Speech delivered by honourable Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Hlengiwe Mkhize during the occasion of a workshop on theme: “Empowering Young Women through Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)”
Honourable MEC of Education; Ms Thembisile Nwedamutswu,
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature;
CEO of IEC, Ms Nkaro Mateta;
CEO of Broadband Infraco, Ms Puleng Kwele;
Representatives of Altron,
Leaders of Community Organisations;
Leaders of Churches;
Members of Academia;
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
I'm very pleased to interact with you today in this event that aims to advance and deepen the economic and social empowerment of young women in our country. It is also pleasing to be in a province with a staggering 92.6 percent of cell phone connectivity. Although mostly rural, the province is really moving towards the digital age. It is indeed a great pleasure to explore strategies and opportunities by which Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) may be used to empower young women particularly in this province.
I have a dream where within the information society agenda, we will have the concept "e-women". I will leave this concept to you to broaden in terms of meaning.
Economic overview
Since the dawn of our democracy we have seen the South African economy undergo profound restructuring. Macroeconomic stabilisation has largely been achieved, providing a platform for accelerating the growth rate. Women in general and in principle were not excluded from all of this; we have enjoyed the benefits of this restructuring although not to the fullest as some of us are still being excluded.
Despite the economic successes and a broad range of state policies, strategy and programme interventions aimed at overcoming economic disparities and entrenched inequalities continue to characterise the economy and act as a deterrent to growth, economic development, employment creation and poverty eradication. Vast racial and gender inequalities in the distribution of and access to wealth, income, skills and employment persist. As a consequence, our economy continues to perform below its full potential. In the midst of all these challenging issues ICT remains least explored by women for economic growth.
Education is critical for women to increase participation in the economy in the long term. The fact that patriarchal institutions and practices existed for a long time in our society; they have even become part of our people's mind-sets that women can’t do certain things. The bias has always been towards boys, that they are the ones who will do technological subjects requiring Mathematics and Physical Science. This can however be erased with the positive rippling effects which will result in encouraging young girls to take up streams in these subjects.
In its report, "Measuring the Information Society 2013", the International Telecommunication Union estimated that by the end of 2013, 2.7 billion people (40 percent of the world's inhabitants) were using the Internet. However, men are twice more likely to have access to the Internet than women. According to Intel's report ‘Women and the Web’: "on average across the developing world, nearly 25 percent fewer women than men have access to the Internet, and the gender gap soars to nearly 45 percent in regions like sub-Saharan Africa." How many of these are women in South Africa? And what do these statistics mean in terms of women access to ICTs?
The World Summit on Information Society, which took place in Tunis in 2005, adopted global protocols as policy guides for how countries can consider in their national policies for building an inclusive, development-oriented, sustainable information society. This conference, in which South Africa took an active part, acknowledges ICTs as an enabler for economic growth, and development of sectors of the economy towards a digital and knowledge economy. Between 2005 and 2014 how have we leapfrogged the struggles of women and girl children around ICTs and development?
The assertion is that gender inequality remains deeply entrenched in many African societies. Many women and girls still do not have equal opportunities despite this being enshrined in the law. Yet ICTs are important tools for advancing gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, and a more equitable and prosperous world. It is important to understand that technology and access to the Internet is essential to women's empowerment across the continent and it is key to overcoming these barriers in the first place.
Women have to understand the value of the Internet and ICTs in terms of sustainable livelihoods and transforming their quality of life. Women have to understand the Internet as a resource for empowerment, for restoration, for self-development and for arming oneself in the knowledge economy. To add on this, the recent development in the Internet space is the Internet of things which speaks directly to the role of the Internet in the economy.
Women’s Month, which was commemorated under the theme ‘Celebrating 60th Anniversary of Women’s Charter’ and ‘20 Years of Freedom: Moving Women's Agenda Forward!’ from 1-31 August 2014 in South Africa, gave us directive to consolidate our efforts in intensifying our struggles for moving forward. During the events and discussions we had it became clear that although women's lives have improved in terms of equality and access to opportunities, we still have a long way to go. Girls and young women and the youth in general must be supported to take ICT empowerment programmes at school, post-school and also at the work place. Hopefully all of this will lead to an emergence of entrepreneurial projects.
20 years of Freedom
Strong visionary women have in the past mobilised and organised other women to develop a Charter. Even after 60 years, the charter is still relevant and it guides women’s struggles for gender equality and empowerment. Amongst others these women were people like Ray Simons who were the brain behind the formation of women’s organisation and brought together Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi and Amina Cachalia to form a steering committee.
During the past 20 years of democracy we have experienced defining moments for women, like exercising the right to vote like our male counter parts in 1994 and by having the gender equality clause in our Constitution in 1996. South African women like the late Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburi and many others led discussions on gender based violence in preparation for the Women's Beijing Conference of 1995.
We have seen women soldiering on side by side with their male counter parts for quotas in gender representation in positions of influence and power to the moment when the African National Congress decisively declared that, South Africa should ensure gender parity during tipping points, like the appointments of politicians in cabinet, municipal levels and provincial legislatures. The ruling party went on to advocate for the implementation of gender parity policy position by the private sector as well.
It has always been government's moral and political determination to ensure that women are included in the mainstream economy through deliberate policies.
National Development Plan
Our National Development Plan (NDP) envisions that by 2030, ICTs will underpin the development of a dynamic and connected information society and a vibrant knowledge economy that is more inclusive and prosperous. To fulfil this, it is important for government to partner with the private sector and the community to ensure ICT connectivity within all areas of our society. This is the reason why, as government, we are proudly forging relationships with companies such as Altron TMT and organisations such as Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa which brings women from across all sectors.
To enforce these partnerships, government is coming up with programmes that will ensure this. There are things such as the two IDZ which are going to focus on the ICT sector. There are organisations such as the IDC whose aim is to fund those who are in manufacturing. The NDP is our country's vision, we must all, men and women rally behind it and make it a success.
National Broadband Policy (SA Connect Policy)
We have a number of key projects that will enable ICT to contribute to the empowerment of women. The first of these is our national broadband policy, also known as SA Connect. Altron and other players will be crucial in ensuring that we optimise the reach and access to Broadband in all formats and platforms.
SA Connect has, as one of its objectives, to ensure that people are able to realise the benefits of broadband by having the necessary awareness, skills and relevant content and applications, which together will stimulate demand and uptake. Broadband will soon be like air we breathe in the whole information society.
The policy has identified the prioritization of broadband connectivity to all schools, health care and government facilities as a key intervention by government to facilitate service delivery and drive economic growth where:
- Broadband will enhance the learning, teaching and administration, for schools. Girls have to be part of this initiative.
- Broadband will relieve the pressure on the health care system through improved administration of patient information and enable remote diagnosis and treatment. We believe that infant mortality, maternal health; and other related health problems of women within our health domain; will then be dealt with more quicker utilising Broadband.
- Broadband will enable e-government the provision of services that will speed up service delivery and provide access to information and services for citizens.
To meet the national objective of more affordable broadband access for all, South Africa Connect allows us to start using it more and more so that it becomes cheaper for all. Our main focus will be on the following:
- Digital readiness – The creation of an enabling regulatory and institutional environment that facilitates broadband rollout whilst preserving the broader public interest; the establishment and rationalisation of existing institutions and state owned companies to harness the potential of broadband; the removal of any administrative and regulatory bottlenecks constraining network build out and co-ordinating further builds to avoid unnecessary duplication, particularly of civil works.
- Digital development – The pooling of public sector demand and procuring of high-capacity and future-proof network capacity at more affordable rates to address public sector broadband requirements; and, in this process, stimulating network builds by operators by reducing the associated investment risk and by ensuring demand. This strategy will also reduce Government’s on-going operational expenditure on cost to communicate through upfront capital expenditure. This will help increase access to ICT services to our poor communities.
- Digital future – Enable sharing and cooperation on open access wholesale network builds and operation through ensuring economies of scales, reducing risk and guaranteeing returns. When operators work together the users of these ICT services stand to benefit in terms of getting cheaper prices.
- Digital opportunity – Ensuring that people are able to realise the benefits of broadband by having the necessary awareness, skills and relevant content and applications, which together will stimulate demand and uptake. Further that research and development, higher levels skills and research is supported and entrepreneurship and innovation are stimulated. Young women must not lose sight of these opportunities; you must grab them with both of your hands.
Business process outsourcing
With regards to Business Process Outsourcing opportunities, we are coordinating efforts with the Department of Trade and Industry to extend opportunities in the Call Centre businesses. This is a move aimed strategically at empowering our young women as agents to deliver these ICT services. This field requires proficiency in foreign languages such as French, Chinese-Mandarin, German, Spanish and others. So as women we need to start familiarising ourselves with foreign languages, our economy requires this.
As we know that we are moving towards Broadcasting Digital Migration, we will also build capacity for a National Digital Television Call Centre. Women and other designated groups will particularly benefit from the establishment and operation of this Call Centre.
Women within the Gender and ICT Strategy
The Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services has also adopted a Gender and ICT Strategy to guide the implementation of Gender empowerment programmes within government, State Owned Companies, the private sector, relevant community based organizations and amongst South Africans at large. The aim of the strategy is to increase the uptake and usage of ICTs amongst women and young girls. Young women should make ICT a career of choice. Having built the necessary capacity amongst them, they should also be supported to acquire and build capacity in the creation of new business as well as promotion of ownership of established ICT businesses in the country. For this, the Black Economic Empowerment policy has created an enabling policy environment for women to thrive in this regard.
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
On the issue of the Black Economic Empowerment broadly, the Department is undertaking measures to fast-track black economic empowerment in the ICT sector. Our focus includes the subsectors included in the ICT BEE Charter Code, namely Broadcasting, Telecommunications, Electronics and Information Technology/e-Commerce.
In the next few months, the Minister will announce the establishment of the ICT BEE Sector Council whose role is to monitor compliance with the BBBEE Act and the ICT Sector Charter Code. We encourage women to participate in these structures in order to drive women empowerment in our economy.
Audio-visual Content Strategy
We are also responsible for the audio-visual content strategy which will help the country to produce digital content for our multi-channel digital television. This sector of content production is expected to boom in the country owing to high demand for content. This area offers a lot of opportunities for the creative industry to grow. Amongst others, areas of services provision driving content demand includes animation, film and drama productions, children’s content, education and health content as well as small business development content.
Given the fact that this is a fairly new environment, it becomes critical for parents to encourage our youth to take career interest in this field. The future of the ICT sector is exciting and poses excellent opportunities for women especially young women. These are unchartered waters open to creativity, innovation and entirely new ways of working, interacting and learning that should appeal to women and men alike.
The Institute for the Future identifies six drivers most likely to shape the future workforce: longer life spans; a rise in smart devices and systems; advances in computational systems such as sensors and processing power; new multimedia technology; the continuing evolution of social media; and a globally connected world. The ICT sector clearly underpins this bright future.
Opportunities for Women and Young Girls in ICT
Young Women must take advantage of the existing opportunities in electronics manufacturing, in audio-visual content for television production, and in the field of electronic engineering. The technology field offers a wide range of career possibilities where systems design and development or integration, software engineering are field of commercial market. Today, online businesses are growing where the sale of these services in managed through the internet. E-Commerce is driven by innovation and new ideas. Women must be encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities.
Young women must take up opportunities provided by community radio and community television. Our Young Women must also undertake study opportunities provided by our government in the higher education system and bursaries provided by the private sector with specific focus to ICTs.
Access to ICT is essential for women entrepreneurs in starting and growing a business and overcoming barriers they face. Without access to ICT, women are at greater risk of being left behind as agents of change and leaders in a rapidly changing global society. We must ensure that women young and old, at all social levels and in all countries, can access and use such technology.
iKamva National e-Skills Institute (iNESI)
There are opportunities like iKamva National e-Skills Institute which is a partnership between government, the private sector and the community. As part of implementing South Africa Connect, the iKamva National e-Skills Institute (also known as iNeSI) was launched earlier this year by our government. iNeSI is one of the interventions aimed at the development of local e-skills that are required by the sector and the user skills necessary for social and economic inclusion to secure and create jobs. iNeSI is a multi-stakeholder collaborative network. Through collaboration, iNeSI is e-skilling the nation for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness. It focuses primarily on four components: evidence-based research, teaching and learning, innovation, and monitoring and evaluation framework. Women must seize the opportunity to enlist themselves as primary beneficiaries of this program.
iNeSI is able to achieve its aims through building a muti-stakeholder collaborative network. This allows for the massfication of e-skills delivery at all levels in society - thought leaders, ICT practitioners, ICT users and the ICT illiterate.
The network consists of:
- Institutions,
- Universities,
- FET colleges and civil society,
- Corporate partners/business:
- Supporting the government's e-skills agenda.
- Offering their development training with the intention of contextualising it within the South African and African environment.
- Assisting with research.
- Promoting the innovation application factories and assisting with which local apps will work.
- Global development partners and agencies:
- Drawing on their experience, architecture and framework, and ensuring their network is channelled through iNeSI.
This is definitely an opportunity not to be missed by young women and women within this province.
I thank you.
