo Choi, Head of United Nations Project Office on Governance (UNPOG); Sunyoung Chang, Associate Research and Policy Development Expert, UNPOG; Vijay Parmar, Senior Governance and Public Administration Expert, UNPOG; and Jonas Rabinovitch, Inter-Regional Advisor, DPADM, UNDESA. The survey and web measurement analyses benefited from advice and guidance provided by country experts Yatty Maryati, Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, Indonesia, Siti Fatimah Khiriah M.Amin, Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, Malaysia, Truong Thi Phuong Dung, Vietnam-Korea Friendship IT College, Yoo-Jin Han, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Sookmyung Women’s University, YooRi Lee Deputy Director of Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center(APWINC), Haley Hyun, Head of External Affairs, APWINC, and Ruksana Akter at Sookmyung Women’s University. Editorial supervision was provided by S. Revi Sterling, Ph.D., Faculty Director of ICTD graduate studies at ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder. Editorial assistance was provided by Jinyoung Park. Creative design was executed by Kyungmo Yang.

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Executive Summary

Public service delivery and institutional capacity building are key areas for national development in many

developing countries. Recently, the adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for public

sector delivery particularly through e-Government initiatives has become a policy priority for many

developing country governments. E-Government services can play a significant role in development --

they can accelerate public service delivery, improve government accountability, encourage citizen

participation in decision making processes, and contribute to strategies that aim to increase the

representation of marginalized populations in the public sector, primarily women.

At the core, e-Government can improve opportunities for greater gender equality by reinventing how the

public sector responds to women’s needs. E-Government can have a transformational effect on women’s

levels of inclusion in three primary ways:

Improve the applicability and efficiency of government gender programmes, thus improving

institutional capacity to promote gender equality from within government structures. (Internal

government change)

Improve public service delivery targeted at women’s advancement, and strengthen gender-

disaggregated monitoring and evaluation across all government agencies that have an outward

service delivery component.(External government change)

Leverage technology to expand women’s online participation in the public decision-making process,

and establish a multi-stakeholder online network to support gender advocacy efforts. (Intra-

government change)

While e-Government provides a new opportunity for inclusive public service delivery and citizen

participation, it poses a significant challenge in terms of reaching marginalized members of society --

those who lack the socio-economic resources and abilities to engage in the networked information society.

The majority of people isolated from potential e-Government services is women, who currently lack ease

of access and relevant skills to utilize ICT to engage in e-Government efforts. Thus, there is a risk that

improper or inefficient deployment of e-Government programs could further marginalize women from

governance outreach.

In particular, the challenge of addressing women’s access and use of ICT and e-Government services can

be divided into four specific aspects including 1) the access, 2) capacity, 3) contents and services, and 4)

participation and advocacy.

To provide a Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender to explore the readiness and commitment

of e-Government programmes, this research adapts the ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit as a

main analysis framework and draws out the following four dimensions that warrant further attention.

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Aspects of

e-Gov Challenges Toolkit Framework Dimensions

Access Infrastructure General accessibility and use of ICT in

the society

Capacity Gender

Development

Capacity of women to utilize the e-

Government services and information

Contents/ Services Service

Outreach

Availability of relevant e-Government

services / online information for women

Participation/

Advocacy

Policy/

Institutional

Capacity

Policy and institutional capacity to

provide an enabling environment for the

promotion of e-Government services for

women

The data for the Toolkit Framework is pulled from three major data sources. Data for the dimensions of

Infrastructure and Gender Development comes from existing indices available from major international

organizations and research institutes. Data for the Outreach dimension was sourced from a Web

Measurement Analysis conducted on the official websites of government agencies concerned with gender

equality, such as a Ministry of Women. The data to support the Policy dimension was collected by a

survey of country experts who spoke to the perceived effectiveness of gender development policies at the

national level.

Out of the thirty-six countries originally invited to the Policy Survey, six countries exceed a 25% response

rate were identified as partners for a feasibility study for the Toolkit Framework which includes a larger

Web Measurement Analysis and a review of ICT infrastructure and gender development. These six

countries include Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.

The results from the Toolkit Framework feasibility study demonstrated important findings. First,

respondents had a positive view to the potential of e-Government as an information sharing vehicle. The

top recommendations for e-Government services included extended delivery of relevant content (quality

and quantity of content) as well as providing a forum for social dialogue through which women may

participate in public decision making process.

Second, respondents gave mixed results when answering if e-Government initiatives are “interactive”

and if service provision has improved the overall public service quality for women. These results have

dual implications: does the government, particularly the Ministry of Gender as the national flagship of

gender empowerment, have the institutional and human resource capacity to create online gender

empowerment services, both technically and conceptually; and do current “interactive” e-Government

services adequately reflect the needs of women?

In reviewing the results, it is important to consider how emerging countries with less-developed e-

Government and gender equality programmes can utilize their Ministry of Gender websites as a two-way

information source that women can interact with, supplying content as well as consuming it. It is

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important to move towards a technical model that provides two-way interaction with citizens. While this

requires a certain level of technical sophistication in website design and implementation, countries must

strive to provide fully-functional participatory e-Government services. One solution may be the

incorporation of popular social networking technologies.

While the scope of analysis in this research was limited to six countries, the following graphics highlight

four countries that represent the four dimensions of Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender with

respective priority areas -- infrastructure, gender development, outreach and policy competency. Further

study of these four dimensions, when applied to a country-wide model, illustrated the need to create

recommendation modules for each dimension.

(Comment: at this Point the reader may get confused. First the paper mentions three

transformational effects that e-Government can have on women’s level of inclusion: (1) Internal

government change; (2) External government change and (3) Intra-government change. Then the

paper mentions four aspects to address the challenge of enhancing gender equality through ICT: 1)

the access, 2) capacity, 3) contents and services, and 4) participation and advocacy. Then the paper

mentions four dimensions of the Toolkit Framework: 1) infrastructure, 2) gender development, 3)

outreach and 4) policy competency.

The question is: What concrete points is the paper trying to make? Are these sets of issues somehow

interconnected? How to perform the transition from purely analytical tools to actual policy-making to

address development goals?

The reader, particularly those without much knowledge on the connections between gender-related

challenges and policy-making, would greatly benefit from more clarifications on these aspects and

sharper focus for the paper.

Naturally the Executive Summary is not be the best place to elaborate on these issues. But considering

that most busy policy-makers may only read the Executive Summary, my suggestion is that you make a

reference in the Executive Summary to the page in which the subject is further developed, with concrete

examples.

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Dimension 1: Infrastructure

(Comment: the bullets below are extremely important as they highlight the practical policy-making

implications of what the paper is discussing. Whenever possible, as mentioned above, it would be

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tremendously beneficial for the paper and for the reader if you could make a reference to the page in

which examples could be found.

While choosing an appropriate technology to enhance socioeconomic service delivery for women,

issues such as access, cost, maintenance, interactivity, user-friendliness, availability, training and time

should be considered. Example in page x ?

Despite the disparities in mobile penetration world-wide, mobile phones are the most commonly used

ICT in most countries. To this point, m-government, an extension of e-Government to mobile

platforms, may provide additional advantages to women, such as emergency response services for

domestic violence or other crimes, as shown in the case of Korea. In page “y” the Korean case is

discussed, showing how this policy was implemented, including its main features and results.

Dimension 2: Gender Development

Promoting women’s overall socio-economic capacity is a critical component to creating women’s

demand for e-Government. ICT capacity building programmes need to be considered at both the level

of the individual and the larger networked society level. Example in page “z” ?

Telecentres can serve as a location where capacity building and service provision intersect –

telecentres may offer women a safe place to conduct online transactions as well as access training.

(a sensible analysis of telecentres in Southern Asia is presented in the ECOSOC paper on gender and

ICT and is summarized in page xx.)

Dimension 3: Outreach

Gender-disaggregated data collection of ICT access and use is required to adequately understand the

current gender gap and reflect any gender-specific o preferences for improved relevancy and impact.

The quality, relevancy and diversity of e-Government services should be considered, based on need

and demand. E-Government services may include:

a) Income generation: business management for women SMEs, market information, general

agricultural extension services

b) Education: Informal and formal adult education, with special emphasis on women’s information

needs

c) Health: AIDS, and STD awareness and prevention, child care and maternal care general First Aid

and advice, potential for e-Health opportunities

d) Financial services for individual and community needs, and

e) General public services including certificate issuance, taxes, land and voting records, and

registration of businesses.

(Comment: what is the source of these recommendations? If there is a concrete case study that inspired

this dimension/ recommendation, it should be cited and described in the body of the paper with a page

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number referenced here. If the recommendations above are coming from the consultants’ observations

but is not yet existing in practice, this fact should be mentioned as a pioneer recommendation.

Moreover, if the recommendation can be found in any document containing internationally agreed

development goals, such as the Beijing Declaration or the Millennium Declaration, then it should also be

mentioned here.

In summary, as a reader it is not really clear to me the source of these recommendations, whether they

reflect the conceptual thinking of those who answered the survey or whether they reflect state-of-the-art

existing case studies or whether they respond to a model being proposed by the consultants to advance the

issue of gender and ICTs. All these possibilities can be valid, but the paper should be more transparent

about it.

For each service topic area above, it is necessary that the appropriate technology and interface design are

chosen; usability tests should also be conducted. (Comment: more information about usability tests are

found in page “xx”).

Technical development should reflect the available infrastructure and technical sophistication of the

country. As suggested in the Toolkit, countries in the emerging stages of e-Government

development should consider utilizing existing social networks and established online-based services

to promote usability, ease of use and convenience,

E-Government service promotion is important to attract women’s participation and adoption. E-

Government efforts should include active marketing strategies to promote e-Government for women

as a “service,” particularly engaging with online women’s groups and established offline women’s

networks.

Dimension 4: Policy

It is important to establish a national model of interagency coordination (does this model exist

anywhere? Could you describe it a case study in promoting gender equality?) and thus identify an

entity across the government agencies to serve as a focal point of e-Government provisions for

women. To successfully accomplish this, three options should be considered:

a) There should be a grassroots approach where governmental gender equality organizations take

the initiative to provide initial information services for women and subsequently seek to

establish networks with national e-Government integration;

b) Simultaneously, there should be a top-down approach where the agency responsible for national

e-Government initiatives provides programmes relevant for marginalized citizens, including

women as a major subgroup;

c) Advocate for interim approaches to “privatize” e-Government services for women, taking

advantage of existing technical capacity of online services and expertise of online women’s

networks in order to expand service outreach.

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These three approaches are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combination appropriate to

each country. (In which countries were they used and with what results? Or are we talking in

theoretical terms based purely on our common sense? If this is the case, should not we highlight

“how” we propose that countries should develop it? If the body of the paper contains this

information it should be referenced here.

Institutional readiness is a key component. Training should be offered that covers technical issues,

content development, and e-Government service management among other topics. (Where is such

training available? Are there examples of capacity development exercises for gender awareness

programmes quoted in the paper? Or at least one example? The page where it appears should be

referenced here.)

From a legal and policy readiness perspective, e-Government services should be introduced as

programmes targeted specifically at women.

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1. Introduction

Public service delivery and institutional capacity building is one of the key areas of

focus of national development strategies for many developing countries. Recently,

the adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in public sector --

particularly through the e-Government initiatives -- has become a policy priority for

many governments in developing countries. E-Government services can play a

significant role in development -- they can accelerate public service delivery,

improve government accountability, encourage citizen participation in decision

making processes, and contribute to strategies that aim to increase the

representation of marginalized populations in the public sector, primarily women.

At the core, e-Government can improve opportunities for greater gender equality by

reinventing how the public sector responds to women’s needs. Women, thus, are one

of the important groups which warrant more attention in national and international

policy consideration.

The Beijing Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have

both encouraged the governments to adopt a gender perspective and to enhance

women’s rights in the public sector (United Nations, 1995). The emergence of e-

Government and online-based service delivery has created new opportunities for

women’s participation in public decision-making processes. The physical presence

of government is now being replaced by online participatory processes and

information dissemination systems. This change creates new occasions for easier

and more extensive citizen participation as information is mad available at the level

of the individual. However, if not thoughtfully designed, e-Government initiatives

can further marginalize women due to the inequities women face regarding ICT

access and use.

Motivated by this fact, this research aims to observe and analyze the development

of e-Government that mindful of content and service provision for women, identify

the challenges and opportunities in utilizing e-Government to achieve greater

gender equality in public service, and suggest policy recommendations.

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1.1 Research Objectives

This report seeks to gain insight into the current and future role of e-Government in

Asia Pacific countries to promote gender equality in and through public services.

Thus, it is important

a) To analyze the degree to which e-Government provides services and

participatory channels for women in selected countries in Asian and Pacific

countries;

b) To identify challenges and opportunities in utilizing e-Government to

achieve gender equality in public affairs;

c) To provide a toolkit to assess national e-Government readiness in gender

empowerment strategies.

In addition, this report aims to contribute to expanding the e-Government

knowledge base from a gender perspective, particularly by looking at different types

of e-Government services and participatory channels for women in six selected

countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,

Philippines and Viet Nam.

The findings in this report may be useful to gender equality and e-Government

administration officials in countries where e-Government is either actively

promoted to increase gender equality in public service delivery, or is still under

limited capacity and aims for inclusive participation from women. Considering the

largely scarce body of knowledge that addresses the intersection of gender and e-

Government, this research can contribute to a better understanding of the following:

a) Varieties of appropriate services and content for e-Government for women;

b) Different mechanisms for promoting the e-Government to women, and

promotion e-Government as an empowerment strategy for women;

c) Perceived effectiveness of e-Government in gender equality efforts in six

selected countries;

d) Policy priorities suggested by experts from six selected countries to

improve e-Government for greater gender equality in public affairs.

Finally, the report provides a foundation for future data collection and research, and

advocates for a more gender-sensitive approach in e-Government development and

assessment, including but not limited to the implementation of the United Nations

E-Government Development Survey.

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1.2 Outline of the Report

The report is divided into six sections including the introduction and conclusion.

Following a brief introduction to this research, the report begins in Section 2 by

looking at the overall context of e-Government and gender equality. Section 2

provides an explaination of traditional issues of gender equality in public affairs,

and how the emergence of e-Government has the potentail to change this

perspective. Section 2 also presents several known challenges to women’s inclusion

in the emerging information and knowledge society, drawing on from previous

research and their implications in providing pro-women e-Government content and

services – especially in developing countries.

Section 3 introduces an illustrative model that demonstrated the various aspects of

e-Government development for women. Adopting the ITU e-Government

Implementation Toolkit (ITU, 2009), we present a framework with which countries

can assess the level of their e-Government readiness for gender equality.

Section 4 reports on the actual application of the Toolkit Framework to six selected

countries in the Asia and the Pacific, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea,

Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam, supplemented by an analysis of the

accompanying policy survey by in-country experts. The section provides a snapshot

of how e-Government services and participatory channels for women have been

developed and implemented, and presents findings for broader regional and

international application of the Toolkit Framework.

Section 5 included results of country-by-country analysis and presents policy

recommendations based on the four dimensions of the Toolkit Framework.

The report concludes in Section 6 with a discussion of areas for further research and

collaboration in e-Government development and promotion efforts that support

greater gender equality in public affairs and governance.

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2. Context of e-Government in Gender Equality

2.1 Expansion of e-Government

The adoption of ICT in public sector particularly through e-Government initiatives

has become a policy priority for the governments of many developing countries. For

the purpose of this report, e-Government is defined as “the use by government

agencies of information technologies such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and

mobile computing that have the ability to transform relations with citizens,

businesses, and other arms of government” (World Bank, 2009). These technologies

can serve a variety of different purposes including better delivery of government

services to citizens, improved interaction with business and industry, greater citizen

empowerment through access to information, and more efficient government

management (ITU, 2009). In this sense, e‐Government is more than just a

government website on the Internet. The strategic objective of e‐Government is to

support and simplify governance for all parties --government, citizens and

businesses – through the use of ICT (Basu, 2004).

Areas Types Goals

Stakeholders

and

Relationships

G2C

(Citizens)

To provide easier access to government information,

improved delivery of services and welfare benefits

To reinforce participation in the local community and

networks

G2B

(Business)

To allow transaction initiatives i.e. e-procurement and e-

commerce for reduction of cost and bureaucracy

G2G

(Government)

To integrate national, regional and local government

services and policies in a single point of access for

citizens

G2E

(Employees)

To provide learning and knowledge sharing opportunities

among government employees

Application

Domains

Administration To automate and computerize administrative tasks

Citizens To support connections and interrelationships among

governments and citizens

Society

To enable relationships and interactions beyond

boundaries, among public agencies, business and civil

society

[Table 1] e-Government: Stakeholders and Domains

Source: Heeks, 2001

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Recognizing the impact of e-Government on human development as essential to the

achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the international

community has produced several publications that study e-Government

implementations and promote knowledge sharing among countries. Notably, the

United Nations E-Government Survey, published last in 2010, is representative of a

wider endeavor to share the visions of global information society and the

transformation of public administration (UNDESA, 2010). The composite E-

Government Development Index provides a standardized instrument to measure and

compare the functionality, characteristics and effect of e-Government across

countries. Beyond the simple comparison of the strengths of national e-Government

provision, the index aids countries in determining key factors in e-Government

programmes such as technology, human resources, and policy frameworks, and to

identify areas for further improvement in their national initiatives (UN DESA, 2010)

(Comment: Apart from references to the U.N. e-Government Survey, the World

Bank and ITU, the paper could also acknowledge that the U.N. Survey does have a

very pragmatic approach to assess e-Government development through four stages

with corresponding indicators and concrete features in websites, including the

degree of interaction with users.)

The growing international interest in promoting e-Government, combined with

national efforts to streamline public services, has led to a dramatic expansion of e-

Government provision worldwide. According to the UN E-Government

Development Index 2010, 98% of governments have an online presence, primarily

in the form of a national portal or ministry-specific websites (UNDESA, 2010). The

overall quality of e-Government services has also changed significantly in recent

years from one-way information provision to a more interactive, participatory forum,

driven by the advancement of more inclusive technologies such as Web 2.0 and

social networking.

In Asia, however, the growth of e-Government services reflects the income

disparities within the region. Eastern Asia far exceeds the world average in e-

Government development, while the Southeastern Asian countries lag behind the

world average.

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[Figure 1] e-Government development in Asia

Source: UN E-Government Development Survey 2010

2.2 ICT, e-Government and Gender Equality

The Beijing Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals have both

encouraged governments to adopt a gender-sensitive perspective in order to support

women’s rights in the public sector (United Nations, 1995, 2000). The emergence of

e-Government and delivery of services online have created new opportunities for

women to participate in civil services and public decision-making processes.

The use of ICT is critical in reinventing relationships between the public and the

public sector, and enables citizens and civil service employees to interact in new,

more effective ways. The use of ICT can connect women and information in ways

that significantly promote gender equality. The following Table summarizes the

potential areas of transformation that an e-Government framework can provide to

increase gender equality across myriad stakeholders, relationships and domains.

(Ndou, 2004).

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Areas Types Goals Implication to

Gender Equality

Transformati

on Areas

Internal

To improve the efficiency

and effectiveness of

internal functions and

process of government by

connecting different

department and agencies

Strengthening efficiency of

gender programmes in the

government; improving the

institutional capacity of

national machinery of

gender equality

External

To improve transparency of

government to citizens and

business, allowing greater

access to information and

creating more interagency

collaboration

Improving public service

content and delivery

targeted for women;

strengthening gender

monitoring across

government agencies

Relational

To transform the

relationship between

citizens and government

through vertical and

horizontal integration,

increasing democratic

processes and structures

Expanding women’s online

participation to public

decision-making processes;

establishing a multi-

stakeholder online network

for greater gender advocacy

[Table 2] Potential of e-Government for Gender Equality

Source: Ndou, 2004

Despite the growing significance and potential benefits of e-Government to improve

gender equality, it is important to emphasize inclusiveness in e-Government

programme design. It is important that new forms of public service reach all citizens

regardless of their age, ethnicity, gender, and level of education. Much work has

been done to explore the contributing factors that limit ICT access and use by

marginalized groups in a society. It is well-documented that women who lack

access to ICT are further in danger of social and political exclusion as the number of

services and opportunities for participation are delivered through online spaces.

The challenges that women face regarding access to e-Government programmes are

the same challenges women experience in relation to all ICT access and use. As the

Table below outlines, previous research on the relationship between gender and ICT

has identified major challenges, including the ICT access, capacity, contents and

participation. ICT is affected by, and in turn affects the different opportunities that

exist for men and women in relation to education, training and skills development,

employment and working conditions, content development, and access to power

structures and decision-making processes (Hafkin & Huyer, 2007). As women tend

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to make up the majority of those who remain alienated from the access to ICT and

who lack relevant skills to utilize the ICT tools, e-Government programmes may

risk further marginalizing women (United Nations, 2010). The factors that affect

women’s ICT access and use are discussed as aspects and challenges that all e-

Government programmes should heed.

Aspects Challenges

Access

• Sociocultural factors (mobility, attitudes towards

technology)

• Rural-urban divide/ infrastructure

• Literacy

• Income inequality (affordability)

Capacity • Level of education/computer/technical skills

• Information literacy/ Trust in ICT artifact

Contents/ Services

• Language

• Content and information needs

• Gender patterns of technology use

Participation/

Advocacy

• Relevance of gender-friendly public admin.

approaches

• Lack of gender analysis

[Table 3] Challenges to women's inclusion to information society

Source: United Nations 2010

2.2.1 Access to ICT

One of the critical prerequisites for e-Government to support gender equality is

women’s access to ICT. Women do not have the same degree of access to ICT, and

thus use ICT less than men. This significantly limits women’s use of e-Government

services. This digital divide is not only confined to availability and affordability of

ICT, but is compounded by socio-economic factors such as cost, issues of mobility

and social biases towards women’s use of technology. As shown in the figure below,

women have lower access to ICT tools compared to men in both developed and

developing countries, reflecting the existing gender gap in the society.

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[Figure 2] Percentage of Internet users by gender,

non-European economies, (Latest available year, 2008-2010)

Source: ITU

2.2.2 ICT Capacity

The use of e-Government also requires a certain level of ICT capacity by the user,

which includes basic literacy and numeracy. However, the existing gender

education gap is reflected in women’s opportunities to attain technological skills

training and development. The majority of the world’s illiterate are women, and far

fewer women than men possess computer literacy skills (United Nations, 2010).

This lack of women’s ICT capacity limits women’s general use of ICT and further

excludes them from the potential advantages of e-Government, including utilization

of online-based services and channels for citizen participation.

Another important factor in building ICT capacity is information literacy, which

centers on users’ critical thinking abilities to make adequate decisions while online

(Dorner, 2006). This is critical in e-Government, where users may be accessing

formal documents and personal information. As the density of the global network

grows daily, the range and impact of cybercrimes and other negative side effects of

the Internet have also increased. Thus, ICT users must be able to distinguish

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relevant information from malicious online content, and prevent any potential harm

that can result from the adverse effects of ICT-based deception and crime. Women

who only have novice ICT skills and low information literacy are disproportionately

more vulnerable to such threats, which may further prevent and discourage

women’s active use of e-Government services, which are often complicated until

the user learns how to navigate and use the service. Combined with the challenges

of ICT access, a lack of ICT capacity can significantly limit women’s access to e-

Government services, and may even exacerbate women’s exclusion from the

Information Society.

2.2.3 Contents and Services

Another important issue regarding women’s e-Government use is the availability of

relevant services and content that adequately reflects women’s information

and service needs. Information becomes knowledge when it is embedded into the

local contexts (Avgerou, 2010). Thus, linking information to the users’

environments and cultural contexts is critical to knowledge exchange, which has

implications for women and e-Government (Hafkin, 2003).

The relevance of content and services often serves as a strong incentive for users to

adopt new technology (Avgerou, 2010). Amid the explosion of new ICT products

and platforms, users often adopt technologies and services that they perceive as

“killer applications” – an Internet-slang term that denotes a highly useful and

widely adopted tool (Alampay & Umali, 2007). Additionally, the ease of use of the

application also plays a key role in users’ decision of technology adoption and use,

which echoes the need to understand the abilities, needs and concerns of target users.

The availability of content and information that is relevant to women is the key

factor in e-Government service adoption and the critical element in nurturing

women’s demand for e-Government services. However, in practice, the

importance of relevant content is often neglected by a larger focus on technology,

not data. The emphasis on technology over content may be one of the greatest

barriers to women’s use of e-Government. Relevant content for women should be

determined through a thorough needs assessment, as well as ongoing usability

testing. However, these activities are often limited in quality and quantity due in

part to the low demand from women, which results in a limited incentive for women

to adopt e-Government efforts. This negative cycle of constraints presents dual

challenges to the overall supply and demand for e-Government from women.

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2.2.4 Participation and Advocacy for Empowerment

The specific objectives of e-Government vary in each country, although e-

Government is universal in its aim to increase efficiency of government services

and processes, allowing social, political and economic transparency and thus

supporting human development and social justice. The provision of more efficient

services is not enough; nor is reducing the bureaucratic load of public institutions

and designing a new architecture for state administrative processes (Betancourt,

2006). The true potential of e-Government lies in changing the paradigm of

participation and representation, and ultimately, transforming the relationship

between the government and its citizens.

Creating a mechanism for the participation for women in e-Government innovation

represents a significant opportunity to addressing the deep socio-economic

inequalities women face. However, with myriad obstacles including access,

capacity, and contents and services, this potential is yet to be realized. Most e-

Government applications are recent developments, so we expect that many

developing countries are focused on deploying e-Governance strategies at a general

level, and not yet addressing the specific needs of marginalized groups including the

women. In summary, the potential of women’s online participation to transform the

offline reality has not bloomed.

The following section provides an illustrative model that displays different aspects

to consider when developing e-Government efforts that support gender equality, and

presents a Toolkit Framework which can be tailored for use by other countries to

assess their level of e-Government readiness and commitment to gender equality

through e-Government.

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3. Measuring the e-Government Environment

3.1 e-Government for Gender Equality: Analysis

Framework

This research adapts the ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit as a main

analysis framework to explore the capacity and commitment of e-Government

programmes to promote gender equality (ITU, 2009). As e-Government efforts to

improve gender equality are relatively new in many developing countries in the

Asia and Pacific region, adopting and culturally contextualizing an established

toolkit may increase the usefulness and adoption of the toolkit, as it is founded on

well-researched indicators, case studies and other useful resources.

The ITU e-Government Implementation Toolkit was originally developed to

measure the readiness of a national e-Government environment without a particular

concern to a gender perspective. It uses the four dimensions already mentioned to

understand different aspects of e-Government readiness including Outreach,

Governance, Policy and Infrastructure (ITU, 2009). Each dimension is composed of

a series of sub-indices and toolkit modules as shown in the figure below. Overall,

the toolkit provides a composite measure to assess the level of country readiness on

e-Government, making it easier to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses in

each dimension and to identify priority areas for future action.

.

[Figure 3] ITU Data Analysis Framework

Source: ITU (2010)

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For the purpose of this report, the analysis framework from the ITU e-Government

Implementation Toolkit is revised to reflect the four dimensions of women’s needs

in e-Government adoption as discussed in the previous section. The revised Analysis

Framework for e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality as shown in the Table

below aims to help identify a country’s willingness and readiness to integrate

gender equality in e-Government strategies. To this end, we have renamed the four

dimensions to Infrastructure, Gender Development, Outreach, and Policy. The Table

below illustrates the Toolkit Modules that support each of the four dimensions.

Dimensions of

Women’s

e-Government Use

Dimensions of Toolkit Framework

ICT Access Infrastructure General accessibility and use of ICT in the society

ICT Capacity Gender

Development Capacity of women to utilize the e-Government services and information

Services /

Contents

Service

Outreach

Availability of relevant e-Government

services / online information for women

Participation/

Advocacy Policy

Policy and institutional capacity to provide

an enabling environment for the promotion of e-Government services for women

[Table 4] Analysis Framework for e-Government for Gender Equality

[Figure 4] Toolkit Framework and Data Collection1

1 Demand side of Outreach dimension was not included in the Framework. More details can be found

under the 3.4.1.

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The Figure above summarizes the data analysis framework for Toolkit Framework

and indicates individual variables that support each dimension, and the weight of

each variable in the overall assessment.

The data for the Toolkit Framework is designed to pull from three major data

sources. Data for the dimensions of Infrastructure and Gender Development comes

from existing indices available from major international organizations and research

institutes, including the ICT Development Index (IDI) from the ITU, and the

Human Development Index (HDI) from the UNDP. Data for the Outreach

dimension was sourced from a Web Measurement Analysis conducted on the

websites of official government sites of government agencies concerned with

gender equality, such as a Ministry of Women. Third, the data to support the Policy

dimension was collected by a survey of country experts who spoke to the perceived

effectiveness of gender development policies at the national level.

Further details on data collection for the four dimensions are discussed below.

3.2 Infrastructure: Indicators of Women’s Access

This dimension mainly concerns the general physical connectivity of e-Government

services. Even though it would be ideal to utilize gender-disaggregated data for the

purpose of this study, the lack of such comparable data availability significantly

limits this possibility.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 72 countries out of

192 ITU's total membership countries havecollected ICT use data through official

surveys from 2010 forward. 34 developing countries have collected ICT use data

between 2008 and 2010; most of these countries collect data disaggregated by

gender (ITU, 2010). However, the dataset available does not fully reveal the

different dimensions of the gender divide in ICT access and use between countries

with sufficient details.2

Due to this limitation, the Infrastructure dimension data adopts the non-gender-

2 AL-Rababah and Abu-Shanab suggest the gender-ICT data should be placed within the policy

environment, with historical information, the policy context, comparative information from other

jurisdictions and community-based information and studies, where appropriate (AL-Rababah & Abu-

Shanab, 2010). Such lack of data availability leads to the lack of gender analysis in the telecommunication and e-Government policies, resulting from the assumption that men and women

have equal access, capacity and similar needs.

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disaggregated statistics on ICT access and use from the ITU ICT Development

Index (IDI) 2010 as shown in the Table below.

Dimension Variables Measurement Sources

Infrastructure

ICT Access

- Fixed-telephone lines per 100 inhabitants

- Mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants

- International Internet bandwidth (bit/s)

- Percentage households with a computer

- Percentage households with Internet

IDI, 2010

ICT Use

- Percentage individuals using the Internet

- Broadband Internet subscriptions per 100

- Mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100

IDI, 2010

[Table 5] Measurement of Infrastructure Dimension

Source: ITU 2010

3.3 Gender Development: Indicators of Women’s

Capacity

This dimension measures women’s empowerment in each country as a proxy to

assess women’s capacity to use ICT to access e-Government services. These data

have been mainly derived from composite indices from the Global Gender Gap

Index (GGGI) published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Gender

Inequality Index (GII) published by the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP). The table below shows the specific composition of indices used to

measure the gender equality dimension.

Dimension Variables Measurement Sources

Gender

Equality

Economic

Participation - Labor force Participation rate

- Wage equality GII, 2010

Education Attainment

- Primary/secondary education for women

- Tertiary education for women

- Women’s literacy rate

GII, 2010

Political

Empowerment

- Women’s freedom of movement

- Seats in parliament

- Women in ministerial positions

GII, 2010 GGGI,

2010

[Table 6] Measurement of Gender Development Dimension

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3.4 Outreach: Measurement on Service and Content for

Women

3.4.1 Measuring the Outreach of e-Government for Women

The Outreach dimension refers to the status of the e-Government services offered

by a government and its administration (ITU, 2009). It can be further divided into

two aspects: the supply side, which refers to the country government’s supply of

outreach activities to promote gender equality and; the demand side which refers to

the patterns of usage of such supply of e-Government services.

For this study, the supply side of Outreach dimension has been further

operationalized to discuss the extent to which ICT supports national gender equality

agendas. This is determined by looking at the relevant information and

products/services that the national government provides to women3. Adopted from

the UN e-Government Development Index4, these dimensions have been measured

by analyzing the web content of national government gender equity offices and

programmes. The analysis examines the type and scope of e-Government services

for women, the effectiveness of the provision of content and services reflecting

women’s needs and interests, and the provision of opportunities for women to

participate in policy making process. However, due to the lack of data availability

and standardization across countries, we have not included demand-side services in

the calculation of the Toolkit Framework.5

3.4.2 Methodology: Web Measurement Analysis

As discussed, this research adopted the Web Measurement Analysis methodology

from the UN e-Government Development Survey to conduct an assessment of the

3 Regarding the importance of ICT to support national machineries for gender equality, refer to “ICT

and Gender Equality: New opportunities and challenges for public administration to implement

internationally agreed development goals including MDGs” (United Nations, 2010). Even though the official titles of such machinery differ from country to country, this report will use “Ministry of

Gender” as a general term indicating the central machinery of gender equality in country. 4 UNDESA’s “UN E-Government Survey Web Measure Index” presents data collected from the

assessment of online government services offered through the websites of the Ministries/Departments of Health, Education, Social Welfare, Labor and Finance. 5 Out of the six countries surveyed, data for this dimension was available only from Korea and

partially from Malaysia. Due to the differences in their data collection level, a meaningful international

comparison of these statistics was not possible. For future application of the framework, this dimension may address the actual usage data of the e-Government services including but not limited to

the number of site visits, page views, visitor profiles and feedbacks received.

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Ministry of Gender websites from six selected countries in the Asia and Pacific

including Bangladesh, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.6 The

Table below outlines the criteria used to evaluate the four categories.

Aspect No. Criteria

Information

dissemination/

Outreach

(Emerging State)

1 Existence of ministerial websites pertaining to gender equality or any

institute performing equivalent functions

2 Existence of an effective and useful portal for women

3 Existence of an e-Government section under the ministry website

4 Sources of archived information

5 News and/or updates on government policies relating to women

6 Access to back-office applications

7 Information concerning government officials responsible

Entre409

8

Personal accounts/profiles of women, with the objective of enhancing

dialogue between government and women

9 Information /contents

10 Information for citizens/women on how to use the website

Access/Usability

(Enhanced Stage)

1 Search feature

2 “Contact us” feature

3 Audio and video features

4 Multiple languages available

5 Use of wireless technology to send messages to mobile phones or devices

6 Security (secure link) feature available/indicated

7 Electronic signature feature

8 Online payment by credit, debit, or other card methods

9 E-mail sign-up option, either as a formal list-serv or simply for news

items

10 Existence of features to enable access for people with disabilities

Service Delivery Capability

(Transactional

Stage)

1 Downloadable/printable forms

2 Online forms

3 Job opportunities

4 Online transactions/ services

5 E-mail alerts for e-participation

6 The country analysis was conducted by researchers from the respective countries who are knowledgeable in the gender development issues. Details of the analysis will be provided in the

following section.

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[Figure 5] Stages of Web Measurement

Index

Source: UN e-Government

Development Survey

6 Real Simple Syndication (RSS) use for e-participation

7 Set turnaround time for government to respond to submitted forms

Citizen

participation/

Interconnectedness (Connected Stage)

1 E-participation policy or mission statement

2 Calendar listings of upcoming participatory activities

3 Archived information about past participatory activities

4 Participatory tools to obtain public/women’s opinion

5 Provision for publishing the results of users feedback

6 Archive of responses by government to citizen’s questions

[Table 7] Criteria for the Web Measurement Analysis7

The four different aspects are divided into specific categories by function: 1)

information dissemination, 2) access and usability, 3) service delivery capacity, and

4) citizen participation and interconnectedness. The first category looks at features

that would likely appear on an official gender ministry website. The second

category is concerned with access and usability. The third category addresses the e-

service delivery capacity of the website. The fourth category is concerned about

factors related to citizen participation and interconnectedness.

3.4.3 Evaluation Categories

Overall, the measurement analysis looked

at the ease of use and the usefulness of

contents/services provided through the

Ministry of Gender website. This

evaluation revealed the degree to which

the website serves as an effective e-

Government site for women. The results

of the Web Measurement Analysis have

been categorized according to the four

stages of e-Government development

suggested by the UN e-Government

Development Survey as shown in Figure

5. The result of each individual country

assessment is presented in Section 4.

7 Adopted from the UN E-Government UN E-Government Survey Web Measure Index (2010)

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Box 1.

Characteristics of e-Government Development

(UN e-Gov Survey 2010)

Stage I - Emerging: Government web sites provide information on public policy,

governance, laws, regulations, relevant documentation and government services

provided. They have links to ministries, departments and other branches of

government. Citizens are easily able to obtain information on what is new in the

national government and ministries and have links to archived information.

Stage II - Enhanced: Government web sites deliver enhanced one-way or simple

two-way e-communication between government and citizen, such as

downloadable forms for government services and applications. The sites have

audio and video capabilities and are multi-lingual. This also includes some limited

e-services where citizens can request non-electronic forms and request for

personal information, which will be mailed to their house.

Stage III - Transactional: Government sites engage in two-way communication

with their citizens, including requesting and receiving inputs on government

policies, programmes, regulations, etc. In this stage, transactions require some

form of electronic authentication of the citizen’s identity to successfully complete

the exchange.

Stage IV - Connected: Government sites have changed the way to communicate

with their citizens, and they are proactive in requesting information and opinions

from the citizens using web 2.0 and other interactive tools. The e-services and e-

solutions that are available cut across the departments and ministries in a

seamless manner. Information, data and knowledge is transferred from

government agencies through integrated applications.

Excerpted from UN e-Government Survey Homepage at

http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/egovernment_resources/Spotlights_2010.html

http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/egovernment_resources/Spotlights_2010.html

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3.5 Policy: Measurement of Advocacy and Participation

for Women

3.5.1 Measuring perceived effectiveness of e-Government policy

The Policy dimension addresses the perceived effectiveness of a country’s e-

Government policies on gender equality in terms of integrating gender concerns into

public administration and improving the overall gender equality in the society

through participatory measures. It also measures the extent to which current

national e-Government initiatives reflect gender concerns in their service design and

provision. Additionally, this dimension gauges the perceived readiness of

institutional capacity -- such as the ICT competitiveness of its human resources,

commitment from top leaders, as well as the degree to which the mission is shared

among the Ministry staff.

3.5.2 Methodology: Policy Survey

The perception of policy effectiveness and institutional readiness was measured five

ways, including: 1) scoring the goals and perceived effectiveness of e-Government

policies; 2) e-Government’s stated impact on gender equality; 3) visual or

conceptual obstacles to women’s use of e-Government services; 4) gender policy

priorities and; 5) activities promoted by the Ministry of Gender websites. The

formation of survey questions reflected the challenges and opportunities discussed

in the Section 2, and integrated past research about gender equality in the public

sector and the general use of ICT by women. The table below outlines the survey

questions.

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Section No. Content

Policy Goals of

current

e-Government

policies

1 ICT access

2 ICT capacity building

3 Linkage to e-Government

4 Women's equal access to government services

5 e-participation

6 Networking building

7 Online service development

8 Gender advocacy

9 Monitoring of gender impact

Perception of

effectiveness of

current

e-Government

policies for women :

Effectiveness

1 ICT access

2 ICT capacity building

3 Linkages with e-Government

4 Women's equal access to government services

5 e-participation

6 Networking building

7 Online service development

8 Gender advocacy

9 Monitoring gender impact

Impact of

e-Government to

promote gender

equality

1 Overall contribution to gender equality in public sector

2 Improved women's access to government services

3 Delivery of online social services for women

4 Strengthened the service quality of Ministry of Gender

5 Promoted women's participation in political process

6 Supported women parliamentarians

Obstacles to

women’s use of

e-Government

1 Socio-cultural factors

2 Rural and urban divide

3 Income inequality between women and men

4 Lack of language support

5 Lack of content relevancy

6 Different gender patterns of technology use

7 Attitudes of women towards technology

8 Lack of gender analysis in the telecom industry

9 Lack of gender framework in public administration

Policy priorities

1 Identify women's e-Government service needs

2 Design online public services reflecting women's needs

3 Improve delivery of e-Government services for women

4 Develop institutional/ staff capacity

5 Build a stronger alliance with national e-Government strategy

6 Monitor gender impacts of e-Government services

[Table 8] Organization of Survey

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3.5.3 Responses

The data were collected via online survey sent to 722 experts with sufficient

knowledge in the current gender and ICT development in their respective countries

from thirty six Asian and Pacific region countries8. Recipients received an initial

email and up to two reminder emails depending on their completion status. If

available, the research team called experts to remind them about survey completion.

The research team set the threshold response rate at 25 percent for each country, and

excluded countries from the final analysis based on a response rate below this

threshold. Six countries surpassed this threshold and were included in the research.

The six countries finally selected -- Bangladesh, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,

Philippines, and Viet Nam – accounted for 38 percent of the overall response rate.

Country Total Sent Total Received Response Rate

Bangladesh 22 8 36%

Indonesia 68 28 41%

Korea 56 24 43%

Malaysia 48 14 29%

Philippines 55 25 45%

Viet Nam 40 22 55%

Total 322 121 38%

[Table 9] Policy Survey Response Rates

Due to variability of response rates per country, the results are insufficient to

establish generalizable conclusions at regional level, although country-specific

analysis was conducted. In addition, different types of experts responded in each

country. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, participants from the government accounted

to the majority while in Korea and Viet Nam, representation from the academia

formed the majority. In Malaysia and the Philippines, the majority of respondents

had affiliation with civil society organizations.

8 The pool of 722 survey recipients was identified in a variety of ways. The research team tapped into

1) the existing network of gender and ICT experts maintained by the Asia Pacific Women’s

Information Network Center where the principal researcher of this report serves as the Executive

Director, 2) gender and ICT focal points from ASEAN and APEC, and 3) direct contacts to the Ministry of Gender in other Asia Pacific countries where adequate quantity and quality of respondent

pool was not established from the use of the first two methods.

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[Figure 6] Policy Survey Respondents Category

3.5.4 Limitations and Verification of the Toolkit Framework

Due to the limitations of the methodologies used, as well as regional differences, the

Toolkit Framework on e-Government for Gender Equality cannot claim definite

conclusions. Despite the limitations, the formation of this assessment and policy

tool with its targeted advice and action plan may serve as a starting point for future

research in gender-sensitive e-Government research.

In the following section, the data collected from the six countries and analyzed with

the Toolkit Framework are discussed in detail to examine important implications for

policy recommendations. Additionally, the analysis section serves as a pilot

assessment to evaluate the feasibility and validity of using the Toolkit Framework in

a broader context.

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4. Country Analysis

This section provides an analysis of six country cases including Bangladesh,

Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Viet Nam. Adapting the Analysis

Framework for e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality discussed in Chapter

2, each country-based case study examines the overall climate of e-Government

strategies and their focus on gender equality, as determined by the four dimensions

(ICT access, gender empowerment, e-Government service outreach for women, and

the availability of participation and advocacy measures via policies). Each country

case is structured in four parts: a brief description of the country’s ICT

infrastructure as measured by key international indicators, a discussion of the status

of women, the web measurement analysis of the national official gender websites,

and the results of the subsequent policy survey conducted with in-country experts to

determine the perceived effectiveness and contribution of e-Government

programmes that promote gender equality.

4.1 Bangladesh

Overall, Bangladesh displays a comparatively low level of readiness in terms of

gender equality programmes delivered through e-government efforts. Though

Bangladesh scored below the mean of the six countries across the four dimensions,

the infrastructure and outreach dimensions warrant further study and improvement

over the others.

[Figure 7] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Bangladesh

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ICT Infrastructure

The country’s ICT infrastructure is among the lowest in the world. According to the

IDI 2011, Bangladesh is part of the low-development group, ranked 137th out of 152

countries. The percentage of individuals who use the Internet is 3.7%. The

percentage of active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 0.2%9.

The governing agency of ICT in Bangladesh is the Ministry of Science and

Information and Communication Technology (MOSICT). Notably, the National

Information and Communications Technology Policy (2002) has outlined a number

of measures for the introduction of ICT education in public and private universities,

teacher training in ICTs, the deployment of virtual ICT teachers and web-based

services (Tandon, 2006).

Source Indicators Score Rank

IDI 2011*

Overall 1.52 137

ICT Access 1.91 130

ICT Use 0.13 140

UN

e-Government

Index 2010**

Overall 0.3028 134

e-Readiness 0.3028

Web Measurement 0.3556

e-Participation 0.1000 102

[Table 10 ] Bangladesh: Key ICT Indicators10

Gender Development

According to the 2010 Gender Inequality Index (GII), which is part of the UNDP

Human Development Index (HDI), Bangladesh is ranked 112th out of 187 countries.

This score is relatively high considering that the overall HDI rank of the country is

146th, but the value nevertheless places Bangladesh among the low development

group.

The national mechanism of gender equality in Bangladesh is the Ministry of Women

and Child Affairs (MOWCA). MOWCA was established in 1978 to fulfill

government commitments toward women’s development. In the same year, the

9 ITU IDI 2011 index 10 The rank in the IDI 2011 is out of 152 countries. The rank in the UN e-Government Index 2010 is

out of 192 countries.

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[Figure 8] MOCWA Website

country-wide development plan recognized the unique needs of women and

provided gender-disaggregated allocation programmes. The main goals of MOWCA

to promote gender equality are four-fold:

• Undertake a social audit and analysis to determine the poverty status of

women in all sectors and in rural and urban settings.

• Reinforce the mechanism to implement laws affecting women to encourage

women’s full and equal participation to social activities.

• Advocate for implementation and allocation of resources for Gender

Equality Strategy and Maternal Health Strategy within the Health, Nutrition

and Population Sector Programme (HNPSP).

• Creating effective safety-net programmes for distressed and vulnerable

women and children through social protection programmes

Outreach: Web Measurement Survey

Overall, the analysis of the MOWCA website revealed that e-Government content

and services targeted towards women in Bangladesh remains at the emerging

level.11

As shown in the Figure below, the website

is structured in four categories: News and

Updates, Ministry Information, Policy

Archives and Feedback. However, beyond

simple information dissemination, the

website does not offer basic search

features and does not support interactive

communication. Under a separate feedback

section, citizens can electronically submit

an online form to the Ministry on general

topics, but the feature supports only text

submissions and citizens can not directly

contact officials responsible for a specific

programme or project under the Ministry.

The site offers one text-based service that

lists of job opportunities; however, the

information is not up-to-date. .

11 http://www.mowca.gov.bd

http://www.mowca.gov.bd/

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[Figure 9] Bangladesh: Web Measurement Analysis

Policy: Expert Survey

The result of the policy survey from experts in Bangladesh revealed that basic ICT

capacity building and provision of ICT access should be the key to government’s

effort to promote e-Government services to women. The experts also believed that

overall, the presence of MOCWA website as a focal point of women-specific

information services contributed to increased gender equality in public service, but

did not contribute to increasing opportunities for women to be involved in public

participation.

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[Figure 10] Bangladesh: Current e-Government Policies for Women

To the question regarding the policy goals of e-Government for women, all of the

responding experts replied that the enhancement of women’s ICT capacity and

access to ICT are very critical (Figure 10). Such unanimous result is notable as it

shows that the experts from Bangladesh place a strong emphasis on the strategic use

of ICTs to promote women’s inclusion in the knowledge-based society.

The experts identified interagency monitoring of gender as a key aspect in

promoting gender equality in public affairs. Interestingly, the MOWCA website

provides, in text-only format, achievement reports of a number of different agency

programmes containing quantifiable gender-based outcome statistics. Overall,

experts ranked e-Government participation and advocacy as least important,

indicating that the key e-Government strategy for women should be in providing

expanded access and capacity building for women.

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[Figure 11] Bangladesh: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

When asked to identify the top two policy priorities, respondents from Bangladesh

identified the importance of needs assessment and service delivery (Figure 12). One

reason for these selections is that Bangladesh is at the initial stage of the national

ICT promotion and e-Government development, and policy priorities are commonly

clustered around the needs assessment and service development. The selection of

the two tasks, usually conducted at the beginning stages of a policy cycle, echoes

with some of the recommendations suggested by the survey participants that “e-

Government should be a means to an end” and “ICT can help delivering the

programmes to more women.”

[Figure 12] Bangladesh: Top Two Policy Priorities

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Participants were asked to rate the effectiveness of the MOCWA website in

disseminating relevant information to women and extending the outreach of the

Ministry’s activities (Figure 13). The review was generally positive, reflecting the

belief that the site is useful for improving gender equality in public sector. However,

the data revealed two areas where the experts thought the website fell short of

expectations -- interactive engagement with women through participatory measures,

and monitoring and evaluation of women’s online usage.

[Figure 13] Bangladesh: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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4.2 The Philippines

The Country profile of the Philippines displays relatively high competency in the

area of gender development and policy, but scores lower in ICT infrastructure and

service outreach.

[Figure 14] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Philippines

ICT Infrastructure

ICT development in the Philippines is in the medium country level, according to the

IDI 2011. The country is ranked at the 92th out of a total of 152 countries. The

percentage of individuals over 25 using the Internet was 25% of the total population

in 2010. The broadband Internet subscription rate per 100 inhabitants was 1.8

whereas active mobile-broadband subscription per 100 inhabitants was 16.6 12 .

Considering the geographic constraints of this archipelago country, infrastructure

readiness remains the weakest link of the overall ICT development, as the ICT

access sub-index of the Philippines is 101th, one of the lowest in the medium

development group countries in the IDI.

However, other aspects of ICT and e-Government development in the Philippines

exhibit a strong upward trend in recent years, as exhibited in Table below. Even

though such index cannot capture the entire picture of the ICT usage in population,

12 ITU IDI 2011 index

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it gives a strong indication of governmental effort to promote ICT for public service

initiatives. The Information Communication Technology Office (ICTO) is the

central body governing the ICT development in the country.13


IDI 2011*

Overall 3.22 92

ICT Access 3.14 101

ICT Use 1.49 83

UN e-Government

Index 2010**

Overall 0.4637 78

e-Readiness 0.4637



[Table 11] The Philippines: Key ICT Indicators

Gender Development

The Philippines is one of the most gender-equal societies in the Asia and Pacific

region, with high index scores across economic, education, health and political

indicators. The GGGI of the Philippines in 2011 was 0.769, which ranked the

country 8th among 135 countries. More specifically, the country has the highest

GGGI score among the 33 lower-middle income countries. In particular, the country

has a reputation for strong representation of women in managerial and leadership

positions, especially in the public sector. However, the Gender Gap sub-indexes

display that the weakest link in the country’s overall strong performance in gender

equality is the women’s labor force participation rate, which has been decreasing in

recent years and is currently ranked at the 94th place in GGGI 2011.

The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) is the government agency that

serves as the national entity for the promotion of gender empowerment and

women’s rights. PCW was established in 1975 by a Presidential Decree, and is

responsible for planning, implementing and assessing the National Plan for Women

as well as providing cross-agency monitoring of gender-responsiveness.14 In 2009,

the Magna Carta of Women was signed by the President. It presents comprehensive

13 The shaping of ICTO as a new body of ICT coordination has occurred very recently, with a change

in its legal status from formerly as a presidential commission to a standing committee under the Department of Science and Technology (DoST). 14 http://pcw.gov.ph/

http://pcw.gov.ph/

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[Figure 15] PWC Website

women’s human rights laws that aim to eliminate discrimination against women.

The bill emphasizes women’s inclusion in society, women’s rights to information

and participation. This climate may help promote e-Government services that

support gender equality.15

The major functions of the PCM are as follows:

• Track gender responsiveness of national development plans and coordinate

the preparation, assessment and updating of the National Plan for Women,

ensure its implementation and monitor the performance of government

agencies in the implementation of the Plan at all levels.

• Undertake continuing advocacy to promote economic, social and political

empowerment of women and provide technical assistance in the

deployment and strengthening of mechanisms on gender mainstreaming.

• Ensure that the gains achieved by Filipino women due to Philippine culture

and tradition shall be preserved and enhanced in the process of

modernization.

Outreach: Web Measurement Analysis

The PCW website is an example of a site

at the Enhanced Stage of e-Government

development. It offers enhanced one-way

and simple two-way online

communications for citizens. The website,

which serves as the “Gateway to Gender

Development in the Philippines,”

provides information on women-related

policy, governance, laws and regulations,

and relevant documents. Citizens can

view and download relevant programme

documentations with relatively ease. The

website also provides a search feature to

help users retrieve relevant information,

adding to the overall usability and

accessibility of the website. Another user-

friendly feature e includes the FAQ menu to help with troubleshooting.

15 Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women Act of 2009

http://pcw.gov.ph/index.php/magna-carta-of-women

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The website provides job and bidding opportunities, where users can view

vacancies and bidding invitations, send the posting to their personal email, obtain

contact information for the hiring manager, and download application forms. Users

can also share posting via the social networking service Facebook.

However, the website is limited in its interactive features. Users cannot submit

forms online or register to receive automatic updates on PCW activities. Currently,

the features that allow a minimum level of two-way communication are the

“Contact Us” form, a simple electronic form to send text-based messages to the

webmaster and a link to Facebook where users can share links and add comments.

[Figure 16] The Philippines: Web Measurement Analysis

Considering the strong gender development track record of the country as well as

the variety of programme information on the site, , the PCW website seems ready to

move towards the next level of e-Government development by furthering efforts to

strengthen “transaction” and “interaction” with citizens and other organizations.

This may include developing specialized public services and content-, e-learning

options, and electronic form submission systems. In addition to service delivery,

the PCW homepage could better serve as a central platform for all gender related

issues. Two-way communication functionality such as forums, email alerts, and

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discussion boards are essential to provide a formal but open space for citizens’

participation.

The PCW website is not linked with other government agency websites. It would be

advantageous to users to create these linkages so that PCW can share content with

other agencies and monitor gender equality integration on other sites. This could be

an essential part of the PCW’s work as the central body responsible for the gender-

responsiveness of public policies in the Philippines.


The result of the policy survey in the Philippines revealed that the experts perceive

the national e-Government strategy for gender equality is effective and contributes

to women’s participation in political and democratic process. While the level of e-

Government sophistication still remains at the bottom second phase of the Web

Measurement Index, the largely positive responses from the experts may come from

the strength of the Philippines’ gender development policy development and

implementation records itself, rather than the advancement of electronic delivery

measures represented by the e-Government per se.

[Figure 17] The Philippines: Current e-Government Policies for Women

Experts identified a variety of e-Government and gender topics as equally important,

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from improving basic ICT access and capacity building for women to monitoring

and advocating for gender-sensitive public service and participation. The experts

highlighted “building women’s online communities and networks” as an important

goal of e-Government policy (Figure 17).

[Figure 18] The Philippines: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

In general, respondents valued the effectiveness of e-Government provisions very

highly (Figure 14). Particularly, the respondents stated confidence in the system’s

contribution in promoting women’s participation in political and government

service, as well as providing information on women-related government services.

The PCW website currently does not provide extensive participatory “online”

features and thus the positive results may reflect the country’s underlying emphasis

on gender equality and participation in civil service rather than a simple review of

the PCW site. Under this context where gender concerns are first addressed by a

strong network of local civil society organizations, it may be less critical to upgrade

the PCW website. As revealed in the Web Measurement Analysis, the PCW website

provides an extensive list of partnering NGOs with which PCW jointly shapes

policies and programmes for gender development. Combined with the fact that the

survey participants chose “building women’s online networks” as an important goal

of the e-Government provision, the survey sheds light to an alternative model of e-

Government development for women that utilizes the networking aspects of ICT to

promote participation and improve service delivery.16

16 This aspect will be discussed further in the Section 4.

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[Figure 19] The Philippines: Top Two Policy Priorities

The survey respondents replied that institutional and human resources readiness

should be the top two policy priorities for gender-sensitive e-Government strategies.

They stated that this is critical both within and across PCW and other government

agencies (Figure 20). One of the respondents mentioned that the ICT capacity of

programme managers should be improved to facilitate better design and delivery of

online services for women. Considering that the e-Government development in the

Philippines has been vigorously pushed forward by the government, more seamless

interconnectedness of inter-agency e-Government services may further facilitate the

efforts for effective system integration as well as wholesale gender development.

[Figure 20] The Philippines: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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4.3 Malaysia

The Framework Analysis of Malaysia demonstrates that the country supports strong

service outreach efforts geared towards providing gender-specific online services to

women. The country also shows above-average readiness in terms of the ICT access

(infrastructure), overall gender development and policy and institutional

competitiveness as shown below.

[Figure 21] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Malaysia

ICT Infrastructure

ICT infrastructure in Malaysia has exhibited a significant advancement in recent

years, and is currently ranked at 58th in the IDI index with the score of 4.45. In 2010,

the percentage of individuals using internet was 55.3%. Broadband internet

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 7.3 and the active mobile-broadband

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 27.2%17.

17 ITU IDI 2010

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IDI 2011

Overall 4.45 58

ICT Access 4.70 65

ICT Use 3.15 50

UN

e-Government Index 2010

Overall 0.6101 32

e-Readiness 0.3028



[Table 12] Malaysia: Key ICT Indicators

Notably, the government of Malaysia collects basic sets of gender-disaggregated

ICT data. According to the Household Internet Survey conducted by the SKMM of

Malaysia in 2009, 51.3% internet users were male and 48.7% were female. The

percentage use of cellular phone in 2007 was 56.4% male and 43.6% female

(SKMM, 2008). The number of internet users in the household has increased from

2.26 per 100 inhabitants in 2008 to 2.75 in 2009 (SKMM, 2008).

[Figure 22] Malaysia: Household use of Internet by Gender

Malaysia was ranked 31st in the e-Government development Index 2011, which

places it in the high development group of 192 total countries. The Malaysian

government’s strong drive to promote ICT is evident from closer examination of

NRI; the scores for the government’s readiness, use and promotion of ICT are

among the top 15. However, gender-based usage of e-Government data is not

available at the national level. As a proxy, according to household use of the Internet

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in 2008, Malaysian Internet users count information acquisition as the most

important purpose (94.4%) ,and an increasing number of users engage in e-

Government transactions (19.8%) (SKMM, 2008).

Currently, the Malaysian government is actively promoting the online services

through the official government portal.18The portal includes an e-transaction center

where individuals can access online services and download forms required to

interact with various government agencies and local authorities. There are

approximately 1,000 forms available for download. The portal also has “quick links”

to the government directory, government tenders, job vacancies, laws and policies,

weather information, as well as a place for public complaints, feedback and inquiry,

and immigration and customs service feedback.19

Another notable policy is the ICT Policy for the Ministry of Women, Family and

Communication Development (MWFCD) of Malaysia. The Policy, enacted in 2007

by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) of

Malaysia, sets ICT guidelines and programmes for the MWFCD to develop the ICT

capacity of its staff and to improve service efficiency. The Policy has three

components: the ICT Public Policy, the Equipment Policy and the Security policy.

The policy serves as a means to encourage institutions to actively promote e-

Government initiatives.20

Gender Development

Malaysia was ranked 97th out of 135 countries in the 2011GGGI report, with an

overall score of 0.653. Among its upper-middle income peer group countries, the

country’s gender equality score from the GGGI is lower than the average. It falls in

the lower 25% quintile.

The national organizational mechanism for gender equality in Malaysia is the

MWFCD. Following the Beijing Declaration in 1995, efforts to establish a cabinet-

level body to elevate the status of women led to the establishment of the MWFCD

on January 17, 2001. Among the four departments under the Ministry, the

Department for Women’s Development serves as the main hub for women’s

development, with its mission to integrate the needs of women into the mainstream

18 Malaysian National e-Government Portal at www.gov.my 19 Data provided by county focal point for this report. 20 For details, see http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/documents/10156/57314f9d-6c79-452f-9164-

699c7e87134f

http://www.gov.my/

http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/documents/10156/57314f9d-6c79-452f-9164-699c7e87134f

http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/documents/10156/57314f9d-6c79-452f-9164-699c7e87134f

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[Figure 23] MWFCD Website

and strengthen the family institution for increased social welfare. In particular, the

Ministry has the following objectives: 21

• Increase the participation and active role of women, families and

communities as contributors and beneficiaries of development.

• Preserve the rights of women, families and communities with fair and

equitable treatment

• Extend equal opportunities to women and society in social, economic and

political arenas

• Strengthen the family institution.


The results of the MWFCD Web Measurement Analysis show that it has currently

reached at the Enhanced Stage, and is in transition towards the Transactional level

development.

Even though there is not yet a

standalone e-Government portal for

women, the MWFCD website provides

a number of online content and services

tailored to the needs of women.22 The

website is organized into five main

categories, including News and Updates,

Policy Archives, Ministry Information,

Services and Citizen Participation. The

first three categories focus on

information dissemination and outreach,

outlining the core work areas of the

Ministry. It provides documentation,

multimedia features, statistics about

women and children’s development and

information about the Ministry’s

organizational structure. Under the Service category, the MWFCD website offers a

number of links to information where citizens can directly receive online-based

services including e-learning courses on reproductive health and online forms for

21 Ministry website http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/ 22 http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/

http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/

http://www.kpwkm.gov.my/

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financial assistance. The services provided include programmes for women’s

economic participation, education, health, social inclusion child care. Additionally,

usage statistics of such services are also available through a separate Transaction

Statistics page.

[Figure 24] Malaysia: Web Measurement Analysis

However, in order to transition from the third for the fourth and top phase of e-

Government development, the MWFCD website would need to increase its

capabilities to support seamless citizen engagement between the MWFCD website

and the national e-Government portal23. There is no significant integration at this

point. Such a low level of insitutional connectedness may be due to the nascent

nature of the site, and the site does feature citizen feedback and inetragiotn with

social networkign services like Facebook and Twitter.


The result of the policy survey showed an overall positive perception of e-

Government as a mechanism of women’s empowerment.

23 www.gov.my

http://www.gov.my/

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[Figure 25] Malaysia: Current Government Policies for Women

In particular, the respondents considered ICT diffusion a key goal of e-Government

promotion for women (Figure 25). More than 70% of respondents identified that the

enhancement of women’s ICT capacity and access should be a top policy goal,

compared to the relatively low level of importance placed on the policy integration,

application development, and policy monitoring (29%). As noted, the access to

technology, combined with the capacity to utilize the technology forms a multi-

faceted challenge of women’s ICT access. Considering that the ICT access serves

as a basic requirement of women’s e-Government usages, such emphasis put on the

ICT diffusion resonates with the overall policy priority in Malaysia.

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[Figure 26] Malaysia: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

When asked to determine the two most pressing policy priorities to promote e-

Government for women, the greatest number of respondents stated that it was

essential to identify women’s ICT and e-Government service needs (Figure 27). In

this case, where the level of e-Government for women is near the transaction level,

this result may indicate a key need for policy development. Another notable result is

the respondents’ desire (43%) for the site to offer stronger linkage with other

national e-Government strategies, and to provide a seamless, integrated service for

its citizens.

[Figure 27] Malaysia: Top Two Policy Priorities

The majority of experts responded that the MWFCD website has contributed to

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enhance gender equality in the public sector, particularly through the delivery of

online social services and dissemination of information on government policies and

programmes (Figure 28). Notably, the Ministry provides a variety of online-based

services and content for women in reproductive health and social safety online. The

respondents from Malaysia valued the role of ICT in improved information delivery

and outreach, but they did not rank participatory engagement features very highly,

implying a perceived low level of effectiveness in this area.

[Figure 28] Malaysia: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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4.4 Korea

Overall, the Framework Analysis of Korea shows that Korea is actively pursuing e-

Government service provision for women, as the country scores high on all four

dimensions, particularly in ICT infrastructure. The Outreach and Policy dimensions

are well above the average of six countries sampled in this report.

[Figure 29] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Korea

ICT Infrastructure

Korea was ranked at 1st in the 2011 IDI 2011, with a score of 8.40. ICT use, one of

the sub-indexes, is by far the highest as well, although the score for ICT access is

lower -- 10th place out of the 152 countries. The percentage of individuals using

Internet was 83.7% and the broadband internet subscription per 100 inhabitants was

36.6 while active mobile broadband subscription per 100 inhabitants was 91.24 The

Korean government is committed to supporting e-Government initiatives, which

explains way the country is at the top of the 2010 e-Government Index.


IDI 2011

Overall 8.40 1

ICT Access

(Infrastructure) 8.21 10

ICT Use 7.85 1

24 ITU IDI 2011

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Overall 0.8785 1

e-Readiness 0.3028



[Table 13] Korea: Key ICT Indicators

ICT development in Korea has been driven by a series of comprehensive

development policies under the 1996 National Informatization Plan, which focused

on achieving such strategic priorities as information infrastructure development

(1996-2000), broadening of domestic ICT demand via education and creation of

employment opportunity in ICT (1999-2002), e-Government development (2003-

2007), and currently, ubiquitous infrastructure development (2008-2012).25

As part of the Basic National Informatization Plan and Telecommunications

Framework Act, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) has a set of

strategic goals designed to further increase efficiency and effectiveness of e-

Government by following the national Enterprise Architecture (EA) plan.

According to the statistics from KCC and NIPA in 2010, the ratio of male to female

internet users above 3 years old was 53.6% and 46.4%. 72% of women population

used the Internet while 28% were non-users. 83% of men were Internet users while

17% were not. Regarding the gendered-use of ICT, men and women in Korea had

different patterns of the Internet use. While both genders used the Internet primarily

for information acquisition (91.8% and 91.5%), men tend to use more e-

Government services (20.5%) while the percentage of women using e-Government

services was only 13.3% (KCC & NIPA, 2010)

Gender Development

Korea is ranked 107 out of 135 countries in the Global Gender Gap index from

2011, which places the country at the lower bottom of the pyramid. There are

significant gaps in men and women’s economic participation and pronounced wage

inequality.

The national center for gender equality in Korea is the MOGEF (spell out). The

Ministry was established as part of the Presidential Commission on Women’s

25 NIPA http://www.nipa.kr/main.it

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[Figure 30] MOGEF Website

Affairs in 1997, following the enactment of the Gender Discrimination Prevention

and Relief Act. Since its inception, MOGEF has served as a central planning and

coordination body for women’s policies across the government.

The MOGEF has the following objectives:

• Planning and coordination of women's Policy, and enhancement of

women's position including the promotion of women's rights

• Establishment, conciliation, and support for family and multicultural family

policy, and children related duties for healthy family business

• Fostering, welfare and protection of youth

• Prevention and protection of women, children and youth against violence


In terms of the supply side of the e-Government services for women, the result of

the web measurement analysis indicates that Korean initiatives are at the Connected

Stage. The MOGEF website serves as a platform through which women can access

to various e-Government services and contents specifically targeted for women’s

information needs, public service requirements and participatory channels.

Overall, the website is structured by six

different categories, including 1) electronic

petitions, 2) citizen participation, 3) news

and updates, 4) policy and laws archive, 5)

major areas of MOGEF works, and 6)

overview of the MOGEF.

Notable features from an accessibility and

usability perspective includes a mobile

version of website that supports the growing

number of smart phone users in the country.

From the service delivery perspective,

MOGEF website has developed several

online-only features that can significantly

increase public service provisions for women.

For instance, on the separate web service

homepage “Women Net,” there is expert consulting in four major areas: 1) women’s

labor issues, 2) career issues, 3) family law issues, and 4) real-time consulting

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offered 24/7 via online chat to discuss urgent domestic violence, sexual harassment

and other relevant issues. In addition, it provides free e-learning courses on ICT,

business, foreign languages and entrepreneurship development to build women’s

capacity.26

[Figure 31] Korea: Web Measurement Analysis

From a citizen participation and interconnectedness perspective, the MOGEF

website is well-integrated with the other national e-Government portals. For

instance, the MOGEF website provides an embedded form that is connected to the

central Government for Citizens (G4C), so that proposals and petitions pertaining to

the work areas of MOGEF can be electronically filed and submitted either via the

national G4C web portal or the MOGEF website.

Overall, the result of Web Measurement Analysis in Korea indicates two interesting

findings. First, the generally high score given to gender-related services and content,

26 According the user statistics, the number of registered users of the site has showed a dramatic

increase over the years, 42,000 in 2002 to almost 500,000 in 2010. Number of visitors also leaped

from 420,000 in 2002 to almost 2,000,000. More than 80% of the registered users are women in the 20s to 40s, who tend to use free e-learning courses and career mentoring services, exhibiting their

needs for career and skills development to increase social and economic participation.

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particularly regarding participation, are possible due to the high level of overall e-

Government presence in the country. Second, the MOGEF website has developed

specialized services for women that can reach its constituencies even more

effectively via online channels than traditional channels of delivery. For instance,

online consulting services that run 24/7 on topics such as domestic violence and

sexual harassments provide secure channels for women to seek expert opinions on

discrete matters. Free cyber-mentoring and e-learning courses to improve women’s

entrepreneurship development and career building also serve to contributing to

achieving gender equality in public service delivery.


[Figure 32] Korea: Current e-Government Policies for Women

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[Figure 33] Korea: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

[Figure 34] Korea: Top Two Policy Priorities

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[Figure 35] Korea: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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4.5 Indonesia

The country profile of Indonesia paints a picture of relatively strong service

outreach efforts compared to its lower level of ICT infrastructure, even though the

scores of four dimensions are below the average of the six countries addressed in

this report.

[Figure 36] e-Government Readiness for Gender Equality - Indonesia

ICT Infrastructure

Indonesia is part of the medium development group according to the IDI, ranked

101th in 2010. The percentage of individuals using the Internet was 9.9% in 2010.

Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 in habitants was 0.79.27 Notably,

Facebook penetration of Indonesia is the second in the world following the United

States as of August 2011, as almost 16% of the population in Indonesia has an

account.28


IDI 2011

Overall 2.83 101

ICT Access

(Infrastructure) 3.13 102

ICT Use 0.69 105

27 ITU IDI 2011 28 http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2011/Material/MIS_2011_without_annex_5.pdf p. 127

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2011/Material/MIS_2011_without_annex_5.pdf

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Overall 0.4026 109

e-Readiness 0.3028



[Table 14] Indonesia: Key ICT Indicators

The National ICT Council, an oversight body for ICT promotion in Indonesia, was

established in 2006 to accelerate ICT growth through policies that would

synchronize the ICT programmes of all government departments, ministries, and

units. The Council has seven flagship programmes: education, procurement, budget,

National Single Window e-Government, national identity number, software

legalization and fiber-optics provision. Additionally, the State Ministry of Research

and Technology serves as a focal point for ICT infrastructure development through

telecommunications and Internet development, development of energy-saving and

low-cost computers, and open source applications.29

In Indonesia, e-Government was officially introduced to public administration by

Presidential Directive No 6/2001 on Telematics, which states that the government

of Indonesia has to use Telematics technology to support good governance. 30

According to the UN e-Government survey 2010, Indonesia is ranked 109 and is

grouped under the medium development countries designation (UNDESA, 2010).

Gender Development

Indonesia is ranked 90th out of 135 countries in the 2011 GGGI, which places the

country in the middle of its lower-middle income peers. Out of the four aspects

comprising the GGGI, political empowerment for women is ranked higher in the

sub index compared to the other three aspects, including the economic participation

and opportunities, educational attainment and health and survival. The relatively

high score in the political empowerment sub-index is due largely due the presence

of its women political leaders. The Indonesian GGGI scores showed a gradual

downward trend since 2006, dropping 22 places due to falling economic

participation.

The Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (MWECP) was

29 http://web.idrc.ca/openebooks/456-7/#page_201 30 http://www.aseansec.org/13757.htm

http://web.idrc.ca/openebooks/456-7/#page_201

http://www.aseansec.org/13757.htm

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[Figure 37] MWECP Website

established in 1978 to support gender equality and child protection. Its mission for

gender development is to encourage gender-responsive policies to improve the

quality of life and to fulfill development goals. Notably, in 2000, the President

announced the Gender Mainstreaming in National Development initiative, which

stipulates that gender mainstreaming would be implemented in all national policies

and development programmes. The MWECP has spearheaded many programmes

and efforts to raise awareness and promote these values, even introducing a

comprehensive gender equality law to Parliament.

Notably, the MWECP established the “Development Policy on Improvement of

Women’s Lives 2010-2014”, which sets out five priorities including education,

health, economic activities, political participation and society and culture. The

education priority includes activities designed increase the number of women in

science and technology, which includes ICT access and use; the economic activities

priority specifically supports women’s access to capital and technology.31


Overall, the MWECP website serves as a

comprehensive gateway for gender

equality in Indonesia. 32 The Web

Measurement Analysis reveals that the

website has reached the Enhanced Stage

for e-Government provisions, moving

towards the Transactional Stage.

The website is composed of five main

categories including the Ministry

Information, News and Updates, Data and

Information Archive, online services

including an Intranet portal and

Suggestions and Questions. The Ministry

Information section provides information

on the vision, missions, organizational

structure and contact directory of the

Ministry as well as major laws and policies regarding gender empowerment and

31 http://www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/gender/pdf/e10ind.pdf 32 http://www.menegpp.go.id/

http://www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/gender/pdf/e10ind.pdf

http://www.menegpp.go.id/

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child protection. It has a separate news and update section where information about

latest events, publications and project updates are distributed via text-based

messages and multimedia forms. Additionally, in the Data and Information section,

citizens can search the documents catalogue and download relevant data ranging

from Ministry publications and legal documents to project performance reports

from government agencies.

[Figure 38] Indonesia: Web Measurement Analysis

From a usability and accessibility perspective, the website, originally offered in

Bahasa Indonesia, provides the Google translation tool embedded at the Website

navigation menu to reduce potential language barriers. There is also a

comprehensive for gender, child protection and other areas of the Ministry’s work

areas. The glossary, which can be either viewed online, downloaded as a PDF

document, printed or emailed to the user’s designated email account, provides

working definitions of key terms and concepts used in the field.

In addition, the website provides several online-based services for both general

citizens and the MWECP staff. For example, a link to the Intranet service offers

three category options including the Auction Announcement for public viewing,

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webmail for MWECP staff, and a link to a stand-alone online library service.


The result of the Indonesian policy survey revealed that the respondents agreed that

the goal of e-Government is to serve as a tool to improve government service

delivery for women. They perceived e-Government programmes for women to be

effective means in improving gender equality in the public sector.

[Figure 39] Indonesia: Current e-Government Policies for Women

Almost 80% of respondents from Indonesia replied that e-Government should

ensure women’s access to ICT (Figure 40). Around 60% of respondents identified

that ensuring women’s equal access to government services is also an important

goal of e-Government promotion. The result displays a broad variety of participants’

perceptions about the importance of streamlining e-Government service delivery for

women, ranging from individual concerns about ICT capacity building, to

community level priorities regarding women’s online networks, to more

institutional level issues such as e-Government service integration and support of

online participation channels.

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[Figure 40] Indonesia: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

Overall, almost 80% of survey participants agreed that e-Government for women

have contributed to gender equality in public sector. The majority of respondents

replied that the e-Government provisions available via the MWECP website

contributed to the online service quality of the Ministry (57%) and improved

women’s access to information on government services (54%). However the

participants generally expressed a lower level of confidence in the political

empowerment aspect of e-Government; less than 40% of participants replied that

the MWECP website promoted women’s participation in political and democratic

process and supported women parliamentarians.

[Figure 41] Indonesia: Top Two Policy Priorities

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A majority of survey respondents replied that developing institutional and staff

capacity to carry out e-Government programmes and services is the most important

policy priority in Indonesia. Respondents from Indonesia mentioned that the e-

Government expertise in Indonesia is still in its beginning stage; thus it is critical to

improve the awareness, within the institutional setting, about the efficiency and

effectiveness that e-Government could potentially offer.

40% of the respondents stated that it was important to monitor the gender impact of

e-Government. Given the national push for gender mainstreaming, one of the

important role the MWECP plays is to ensure gender-responsiveness of government

policies across all government agencies from design to implementation. E-

Government can serve as an effective means to coordinate and streamline gender-

responsiveness monitoring across different government agencies.

[Figure 42] Indonesia: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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4.6 Vietnam

ICT Infrastructure

Ranked at 81st in the IDI index with the score of 3.52, Vietnam is displaying

constant growth in the ICT development. Especially, it was selected as one of the

most dynamic countries in terms of “ICT diffusion and uptake”, according to the

ITC 2011 issue on IDI.33 In 2010, the percentage of individuals using internet was

27.6% and broadband internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants was 4.1.

Furthermore, active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants were

12.8%. Notably, in terms of access sub-index, it showed the highest increase

between 2008 and 2010 in the Asia Pacific region, along with Islamic Republic of

Iran. From another indicator of the ICT infrastructure, the e-Government Index,

Vietnam was ranked at 90th, as shown below.

According to the Viet Nam Internet Network Information Centre in the Ministry of

Information and Communications, the internet penetration has increased by twenty

points over the last five years, from 3.8 per cent of the population in 2003 to 24.4

per cent in 2008. International bandwidth increased even more spectacularly over

the same period from 1 Gbit/s to 50 Gbit/s. One factor has been strong government

support. The Vietnamese government has targeted the ICT sector as a key industry.

It has rolled out infrastructure through state-owned firms and introduced a degree of

managed competition between them. It has not neglected rural areas, with telephone

services rolled out to all of the some 9 000 communes.


IDI 2011

Overall 3.53 81

ICT Access (Infrastructure)

4.39 72

ICT Use 0.69 105

e-Government

Index 2010

Overall 0.4454 90

e-Readiness

Web Measurement


[Table 15] Vietnam: Key ICT Indicators

Furthermore, the government recently signed an agreement with the Bill and

33 ITU IDI 2011

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61

Melinda Gates Foundation for a pilot project to provide Internet connectivity at 99

public access points in rural areas. The project will also provide training on

computer and Internet usage. The access points include post offices, libraries,

schools and hospitals.

Viet Nam’s sustained economic output of over five per cent a year for the last two

decades has driven a rise in incomes, making access to ICTs more affordable.

Although government commitment and economic growth has contributed to the

availability of infrastructure and affordability, Viet Nam faces a major barrier in

terms of content, given that it has a unique national language and alphabet. However,

literacy is high at 90.3 per cent, ranking it 69th in the world. Access to alternative

sources of news and information over the Internet has been a big driver of demand

and its large market of 21 million Internet users has attracted content development

and applications.

Gender Development

Vietnam is ranked 79th out of 135 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2011,

scoring 0.6713 overall. Health and survival and educational attainment seemed to

play significant roles in placing Vietnam at the current level in terms of gender

equality. While having economic participation and opportunity slightly lower, due to

the comparatively low equality rate in the legislators, senior officials and managers’

category, political empowerment was lagging far behind compared to other sub-

indexes.

The Department of Gender Equality, under the Ministry of Labor-Invalids and

Social Affairs, is the Vietnamese governmental body responsible for gender equality.

The objectives of the department to foster gender equality and social equality are as

follows:

a) Providing guidelines of implementation of social equality as

specified by laws.

b) Taking part in evaluation of gender equality integration into legal

document preparation.

c) Data collecting and making reports to authorized bodies on gender

equalities as specified by laws.

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[Figure 43] Vietnam: Current e-Government Policies for Women

[Figure 44] Vietnam: Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

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[Figure 45] Vietnam: Top Two Policy Priorities

[Figure 46] Vietnam: Evaluation of Ministry Website

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5. Analysing Readiness with the Toolkit

5.1 Findings of the Policy Survey

5.1.1 Overview

This section provides an analysis of the data collected about the perceived

effectiveness of e-Government initiatives targeted for women to promote gender

equality in the public sector. Before presenting the results, it is important to note

that analyzing significant patterns within these survey results does not mean that the

findings can be generalized on a cross-country level. Conversely, the aim of this

summary lies in providing a point for further research about the implications of e-

Government provision for women’s empowerment that originate within specific

initiatives of national machinery of gender equality while acknowledging the

different cultural contexts.

By and large, the policy survey results from six countries revealed a generally low

level of readiness to develop targeted e-Government initiatives for women, except

for Korea. Taking into account of the relatively new history of e-Government

promotion in the developing countries, the virtual void of initiatives that overlap the

two domains of e-Government and gender development warrants further attention.34

The recommendations provided by the respondents across the six countries draw

attention to broader policy issues surrounding e-Government for women, from

prerequisites such as ICT access and capacity to concerns about advocacy and

marketing for improve outreach and participation. The status of e-Government and

gender equality programmes across the featured countries may account for the

respondents’ different perceptions about priority policies for future e-Government

initiatives in their countries.

Notably, as shown in the figure below, respondents from the countries that comprise

the emerging level of e-Government replied that improving women’s ICT access

and capacities are the most critical, whereas they identified gender advocacy for

improved outreach and participation as less important. On the other hand, countries

in the connected stage, in particular Korea, placed more importance on gender

34 As one of the survey respondents mentioned, “There is nothing to study at the moment.” The general lack of discussions at the Ministry level, setting aside the specific policies and programmes

produced was prevalent in the surveyed countries except for Korea.

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65

advocacy and monitoring, and displayed a significantly different pattern from the

rest of the countries.

[Figure 47] Perception of current e-Government policies for women: Mission

In particular, the respondents identified the following as major concerns to improve

the e-Government: Institutional and human capacity of the Ministry; how to ‘add

value’ by applying e-Government; finding the right balance between ‘gender policy

focus’ and knowledge of ICT operations; improving integration of national e-

Government policy and Ministry initiatives; developing clarity between the

respective roles of ICT department and policy development/implementation

department; improving measurement of e-Government performance; and improving

communication with stakeholders including women’s’ networks and other

government agencies; identifying women’s ICT and online service needs; building

demand base of women for e-Government services.

The respondents identified a variety of obstacles to the development and adoption

of e-Government for women in their countries. As shown in the table below, access

and capacity divides (rural and urban divide, income inequality) came up for

Malaysia, Philippines and Bangladesh. Content and service relevance was

considered important in Malaysia and Indonesia. Respondents from Korea, Viet

Nam, Indonesia and Bangladesh mentioned that understanding socio-cultural

aspects such as women’s attitudes and usage patterns of ICT as well as society’s

perception women’s use of ICT as very critical.

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Country Policy Priorities

Korea Lack of gender framework in public administration (79%)

Different gender patterns of technology use (67%)

Malaysia

Lack of content relevancy (86%)

Rural and urban divide (79%)

Income inequality between women and men (79%)

Viet Nam Socio-cultural factors (77%)

Attitudes of women towards (73%)

Philippines Income inequality between women and men (84%) Rural and urban divide (72%)

Indonesia Socio-cultural factors (71%) Lack of content relevancy (64%)

Bangladesh

Rural and urban divide (88%)

Income inequality between women and men (75%)

Different gender patterns of technology use (75%)

[Table 16] Top Two Policy Priorities to Promote e-Government for Women

5.1.2 Service and Content for Women

Even though the different national contexts make it difficult to generalize the results,

the survey revealed an interesting pattern regarding service and content provision.

First, the respondents shared a similar belief on the impact of e-Government to

promote gender equality. Most of the respondents recognized the actual

contribution that e-Government programmes have made to enhance gender

equality in public sector. In most countries, respondents stated that the most

important factor in supporting gender equality was effective information

dissemination (Figure 49).

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[Figure 48] Impact of e-Government to Promote Gender Equality

To different degrees, a majority of the respondents agreed that their e-Government

programmes for women serve as a hub of information dissemination about policies

and programmes targeted for women, and an effective means through which the

Ministry can extend the service outreach to women (Figure 49; Columns 1 and 2).

The recognition of e-Government as an effective mechanism for information

outreach confirms that e-Government, as a new outlet of public service, is

considered capable of reaching out to marginalized groups with targeted, relevant

content and information. Women gain additional access point to public services

through the e-Government, and in turn, provide input and feedback to the Ministry

via participatory online channels, creating a positive cycle of influence contributing

to a greater inclusiveness of public service and participation. Adding to this point,

one interesting finding from the of survey respondents across the countries was that

e-Government initiatives strengthened the service quality of the Ministry of Gender

(Figure 49; Column 4). Accountability of government is increased by having an

online presence that is held responsible for providing relevant content and services.

Extrapolating from the data, it is our belief that e-Government programmes for

women can offer two very important foundations from which to build other

programmes -- first, extending the service delivery for women in quality and

quantity, and second, providing a forum for social dialogue through which

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68

women may participate in public decision making process. It will be critical to

follow this research to determine if both are realized.

686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868

686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868686868It is

unclear at this point to recommend a certain level of interactivity for each country.

While interactivity is considered a good way to improve two-way communication, it

will be interesting to see which e-Government initiatives incorporate truly

“interactive” characteristics in the service provision and if this interactivity

improves overall public service quality for women.35

The question has dual implications; first, whether the government, particularly the

Ministry of Gender, has the institutional and human resource capacity to

translate their programme knowledge in gender empowerment to functioning online

services, both technically and conceptually. Are there services that are specifically

appropriate to interactive design? Determining how to best utilize sophisticates

online channels to expand service outreach and improve effectiveness should be one

of the primary capacities of the Ministry of Gender.36

Second, it is important to determine if “interactive” services support women’s e-

Government service needs. In most of the surveyed countries, respondents

reported that it was important to determine the most important services for women –

this was one of the top two important policy priorities for most countries.37 Even in

Korea and Malaysia, where the Ministry website provides a number of specific

online services for women, the survey results revealed respondents’ concerns that

online services are only valuable to the extent they reflect actual women’s needs.

The specific areas for further needs assessment will differ from country to country.

From the follow-up interviews conducted selectively, respondents from Indonesia,

Malaysia and Viet Nam mentioned the difficulties of collecting gender specific

information and service needs. The access to nation-wide baseline data about

women’s ICT and service requirements is extremely difficult to get, despite its

critical importance to successful design and implementation of e-Government

programmes for women.

35 As described in the previous section, the instructiveness is a characteristics that distinguishes responsive, two-way communication between the government and women from a static, one-way

provision of information 36 Interestingly, the survey respondents from the countries where their Ministry of Gender website

remains at the emerging stage of development pointed out that developing institutional and staff capacity is one of the priority areas of policy concern; Viet Nam, Philippines, Indonesia 37 Except for the Philippines

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Table below shows the major types of online services provided through the Ministry

of Women websites in six surveyed countries, grouped by the stage of the e-

Government development. Types of service include women’s health, education,

employment, childcare, and social safety nets. Even with a small sample size across

six countries, it is evident that employment services and information is a significant

need across all four levels of e-Government development.

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Areas

e-Government Development Stages

Emerging Enhanced Transactional Connected

General

Policy

• Policy Archive

• Online petition form

• Policy Archive (Search)

• Opinion Polls

• CS Survey

• CS Survey Archive

(Searchable)

• Policy Review

Forum (Search)

• Single Window Citizen Proposal

• Single Window Citizen Petition

• Single Window

Information Disclosure

Request

News • Bulletin

Board

• E-Newsletter

• Blogs

• RSS • SNS

Health

• Partner Clinic Links

• Partner Clinic Search

• Online Mammogram

Self Evaluation

• E-Learning on reproductive

health

/prevention of

sexual harassment

• Mammogram subsidy

management

system

• N/A

Education

• N/A • Resource Library

Catalogue (Search)

• e-Learning (ICT, Health)

• N/A

Employment

• Job Listings bulletin board

• Job Listings (Downloadable

Forms)

• Talent Pool Registration

• Online Capacity

Assessment Tool

• Real-time Chat Career Coaching

Child Care

• N/A • Forum based mentoring

• Forum-based mentoring

(Search)

• Real-time Chat mentoring

Social

Institutions

• Single Parent support

network links

• N/A • Counselor registration

system

• Real-time Chat Legal Counseling

Feedback

• Email/ Form Submission

(One-way)

• Bulletin • Searchable Archive of

Feedbacks

• Web-mobile linkage

[Table 17] Areas and Types of Online Service Delivery for Women

5.1.3 Network building and Participation

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Another aspect to consider is the relationship between e-Government provisions and

women’s participation in public decision making (Figure 20; Column 5). . Our

results across countries exhibited an interesting pattern. Even though the

respondents acknowledged the importance of e-Government services to disseminate

information, this recognition did not necessarily result in a positive perception of e-

Government’s role in women’s participation and gender advocacy in public sector.38

For example, in Korea, despite the actual provision of e-participation methods such

as e-petitions and citizen proposal features, respondents were not fully supporting of

this effort to improve women’s participation. The results were mixed in Indonesia

and Malaysia. However, all the six country cases showed a sharp decrease of the

perceived effectiveness of e-Government to promote women’s participation in the

public sector as compared to other gender issues.

This result may suggest that even though the respondents perceived e-Government

as a mechanism useful to outreaching to women and delivering information and

services, their perception of the capability of receiving gender-related inputs may

require a separate consideration. How should Ministry of Gender websites, faced

with technological constraints and societies with deeply-rooted gender inequalities,

effectively contribute to women’s online participation in public affairs? How should

it play a role to process the demands and thereby bring about a substantial

difference in the public sphere to change the “offline” reality of gender inequality?

It will be interesting to see how countries with lower levels of e-Government

development and gender equality utilize their Ministry of Gender website as an

“input” mechanism, moving beyond a simple “execution” mechanism.

A closer look at the survey respondents’ recommendations provides valuable insight

on this front. Many respondents identified the increasing role of social media in

their outreach and network building efforts, implying the possibility of a

“Networking model” of e-Government for gender empowerment.

In fact, the use of Social Network Services, or SNS, in e-Governance arena has

gained importance in recent years as an intelligent intermediary (Betancourt, 2006).

Particularly, the 2010 Survey of UN e-Government Development Index emphasizes

online service provision and networking with citizens, engaging and empowering

them to be part of the governance process (UN DESA, 2010). The report also

mentioned that social networking tools enable governments to consult with citizens

38 Except for Philippines

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72

and expand opportunities for participation in decision-making processes, to garner

feedback and opinions, and elicit support for public policy (UN DESA, 2010).

In this light, we are optimistic that four of the countries had incorporated SNS

functionality in their websites -- Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. As

shown in the table above, in most of the countries surveyed, the national mechanism

of gender equality has at least one account on major SNS sites such as Facebook

and Twitter. The SNS pages and accounts were linked to the Ministry websites in

two ways: outbound, where visitors can share the contents of the Ministry website

on their personal SNS account; and inbound, where the visitors can follow the

Ministry activities directly using the interface of the SNS.

In the Philippines and Korea, their official government Facebook pages provided

“softer” content such as news updates, multimedia resources and event schedules.

Moving beyond the simple information provision, the pages support basic “input”

mechanisms using the default features of the SNS. Visitors can leave direct

comments and feedback on specific posts, request information and resources, and

participate in online polls (Box 2). In addition to the outreach aspect, the Ministry’s

SNS pages serve as a space where women’s organizations, both physical and virtual,

can create online communities and further facilitate women’s networking.

Country Total users Penetration

of population

Penetration of

online

population

Male/Female

ratio

Bangladesh 2 million 1.43% 364.94% M: 76%/ F: 24%

Philippines 27 million 27.06% 91.02% M: 48%/ F: 52%

Malaysia 12 million 46.10% 71.35% M: 53%/ F: 47%

Korea 5 million 11.01% 13.58% M: 56%/ F: 44%

Indonesia 41 million 17.19% 139.26% M: 59% /F: 41%

Viet Nam 3 million 4.03% 14.86% M: 53%/ F: 47%

Sri Lanka 1 million 5.50% 66.59% M: 67%/ F: 33%

[Table 18] Facebook Statistics

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Country SNS Account Contents

Number of

Followers/

Visitors

Presence of

Designated

Account

Manager

Last

Updated

Philippine

s

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/philippine.

commission.on.wo

men?ref=search

Info

Photos Events

Notes

Videos

FAQs

Poll

848 Yes 2011.12.15

Indonesia Facebook:

https://www.facebo

ok.com/pages/Kem

enterian-

Pemberdayaan-

Perempuan-

Republik-Indonesia/

Info

Photos

Videos

Contacts

116 Yes 2010.11. 4

Malaysia Twitter:

http://twitter.com/k

pwkm

Photos

Policy updates

1469 Yes 2011.12.20

Blogspot:

http://kpwkm.blogs

pot.com/

Introduction

Contact us

17 Yes 2010.3.9

Korea Facebook:

http://www.facebo

ok.com/mogef

Info

Fan Pages

Blog

YouTube

Events

Notes

Photos Videos

SNS Address book of

Government

agencies

Online Campaign

2,958 Yes 2011.12.21

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/

mogef

Policy updates 7,643 Yes 2011.12.20

Blog:

http://blog.daum.ne

t/moge-family/

Notice

Events

Schedules

Policy Newsletter

Videos

Photos

3,145,057

(Number of

visitors)

Yes 2011.12.21

[Table 19] Social Networking Outreach39

In this regard, even though the degree to which the SNS linked pages provided up-

39 As of December 21, 2011

http://www.facebook.com/philippine.commission.on.women?ref=search




https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kementerian-Pemberdayaan-Perempuan-Republik-Indonesia/121477647911635







http://twitter.com/kpwkm

http://twitter.com/kpwkm

http://kpwkm.blogspot.com/

http://kpwkm.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/mogef

http://www.facebook.com/mogef

http://twitter.com/mogef

http://twitter.com/mogef

http://blog.daum.net/moge-family/

http://blog.daum.net/moge-family/

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to-date information differed from country to country, the significant SNS presence

of the Ministry across countries implies the emerging “networking” aspect of e-

Government for women.

However, this approach also has limitations, as the scope of outreach is confined to

those who already have access to SNS, which consequently relies on ICT access

and capacity. Nevertheless, since many developing countries still lack the technical

sophistication to furnish fully functioning e-participation modules, a Social

Networking model of e-Government can provide a practical, viable alternative to

ensure a two-way interaction with the citizens.

Box 2.

Social Networking Aspect of e-Government

PCW, the Philippines

The PCW of the Philippines utilizes its Facebook page to provide additional

information on its current programmes and activities as well as updates on the

new legislation, notably the Magna Carta of Women. The Facebook page is

actively managed and maintained by a designated staff member from the PCW,

whose role includes answering inquiries received from Facebook users, and

sharing video and audio links relevant to the gender development issues in the

Philippines. Considering the limited technical sophistication at the level of

emerging e-government development, such usage of social media as an

alternative outlet to “receive” input as a participatory channel can be a viable

option for many developing countries.

This social networking model also resonates with the gender pattern of Internet

use. Even though specific results may differ across countries, recent research

found that women tend to use the Internet more for social networking compared

to men. In case of Philippines, for example, the total number of Facebook users

is about 27,000,000. This accounts for about 27% of its population and 90% of

online population. Notably the male and female user ratio on Facebook is 48% to

52%, showing women’s active usage of social networking compared to men.

Another benefit of this networking model of e-government in the Philippines is

the collection of links to relevant networks provided through the PCW website,

which spans local governments, relevant public institutes, academia, and private

sector partners to the civil society.

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5.2 Recommendations: Toolkit Modules and Priorities

5.2.1 Grouping of Countries

One of the primary objectives of this report is to explore factors that may contribute

to increasing the level of e-Government readiness to promote gender equality in the

public sector. The graphical overview of the four different Framework indicators as

tested in the country analysis provides a quick tool to assess the overall readiness of

a country. However, the lack of internationally comparable data on gender use of

ICT, coupled with the limited scope of this research to supplement global data for

policy and web measurement aspects, limits country-specific visualization of the

four pillars of e-Government readiness at an international level. Nevertheless, the

value of this tool lies in exploring these major pillars of e-Government readiness to

promote gender equality, testing the concept through analysis of six countries in

Asia and the Pacific region, and last not but least providing recommendations for

countries that comprised each level of e-Government development.

The following graphics highlight four countries that represent the four dimensions

of e-Government readiness as previously stated -- infrastructure, gender

development, outreach and policy competency. The categories were determined by

the results of Analysis Framework discussed in the previous section.

[Figure 49] Framework Analysis: Country Groupings

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The small sample number limits the ability to generalize categorization according to

the four pillars of the Analysis Framework beyond the scope of the six countries

surveyed. However, for the purpose of providing targeted policy and action

recommendations for country groups within the scope of this research, such

categorization may provide useful information helping governments identify their e-

Government priorities.

Based on the needs and challenges identified in this Framework for each of the four

dimensions, the topics addressed in the proposed modules of the e-Government

Toolkit Framework have been ranked according to their level of priority, high,

medium, and optional, respectively. This prioritization, illustrated in the Figure

below, aims to direct the attention of decision makers from a particular group to the

modules that might be most relevant to their current level of readiness.

[Figure 50] e-Government for Gender Equality: Toolkit Modules

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The following section discusses the rationale for the topics proposed under the each

of the four dimensions, pointing out the group of countries that should find

particular modules the most germane.

5.2.2 Recommendations on Infrastructure

While choosing an appropriate technology to enhance socioeconomic service

delivery for women, issues such as access, cost, maintenance, interactivity, user-

friendliness, availability and speed should be considered (Baste, 1995). In

selecting appropriate technologies for delivery, efficiency may vary in terms of

outreach capability, flexibility, interactivity, and other factors. (Tobing, 2002). The

table below outlines the key ICT features to considerwhen determining the most

appropriate technology for e-Government service delivery to and from women.

Feature Points for Consideration

Directionality (Cast) Broadcast, unicast, multi-cast (to selected users)

Ease of content creation High, medium, low (depending on training and equipment)

Content ownership / control Centralized, decentralized, hierarchical

Total costs per user Quantifiable (depending on penetration rate)

Speed of dissemination Instant, delayed

Richness (multimedia) Textual, audio, video (effectiveness may vary depending on

users’ literacy levels)

Trust Subjective/qualitative

Robustness Reliability of service

[Table 20] Selection of Technology: ICT Features40

Despite the disparities in penetration between world regions and countries, mobile

cellular phones are the most commonly used ICT in most countries (ITU, 2009).

Even though gender disaggregated data for women’s mobile access is not available,

the relatively low cost of hardware and infrastructure deployment cost, combined

with the affordable usage rates and mobility, make mobile phones a powerful tool

for the provision of e-Government service, particularly to women in developing

countries and regions without sufficient infrastructure (ITU, 2009). The mobility of

the device poses an advantage for women; women can access to the e-Government

40 Adapted from Hussain & Tongia (2010)

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services even from home, without a need to travel to cybercafés and telecentres to

access internet-connected computers when the home connection is not available.

In this regard, m-government, the extension of e-Government to mobile platforms,

may provide additional advantages for women, particularly regarding emergency

response services for domestic violence or other crimes, as shown in the case of

Korea.

5.2.3 Recommendations on Gender Development

Promoting women’s overall socio-economic capacity is a key factor to increasing

women’s demand for e-Government services. ICT capacity building is important to

address, so that women can access the services and content necessary for

development. Capacity building happened at two levels – individual and network.

At the individual level, the most frequently referred to method is ICT trainings. In

regions where ICT infrastructure is not in place, telecentres can serve as training

sites for increased capacity building. . In addition to technical capacity building,

efforts to demystify technologies used for e-Government and information services

can lead to greater efficacy with technology and wider participation by women.

At the supporting network level, improving ICT capacity of women’s cooperatives

and organizations is important. Moving offline networks online can significantly

strengthen both the organization and the technical capacity of women. It is also

critical that national, regional and local cooperation in terms of programme and

resource sharing be encouraged.

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[Figure 51] e-Government as a Killer Application for Telecentres41

Source: Alampay & Umali, 2007

5.2.4 Recommendations on Outreach

Outreach activities span a number of initiatives, including gathering baseline data to

gauge programme demand, feedback on service and content, and the

implementation and the promotion strategies required to encourage women’s use of

e-Government.

First, on the demand side, it is critical to map the current status of women’s ICT

access and e-Government use as well as potential service needs through extensive

data collection. The outreach aspect should always be based on the analysis of key

characteristics of women and their areas of information needs. In this sense,

gender-disaggregated data collection of different dimensions of ICT

environments is critical, to adequately understand the current gender gap and use

the findings to create policies for improved relevancy and impact.

41 http://www.apdip.net/resources/e-governance/killerapps/egovCeC.pdf

http://www.apdip.net/resources/e-governance/killerapps/egovCeC.pdf

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In addition to the gendered-ICT data collection at the individual level, it is also

important to collect and understand the needs of women’s development

cooperatives and grassroots networks, as well as women-owned businesses.

Targeted need assessment of these established groups and businesses will

strengthen the presence of gender networks in online spaces and subsequently

support the development and dissemination of relevant services for women through

collective need and intelligence.

In order to assess the actual use of services by women, a well-designed monitoring

system should be put in place to analyze trends and performance. This technical

aspect of outreach should be implemented in coordination with the national

statistics agencies to ensure the data compatibility and to maximize the utilization of

data.

From a supply perspective, ongoing improvements in the quality, relevance and

diversity of e-Government services should be considered. As discussed in the

findings of the Policy Survey, areas of content service most often include:

Income generation: business management for women SMEs, market

information for women cooperatives and SMEs, and general agricultural

extension service,

Education: women’s lifelong and adult education for economic

empowerment and disaster response,

Health: AIDS, STD awareness and prevention, child care and maternal

care,

Financial service: for individual and community, and

General public services including certificate issuance and registration, etc.

For each topic area, appropriate technology selection and service design should

follow, along with feasibility tests to gauge the usability of each area by target

women.

The choice of technologies for e-Government development s should reflect the

current level of infrastructure maturity across the country. As suggested in the

Toolkit, countries in the emerging and interacting stages of e-Government

development should consider utilizing existing social networks and established

online-based services to promote the usability, ease of use and convenience fore-

Government programmes for women. However, in the long run, the Ministry of

Gender website should serve as a single gateway through which women can access

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gender-specific information and services that are seamlessly integrated with other

national e-Government web portals.

E-Government promotion depends upon identifying appropriate incentive

mechanisms to promote participation from women and women’s groups. The effort

should accompany active marketing strategies to promote e-Government for women

as a “service,” engaging with established online and offline women’s groups.

Additionally, utilization of SNS can help extend promotion and outreach.

5.2.5 Recommendations on Policy and Institutional Readiness

The policy and institutional readiness dimension refers to the institutional will of

administrational entities, their capacities to carry out e-Government for improved

gender equality, as well as the existence of laws and policies supportive of such

efforts.

First, it is critical to establish a model of interagency coordination and thus

identify an entity across the government agencies to serve as a focal point for e-

Government provision for women. As the results of the policy survey demonstrated,

even though there are designated government agencies responsible for national e-

Government initiatives, issues of gender are largely ignored at this central level.

Consequently, in most of the countries surveyed, online services for women that

were originally sponsored by the Ministry of Gender remained isolated, and their

interconnectedness with other national e-Government initiatives were weak.

To successfully accomplish this, three options should be considered:

There should be a grassroots approach where governmental gender

equality organizations take the initiative to provide initial information

services for women and subsequently seek to establish networks with

national e-Government integration;

Simultaneously, there should be a top-down approach where the agency

responsible for national e-Government initiatives provides programmes

relevant for marginalized citizens, including women as a major subgroup;

Advocate for interim approaches to “privatize” e-Government services for

women, taking advantage of existing technical capacity of online services

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and expertise of online women’s networks in order to expand service

outreach.

These three approaches are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combinations

to supplement the situation faced by each country.

Second, from an institutional capacity aspect, the ICT capacity of the Ministry

staff should be strengthened so that staff members understand the technical process

of e-Government development, such as ICT needs assessment, e-Government

programme design and implementation. The adequate level of staff ICT capacity is

a prerequisite to make sure that the e-Government initiative serves as an efficient

means to an end rather than being an end in itself.

The policy survey and field data collected from country experts identified that the

scarcity of trained human resources is one of the roadblocks toward establishing an

effective e-Government and information service network. Training areas should

include technical issues, content development, and e-Government management

among others. Regular training for personnel in the Ministry and resource pooling

can also ensure the operational sustainability of e-Government initiatives, and is

vital to long-term sustainability beyond the initial period. Additionally from the

institutional aspect, political leadership and commitment from the top level officials

should be secured to ensure long-term support for women’s e-Government

initiatives.

Finally, from a legal and policy readiness perspective, proactive measures should

be taken to introduce an e-Government for women’s development. Currently, e-

Government for women is considered a luxury in many countries at the early stage

of national e-Government development. However, in order to prevent further

marginalization of women in the public space, it is imperative to launch a proactive,

response to a quickly-changing world where technology and policy rapidly affect all

countries.

In addition to the establishment of relevant policies and regulations to support e-

Government for women, these services should be monitored and evaluated as part

of a legal mandate to support transparency and track gender impact.

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5.2.6 Regional and International Exchange of Experience

In the spirit of international collaboration, a collective of e-Government services

for women should be compiled in order to share knowledge across countries. The

International community can work together to collect good practices in national e-

Government initiatives for women around the world so that best practices and tools

are available to all.

Additionally, as mentioned in the previous section, international efforts to advocate

for the collection of gender-disaggregated data on ICT and e-Government use at

national level should be promoted with the utmost priority. Currently, the challenge

of accessing gender-disaggregated data collection remains insurmountable in many

countries. This is supported by the new UN Women initiative, Data Edge, which

may help remedy this situation if there is global cooperation.

The list above can not be properly visualized. There seems to

be a text missing at the bottom.

Box 3.

Check List for e-Government Initiative

E-Government delivery is not an ICT initiative — own the process and

partner with ICT professionals.

Don’t worry about 100 percent consensus, it’ll never happen.

Ensure a strong Ministry leadership

Have a clear vision and goals — why go digital?

Get buy-in from key stakeholders.

Clarify roles

Start a pilot programme — it’ll turn into practice.

Provide a digital product that users can’t live without.

Provide close support programmes to ensure sustainability.

Collect data from every step of the way – start building a data repository of

women’s needs/use of ICT

Conduct regular, objective assessment of programme performance

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Conclusion

In the knowledge society, e-Government presents an opportunity to improve public

service delivery as well as to broaden opportunities for citizens to participate in the

public decision-making process. However, this opportunity also presents the

challenge of inclusiveness that already pervades in ICT access and use. The lack of

representation from marginalized groups, particularly women who still suffer from

gendered aspects of the digital divide in many countries, can further marginalize

these groups from government service provision and participation. It is crucial to

develop e-Government strategies targeted specifically towards women’s

advancement if the digital divide is to close.

The policy surveys and Web Measurement analysis of the national operations for

gender development in six selected countries, while limited in their generalizability,

demonstrated that e-Government provisions for women still remain an emerging

policy issue which warrants more attention from the national governments. This

report identified modules of policy recommendations reflecting the range of

different country contexts regarding the country’s gender development goals, e-

Government sophistication and ICT infrastructure.

[Figure 52] e-Government Development Path for Gender Equality

At the analysis level, this report has discussed why governments should take

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proactive initiatives to provide women-specific services. Additionally, at the design

and implementation level, the following points have been made as findings and

recommendations:

Many programmes designed to increase women’s ICT adoption fail due to

the lack of relevant content for women

E-Government adoption depends on the ease of use as well as usefulness

of service and content

This “usefulness” should increase, with sites providing richer and more

relevant content and services, as well as multiple ways to access content

As the services expand, it is critical to encourage women to participate in

decision-making in the public sphere, so that their needs are recognized

and considered.

It is only through increased participation that e-Government can sustain and scale to

have greater impact on women’s development.

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ROLE OF E-GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

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