Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Social Change and Women's Empowerment

Participants at WLP Jordan/SIGI/J’s Youth Tech Festival developing a website for their advocacy project
Participants at WLP Jordan/SIGI/J’s Youth Tech Festival developing a website for their advocacy project.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) offers us the possibility to acquire information and to connect with other people at a speed and across distances unprecedented in history. For those without access to ICT, the knowledge and resources gap can grow exponentially. This gap, often referred to as a “digital divide,” is usually caused by poverty and lack of infrastructure. In the case of women, cultural expectations and prejudice can further exacerbate their lack of access to ICT.

WLP believes that when women and girls across the world are able to harness ICT’s potential, they improve not only their own lives but can also advance their communities through their increased levels of employment, participation in governance, and application of better information about health, safety, finance, education, childrearing, social progress, and their rights.

ICT can enable disadvantaged individuals and communities to participate in the national and global policy decisions that can change their lives and empower them to take actions that can financially, socially, and politically benefit them.

,WLP President Emerita and Special Advisor (Iran/USA)

WLP recognizes this opportunity, and uses ICT as a tool for social change and women’s empowerment. Our programs and publications increase women’s ICT skills and confidence so that they can organize, mobilize, and advocate for issues that matter to them.

ICT Resources, Events, and Capacity Building

WLP has developed an innovative trainer’s manual for use in ICT training workshops called Making IT Our Own: Information & Communication Technology Training of Trainers Manual. The goal of the manual’s training sessions is to teach participants technology skills that will help them to advocate for gender justice and human rights.

Making IT Our Own - WLP ICT manual

The training manual can be downloaded in English, Arabic, French, Persian, and Russian, at no cost in our Learning Center.

WLP also produced a documentary entitled Cultural Boundaries and Cyber Spaces, which explores women's advancement within specific cultural boundaries using technology to sow solidarity locally and globally. Interviews featured in the documentary were conducted during a WLP symposium, where women discussed the evolving role of ICT for the global women's movement and in the fight for social change.

WLP and our partners conduct ICT capacity building trainings for women and youth across the Global South. Each year our partner in Jordan, SIGI/J, hosts a Youth Tech Festival that provides young individuals with skills and knowledge to use ICT for human rights advocacy. We also work with our partners and other local CSOs to build their ICT capacity more generally to strengthen their networks, programs, and operations.

Looking for resources on ICT, advocacy, or human rights? Visit our Learning Center to view and download training manuals, videos, and toolkits in more than 20 languages.