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Harnessing the Power of New ICTs for Rural Women in India: NGO Roles

Information and communications technology (ICT) holds special potential for rural women. Rural women often have less education, less access to information in their daily lives, and greater isolation in domestic settings. In some communities, women and girls may lack freedom to attend meetings, find answers to their questions, and speak with outsiders, especially male ones. Rural women are using ICTs to surmount disadvantages: to learn, enjoy better health, prosper in livelihoods, access legal help and take care of government and private transactions. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in rural communities in India routinely support traditional community media such as local language newsletters, posters, pamphlets, street theater (nuked natak in Hindi), wall paintings and community meetings. Rural women can relate to ICT materials in local language and with pictures that convey messages that are relevant to their daily lives. “New ICTs” are accelerating the ability to reach out to villagers in rural areas and to provide additional platforms for interaction. New ICTs, which may be used individually or in convergence with each other, include community radio, Internet radio, mobile phones, computers/laptops/tablets and other handheld devices, information kiosks, tele-centres, video cameras, and the Internet (Nath, 2001). There is an abundance of pilot projects using ICT to engage rural communities. Challenges to engaging rural women through ICT are many – from infrastructure inadequacies to patriarchal social structures and honing in on relevant and engaging content. This paper begins with discussion of the roles of NGOs in India in spreading new ICTs to empower rural women having little formal education. We then examine one Indian NGO’s experience with introduction of ICTs in development work, particularly with community radio, and three other Indian examples of the many ICTs used to engage rural women – mobile phone applications, multi-purpose village kiosks, and interactive voice response systems. The paper concludes with identification of challenges and recommendations on next steps for NGOs in India to accelerate use of these technologies for empowerment of rural women.