In India’s rural e-governance initiative, 33% of local government seats are reserved for women. Rural village heads of Chhattisgarh State – one of India’s poorest – can now participate in the public process and in theory remotely communicate the needs of their villages through the use of a low-cost computer that does not require computer literacy. But women are not taking the active roles that were expected. Using GEM, APC’s gender evaluation methodology, Dr. Anupama Saxena and her team are finding out why winning an electoral seat does not necessarily guarantee that your voice is heard within the governance system if you are a woman.

“If a boy wants to attend a computer course community members encourage him but if a girl wants to go elders ask her why she wants to complicate her life,” says Dhaka-based Mahmud Hasan. In a country where one in every two males accesses information online yet only three in a hundred Bangladeshi women do, access for schoolgirls is not just about the availability of computers and classes. For girls, it requires the support of the entire community and flexible school schedules as revealed by a study using APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM).

Since January, sectarian strife has ripped through Nigerian communities. “A mass burial took place the day before yesterday and body counts are close to three hundred with over 80% of them women and children,” APC member John Dada told APC. “It is ironic that in the month of the Celebration of Women’s Day, such atrocities are being visited on innocent women and children.” Women are culturally respected as the givers of life and John blames deepening poverty and economic alienation for the cultural reversal but he sees a potential solution.