Questions/Answers

“ICT for Woman Portal" is the first Egyptian bilingual (Arabic/English) portal specialized in empowering women through ICT. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) developed this initiative as a one-stop shop for all Egyptian females belonging to different socio-economic brackets. The portal derived its idea from challenges faced by Egyptian women, especially in remote and marginalized areas. These challenges are: lack of technological skills, inability to reach for ICT jobs, lack of knowledge about entrepreneurship and utilization of ICT tools to start their own businesses. More services have been introduced the past year to catch up with sector dynamics. The initiative has provided several solutions to tackle some of the problems mentioned before through the portal. Some of these solutions: capacity building programs encouraging women to be entrepreneurs, available ICT job opportunities, categorized as freelance and permanent, offered by national and international companies. New sections have been added to enrich the portal content including Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), scholarships and some job opportunities offered directly by top notch international companies. The portal avails different studies and reports on women and ICT, national ICT initiatives directed to females and success stories for women entrepreneurs. The initiative developed a dissemination mechanism headed by MCIT and its partners through organizing regional conferences across Egypt. Top notched women in the ICT filed are being awarded. As part of the MCIT’s women and ICT initiative, Women ICT Excellence Awards had been handed by his Excellency Minister of Communications and Information Technology, in a special ceremony to support Egyptian woman through empowering them via ICT. The initiative had faced some financial challenges regarding human capital resources in which these challenges are tackled to ensure sustainability of the initiative as well as the necessity of continuously engaging skilled human resources capable of enriching the portal’s content.

The initiative fits “Promoting gender responsive public services to achieve the SDGs”. The portal responses to the requirements of poor and marginalized women via tackling their needs through news, events, capacity building programs, available jobs in ICT sector. Moreover, the portal provides access to high-quality services, as giving access to free training and capacity building thus maintain basic knowledge on how to start business. The portal supports engagement mechanisms to channel women demands and concerns through online satisfaction questionnaire and online forum. These mechanisms help in engaging women in the decision-making processes and enhancing delivery of public services.

The initiative aims at improving women’s lives especially in poor and marginalized areas. This is done in alignment with the SDGs; such as target number 1.4 that calls for ensuring that all women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable have equal rights to appropriate new technologies and economic resources, among other services stated. The initiative aligns with targets 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5; which are all intended to enhance vocational skills among women. The initiative relates to goal 5, through targets 5.5 and 5B calling for enhancing the use of ICT to empower women. The portal’s aim also touches targets 8.5 and 8.6, helping in reducing unemployment among women and shares in achieving decent work. In addition to the strong relation of the portal’s aim to targets 9.1, 9.2, 9.5 through fostering innovation and using infrastructure provided by MCIT to support economic development, human well being and supporting scientific research. The portal serves goal 10 through target 10.2 which calls for the empowerment and promotion of social, economic and political inclusion for all. The involvement of the USAID and the UNDP reflects the global partnership for sustainable development highlighted in goal 17.

The portal is sustainable. On social side, the initiative is directed towards leveraging the capacities of women in Egyptian society, especially in poor and marginalized areas. On economic side, Egyptian women in poor and marginalized areas are suffering economically and this has caused additional economic burden on the Egyptian government and its limited national resources. The portal can help in solving partially such challenges through its “job opportunities” section as well as the “capacity building” sections. The portal contributes in protecting the environment through providing online content which saves traffic and transportation; protecting the environment from pollution and energy misuse.

The portal was designed to address the challenge related to empowering women in poor and marginalized areas through the ICT tools. Women in those areas face many economic and social problems, imposing burdens on improving their standards of livings and therefore on the overall society. The portal aims at developing human capabilities for this segment through providing different capacity building programs and a variety of workshops . It helps solving their problems through availing jobs in the ICT sector (permanent and freelance) and publishing inspiring success stories of similar women who developed their capabilities and used ICT tools to launch their businesses and market their products. The portal has also addressed the issue of the absence of knowledge about the needs of these segments of society, mainly through the interactive mechanisms supported by the portal that help women channel their concerns, problems and complaints. In this way, they are being engaged in decision making processes.

The initiative’s main concern is addressing gender inequality in Egypt through empowering females. This is achieved through capacity building programs encouraging women to be entrepreneurs, free training programs and offering ICT job opportunities for females to help them to be economically independent and able to support themselves and their families as Egyptian women in poor and marginalized areas are suffering economically and this has caused additional economic burden on the Egyptian government and its limited national resources.The portal aims at enlightening females through training and capacity building to key players in their society.

The initiative positively impacts several groups, such as young female students; through benefiting from training courses, studies related to women and ICT, basic skills required to join the market, information and data and success stories and role models displayed in the portal to inspire them and to learn about the market requirements. Also, female entrepreneurs; through mastering e-learning techniques, capacity building training courses and modules, different ICT initiatives and innovative solutions. Females working in the ICT sector benefit through improving their capabilities via capacity building. On the other side, females willing to join the ICT sector have also benefited from learning about the available jobs in the sector and to be prepared to join these opportunities. Decision makers are a targeted group; through knowing more about ICT gender usage gaps to confront the challenges facing women social and economic integration. Academia and researchers are also benefiting through getting latest ICT developed indicators based on accurate international methodologies. Media gets information about initiatives and programs directed to females aiming at their inclusion and empowerment.

The need for developing the “ICT for Woman” Portal emerged as a response of the international trend focusing on integrating gender issues in the conduct of measurements, programs and initiatives related to gender. On the national level, the initiative came in line with the Presidential announcement that 2017 is the “Women Year” and the stressing commitment to stand upon the main barriers restricting women inclusion in the economy and hindering its role as an active player in the society. It was also a response for the need to support SMEs in developing their businesses through the strategic use of ICT. Project’s Time Frame • 20/09/2016: The launch of the “ICT for Women Portal” in English in Egypt with the attendance of all the partners and stakeholders from the governmental and private sectors. • 27-30 November 2016: At the occasion of the “Cairo ICT 2016”, the Arabic version of the portal was launched. The Cairo ICT is considered to be one of the top international events in the Middle East and North Africa covering a wide range of the ICT sector segments such as (telecom, IT, electronics, mobile applications, integrated systems, satellite and broadcasting, etc.) • 31st March – 2nd April 2017: The first conference of “ICT for Women” was held in Luxor Governorate organized in partnership with different partners and stakeholders. • August 2017: Announcement of ICT Awards for Females • End of 2020: The project is intended to continue its operation until the end of 2020 through the development of new services via the portal. It is also planned to organize from 2 to 3 local conferences in Egypt to promote girls and women ICT usage as well as building the capacity of young females; especially those living in Upper Egypt.

The portal faced many challenges, most important: • Financial resources: The need to generate continuous financial resources to enhance the sustainability of the initiative through holding local conferences in Egypt and developing new services in the portal. • Sponsorship: Finding the appropriate sponsor to fund the Women ICT Excellence Awards and events to ensure sustainability of the initiative is a major challenge. • Human capital resources: The necessity of continuously engaging skilled human resources capable of enriching the portal’s content as well as developing and updating the portal’s different pillars.

The ICT for Women Portal is an innovative initiative tailored to the Egyptian context. It is innovative in several ways aiming at introducing new simple ICT tools to reach and help solving several social and economic problems pertaining to women in poor and disadvantaged areas. The portal provides online trainings that help women boost their capabilities. These kinds of trainings are provided for free and help disseminate valuable information about how to start projects using ICT tools. Moreover, the portal provides inspiring success stories of female entrepreneurs who were able to keep the profitability of their projects. The initiative provides free online trainings and tutorials about how to make a successful business plan in order to guarantee the sustainability of the project. The most important mechanism for innovation in the ICT for Women Portal is that it provides all needed trainings along with its content without the need for instructors or attending workshops.

The initiative is original; it has not been implemented before in any Egyptian ministry or governmental entity. On the national level, there has been several institutions that launched similar initiatives or provided training and workshops for women in poor and unprivileged areas in order to boost poor women capabilities, however, no institution has developed a platform used to provide these services to women in a sustainable manner.

The MCIT has been trying hard to share the successful experience emanating from the initiative locally and internationally. This has been taking place through the participation in various ICT events. The mechanism applied by MCIT in transferring the know-how derived from the initiative is through disseminating knowledge about the implementation and development of the project. MCIT has been representing Egypt in several events and presented a case study about the portal, among which the ITU Expert Group Meeting 2017; gathering experts from more than 90 countries, also the Arab League Annual Event about the Arab Women organized in collaboration with Business Women Association was a good Arab networking hub where the initiative was presented. Additionally, the portal was presented in Cairo ICT event for several years starting in 2016, and it was selected as one of the best platforms presented during the 2016 event. Cairo ICT is an international event taking place annually in Cairo, and it is attended by many multinational companies, as well as foreign ministers and representatives. Worth mentioning that the portal has been visited by more than 200,000 visitors during the last quarter of 2018.

The initiative is transferable as mentioned beforehand.

The initiative utilizes many resources to guarantee its sustainability. These resources are financial and human resources. Financially, around 100,000$ is allocated from MCIT and its partners who support the initiative and who are keen on its continuity. As for the human resources, 5 to 6 team members from the MCIT’s central department for information and decision support are responsible for maintaining portal content, design and development.

The initiative is sustainable over time representing an integral part of the “National Strategy for Empowering Egyptian Women” under the auspices of H.E. The President; as it manifests the use of ICT by women. We conduct efforts to support the use of ICT by women. These endeavors are implemented in partnership with different multinationals cooperating each year to carry out various events and activities.

Yes

The evaluation process of the initiative is twofold. Internally within MCIT, the department of planning and follow-up closely monitors the progress of the initiative’s activities implementation and reports it within the ministry’s aggregated plan. Externally, we are committed to deliver follow-up reports to the National Council for Women monitors annually, as well as conducting follow-up meetings. These efforts are to be enclosed within the National Strategy for Empowering Egyptian Women. It is worth mentioning that all females targeted by our events, training courses and workshops continuously evaluate the portal through surveys.

Time is our main KPI. We define a predetermined schedule for undertaking the portal activities. We designed a flexible timeline to cope with the new updates that needs to be mirrored in the conduct of the initiative. Furthermore, this schedule is integrated within the holistic time frame of the National Strategy for Empowering Egyptian Women.

The evaluation process of the initiative had many key findings. One of the most important issues tackled is the adequacy of resources that will guarantee the sustainability of the initiative. To maintain these resources, we have conducted several concrete channels with CSRs of multinational companies who have agreed to sponsor joint events, for example: Hackathon, training courses and conferences that will benefit different female categories (Students, Business Women and Entrepreneurs). We have planned a yearly schedule that targets holding events during 2020 that includes Egyptian universities located in different governorates focusing on Upper Egypt. Also, we have several links with business women associations to reach women entrepreneurs. These efforts and cooperation will help us to mobilize financial resources that will enable us to carry out events. Our main aim is to reach large number of women especially in marginalized areas.

The initiative flourishes in a very supportive environment. The Egyptian Constitution ensures the achievement of equality between women and men in all civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution. The Egyptian Constitution guarantees women’s right of holding public and senior management offices in the State and their appointment in judicial bodies and authorities without discrimination. Also, it focuses on ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic and public life. The Egyptian Government integrates the Sustainable Development Goals in all its ministries. All Egyptian ministries created “Equal Opportunity Units” aiming at following up the inclusion of women's needs in development plans and programs in the Egyptians ministries. It is worth mentioning that the “Equal Opportunity Unit” is affiliated to MCIT’s Central Department for Information and Decision Support who is responsible for portal management.

Several stakeholders were engaged in the different phases of designing and implementing the initiative. Different national and international stakeholders participated in making the initiative a success. To name some of the stakeholders; the National Council for Women and its affiliates, Egyptian Businesswomen Associations, civil society institutions, private sector organizations, multinationals, universities, governorates and international organizations. Stakeholders have provided considerable contributions financially and technically through participating in events, online training content, capacity building programs as well as financial assistance. Prominent international contributions were provided by the UNDP, Microsoft and USAID and telecom operators.

Several lessons can be drawn from the different phases of the initiative. Those lessons are planned to be used in improving future steps of the initiative. One major lesson relates to the importance of drawing more attention and dedicating more activities of the initiative to the Upper Egypt governorates. The reason behind this is the pressing need to develop the women capabilities in these areas, as they are suffering deprivation of ICT benefits, in addition to the great support and enthusiasm that was shown by women and relevant stakeholders in these areas. This interest has been greatly highlighted, in comparison to the capital and other governorates. Another lesson learned relates to the importance of having representatives from students in universities in governorates to follow up the usage of females in rural and marginalized areas for the portal services and taking their suggestions in consideration. Additionally, the experience proved that there is a great need to increase the access points to the portal in different governorates of the country, through reaching for more IT clubs and other dissemination mechanisms.