ICT education in changing lives of women of mountains

Research shows that women are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in mountain areas due to many reasons including gender-based violence.  These women are rarely acknowledged as agents of change with responsibilities, knowledge and skills.  
Mountain women are excluded from political participation and decision-making. Women's lack of market information and bargaining power allows the traders to exploit the producers. These hard-working women and girls of mountains contribute much, but in return they get less/ little due to gender inequality and deprivation of their human rights.
For sustainable mountain development, the experts of Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region-(Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan) recommended a strong platform for the women of mountain areas. The vulnerability in mountain areas is particularly high, where poverty intersects with discrimination, be it because of gender, caste, or ethnicity. The very burning issues are how gender can be considered, and accounted for in times of rapid change, in terms of physical changes including climate change, urbanisation, infrastructure and land use changes, the changing aspirations and identities of mountain people, women in particular.  
There is a 'disconnect' in the knowledge of mountain issues between people living in the plains and those in the mountains. To bridge the gap, we should bring women together in collective bodies, so that all the women and girls of mountains get a platform to voice their own issues boldly.
It is also imperative that women of the mountains must be heard. In order to accelerate progress, women must be given a collective voice and listening mechanisms within the policy-making process. Data, particularly demographic data, must be made available to guide suitable strategies for diverse sets of women including young women, women in reproductive age, women farmers, employed women, women with disabilities, and others. Appropriate attention must be paid to gender-responsive budgeting to support implementation of plans, projects and reach the national and international goals.
The gap in knowledge which separates the plain land people from those in the mountains is a great concern. We need to know how mountain women define and view their 'empowerment', and how they want to address those issues. Our national policies, which predominantly portray the issues of plain land, must address and include the mountain people-related concerns.   The governments, the civil society and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), donor agencies, development partners and the print and electronic media should urgently consider and address the importance of  ending gender inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition, violence against women, discrimination and deprivation that women and girls of mountains have long been passing through.
So, considering all those issues, policy makers and development partners must think about empowering women of mountains through ICT (Information and Communication Technology: mobile, radio, Internet, digital content, blogs, robotics, multimedia, etc.), because it is an essential part like other goals for winning the fight in the lives of women. It will increase resources in their hands to be self reliant and empowered and reduce discrimination against them. It is a part of placing their issues at the forefront of policy action.
ICT can benefit women in many ways. It can facilitate their participation in different sectors and different regions. It can provide the information women need to improve their own well-being and that of their families. The introduction of computers into offices has improved the quality of work and scope for women in data entry, analysis, programming, clerical and administrative occupations. More over ICT allows them to exchange views, opinions and information so much, which may not be possible through other media.
ICT has a strategic link with poverty reduction. The Internet, email and mobile phones top the list of new tools. ICT can directly empower women as well as the poor people by offering access to services historically unavailable to them because of high cost or lack of infrastructure, particularly in mountain areas. Now buying-selling or renting ICT equipment itself is a source of income. Mobile phone has already ushered in such income among many women. The computer training institutes should set the course curriculum in accordance with the country-specific need and demand of mountain women. Access to the Internet is still very limited for several reasons, like poor teledensity, poor electricity, poor affordability of computer and knowledge about the Internet.  
 Experts observed that ICT is a very helpful tool for women to communicate required persons/ agencies to prevent violence against women and to get necessary legal support. Moreover, ICT is able to keep the women updated about the everyday happenings nationally and internationally. Even preventing disaster, tackling climate change and to protect environment-ICT plays very important role for women to save their lives and livelihoods. ICT helps making market work for women who are involved in homestead food production, producing agricultural crops in the fields.
Technical assistance from internationally reputed companies should be sought to build proper networking infrastructure throughout the country. The relationship with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) should be strengthened for reducing digital divide. Proper use of Global Information Superhighway should be ensured. All schools, colleges and universities should be brought under Internet network. This is an emergency programme to be initiated  at the earliest. As a result women from rural and mountain areas will be able to get access to use of Internet as well as to be trained up on ICT.
We need to implement education programme in software engineering, computer communication and multimedia with curriculum that incorporates the latest technology. We also need to introduce 'basic computer skills' as a compulsory subject for all students at Intermediate and Graduate level. Polytechnics and other training institutes should offer diploma in ICT. Unemployed girls, women and youth should be encouraged and given priority for ICT training courses vis-a-vis market demand.
Diploma and trade courses should be introduced in distance education system through ICT network. A national specialised training of teachers centre should be established for solving the problem of acute shortage of quality teachers in ICT. Female students and teachers of university and colleges should get free or subsidised access to Internet.
All universities and higher educational institutions should be networked for better access to knowledge and information. Primary and secondary level education should be emphasised for long run return in ICT industry.
 More training institutes on ICT for the girls and women should be established. Poor and meritorious students, unemployed girls and women should be given free of cost training, accommodation, training materials etc. After completion of training, bank loan may be offered to them on easy terms to set up cyber café or computer training institute in urban and rural areas. 'JAWS' talking software can be given free of cost from the educational institutes or  government offices to the visually impaired female and male students.
Governments  as well as the mobile phone companies should encourage more unemployed women to run business of phone, FAX, computer compose, etc. Every country of Himalayan Hindu Kush region must have an ICT policy friendly to the women of mountains as a part of opening and building up their carrier. Micro-credit for self-employment empowers women's decision-making capacity. Likewise, an amount of money, which women need to be ICT experts and to establish ICT firms, will help them earn more money and to be more empowered.
This is why the Government as well as the nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) should start to distribute small loans among interested women to encourage them to be self-reliant by learning and working in ICT sector. The third of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations is to achieve gender equality and empower women. It seeks to rectify the disadvantagedthrough policies and programmes which build women's capabilities, improve their access to economic and political opportunity guaranteeing their safety. So, ICT will definitely play a supportive role to reach this goal soon.
Keeping the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the Goals of Sustainable Development beyond MDGs in view, the leaders of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region should consider producing comprehensive mountain development strategies or 'LookMountains' policy for inclusive, sustainable mountain development as post-MDGs, so that every woman of the mountains is counted and included equally. Forging local, national, regional and international partnerships to enable transformative changes is also a must. Policy makers must be more realistic instead of being charged with occasional surges of emotion over the deprived people. So, let the ICT be 'All time tools' of the women of mountains as an essential component of their empowerment to include those women in the mainstream sustainable mountain development.  More comprehensive research is needed to make the ICT 'user-friendly' and 'resilience' for their livelihoods for the women of mountains in line with bridging the gaps between evidence and implementation.
The writer is an award-winning      journalist, columnist and author of four books on climate change, women's empowerment,
migration and contemporary issues, email: [email protected]