Gender and ICT Issues at Women's World Congress

The Women's Worlds Congress 2005, the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, was a cooperative effort between 5 of Korea's universities for women, Sogang University, Yonsei University, Sookmyung Women's University, the Korean Women's Development Institute and Ewha University. Sixteen panel discussions and workshops on gender and the new information and communication technologies (ICT) were organized by the Asia-Pacific Women's Information Network Centre (APWINC).

The gender and ICT workshops and discussions covered a broad range of topics including internet governance, gender and ICT statistics, indicators and policies, e-governance and the Digital Solidarity Fund along with other financing mechanisms in the Information Society.

Although there were more discussion spaces on gender and ICT issues in this Women's Worlds Congress than in previous years, women's media advocates were disappointed that there were no gender and ICT issues integrated into presentations in the morning plenaries particularly the one that examined the issue of globalization and its impact on women. The morning plenaries under the theme “Embracing the Earth, East-West/North-South” drew by far the largest audiences.

Gender and ICT advocates met separately for 2 days at Sookmyung Women's University to discuss gender and ICT issues at the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS 2005). The meeting produced the Seoul-Gyeonggi Declaration which outlines gender issues and recommendations in relation to Internet governance and financing mechanisms, the two themes of WSIS 2005. It will be presented at the Third Preparatory Committee Meeting of WSIS, Geneva, September 19-30, 2005.