LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Effective Financing Mechanisms to Progress Gender Equality [part 2]

Radhika Lal, a policy advisor on ICT for poverty reduction and the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) in the UNDP, presents her views on effective financing mechanisms to progress gender equality in the information society. This was presented at the panel “Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty?: Financing for women's equitable access to Information and Communication Technologies”, organised by APC WNSP, UN DAW and IWTC during the 52nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York in February 2008.
Radhika challenges some of the current financing trends of the ICT for Development (ICTD) sector, such as the shift from public to private funding. She also calls for deployment of new strategies to finance the gender and ICT for development agenda. These strategies may include opening subsidising funds to sectors other than the private, monitoring universal access from gender perspectives, and gender responsive budgeting, where gender needs to be perceived not as competing but enabling priority.
(To listen or download the audio file (in MP3 format), you can click on the link provided below)