Workshop co-ordinator: Nankunda Katangaza,
Information and Communication Officer ABANTU for Development, UK

The goals of this workshop were to share experiences from around the world on how women's information has been gathered and targeted at decision-making processes, to identify gaps/needs in the gathering and dissemination of women's information and to develop strategies for effective engaging with policy processes using women's information.

Speakers en presenters were:
- Montse Argente, Centre de Documentacio, Institut Catala de la Dona, Barcelona Spain;
- Martha Franken, Director, Equal Opportunities in Flanders, Ministery of the Flemish Community in Flanders, Belgium;
- Victoria Jimenez, Women's Information Program, Costa Rica;
- Ranjan Karmaker, Steps Towards Development, Bangladesh; Nankunda Katangaza, ABANTU for Development, UK;
- Muthoni Muriu, ENDA Tiersmonde, Senegal;
- Mme. Ali Aissata Niandou, Ministre du Plan, Centre d'Information et de Documentation Economique et Sociale, Niger;
- Nguyen Thi Mai Thuy, Centre for Study on Women Workers, Vietnam;
- Chris Zwaenepoel, RoSa, Documentation Centre and Archives on Equal Opportunities Feminism and Gender Studies.

Chris Zwaenepoel talked about how the RoSa Women's Information Centre is used for and by the Flemish Equal Opportunities Policies. She explained the geographical position of Flanders in Belgium. The Federal Policy for Equal Opportunities started in 1980. There is a Minister for EO and Employment an Equal Opportunities Service, a Council for Equal Opportunities and there's 'Amazone' the House for Women's Organisations. There is a Flemish Policy for Equal Opportunities since 1995. There is a Minister for EO, a Service "Equal Opportunities in Flanders' and an Interdepartmental Commission Equal Opportunities (ICEO). The Mandate of 'Equal Opportunities in Flanders is to provide policy support, to deal with administrative files, to implement and oversee EO projects in Flanders, to provide the Minister with relevant information and data, to represent administration in meetings and work groups with internal or external authorities, to report periodically to the Minister, to stimulate and coordinate actions of all departments and to serve as a chair and secretary of the interdepartmental work group.Tools for the implementation of Equal Opportunities Policy are legislation, subsidies and grants to projects and women's organisations, support scientific research with grants and issues, collaboration with NGO's as RoSa and the Women's Council, campaigns and gender impact assessment. Three actors work together for Equal Opportunities Policy: the Government, NGO's and Women's Studies. The role of the NGO, RoSa the independent Documentation Centre that already exists for 20 years, is to serve the Federal, Flemish, Provincial and Municipal Governments and the women's organisations, media, educational and socio-cultural organisations, interested people and libraries. The Centre houses special collections on lesbianism, handicapped women, education, literature and the arts. It also houses databases on women's organisations, libraries, and documentation centres, experts and national and international gender studies. It provides information on programs and events and cooperates in international project.like the European Women's Thesaurus.The 'Equal Opportunity in Flanders' website is in construction. It will be ready this winter. They are using the same soft ware as the IIAV used on their website.

The goal of Information in Decision-Making Policy is to end discrimination of target groups and to give a new impulse to Feminism. To accomplish that they give background information, specific data about competences, tools to measure the actual situation and the effects of policy to Government coordinates and to the Public.Knowledge is Power. They support the policy wit facts and statistics to develop a long-term EOP and to raise awareness and effect change.

Montse Argente talked about the role the four Information Centres, of the Institut Catala de la Dona, of Instituto Andaluz de la Mujer, of EMAKUNDE/Instituto Vasco de la Mujer and of the Instituto de la Mujer, play in official organizations for Equal Opportunities Policies in Spain. All Documentation Centres have the same Thesaurus. The goal of the Information Centres is to promote and encourage Equal Rights and to disseminate the information to all. The centres are, also technical, well equipped and there work from 4 to 9 persons. Montse showed on graphics how the Information Centers are different from each other in the kind and porters of information. In all Centres the number of consultations grow over the years and they have a large information function. The importance for public bodies is increasing.

Nguyen Thi Mai Thuy talked about the Issues of Promoting the Capacity of getting and Disseminating Information for Policy Making Processes for Women Workers in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the countries with the highest number of female labour force participation: 52%. However more than 70% of them is working in agriculture with low productivity and the rest have simple and low paid jobs. Although there is no legal discrimination between men and women it still exists in the field of labour. Women are less trained, they do easier lose their job and they are underpaid. One of the main tasks of the Center for Study on Women Workers is collecting, processing, generating and disseminating information for research and policy making. The question is how to strengthen the capacity of collecting and disseminating information on female labour for policy making. Not only does the Center collect information on Women Worker related fields, there has also been training and information dissemination activities on Women Worker's Rights for ministries and institutions at central level and at commune level. The information and data on Gender and Women Worker are collected for study purpose of the Center itself, but the database can also be used by scientists, managers and policy makers. The data are focused on population, labour force, wage / salary/ income / living standard, training and education, family planning, social evils and power and autonomy of women in family and society. There are three basic sources: the General Statistic Office, officially printed data from Ministries, Industries and provinces and data from surveys and scientific research. The collected data have been structured in two professional and highly appreciated data sets 'Vietnam Female Labour 1993' and 'Data on Vietnam Female Labour'. Difficulties are that there is an incomprehensive statistic indicator on female labour, there is no table system and annual reporting procedure on female labour or labour divide by sex, the budget is limited, there are not enough skilled persons to collect, archive and process data. Recommendations on improvement are the completing of a statistic system on labour by sex, the raising of awareness of the importance of collecting information on this subject, building the procedure of collection, generation and dissemination statistic information on Gender and Women Worker, establishing a monitoring and supervising team and improving the quality and effectiveness by improving the technical and material capacity and co-operation.

Nankunda Katangaza talked about using African Women's Information and ICT to influence Policy and Decision Making. In the information revolution the technical direction of the South, in particular Africa, is dictated and determined by the North. Women are left out of the decision-making processes. Their influence on national policies remains negligible. Lately more African women are organising and networking to increase the flow of information from the grassroots to each others and to those in policy and decision making. Much women experience, insight and information however is undocumented and inaccessible to women's organisations in Africa, to the NGO community and to policy makers. The global information infrastructure has emerged as a unique tool for harnessing the information and knowledge of women's organisations and NGOs. It's interactive capability sets it apart from the traditional information and communication technologies. The recently formed Gender and African Information Network (GAIN) for instance is linking and setting up a communicative mechanism for African women information practitioners across the continent. ICT now is viewed in the development context as an investment whose cost and specialised skills render it inappropriate and useless to the poor. Africa has the least connectivity in the world in terms of telecommunications and mainstream media. There are inadequate funds to build the appropriate infrastructure or to purchase the hardware and software. There's a lack of adequate skills and there's a high illiteracy rate. More than 50% of the Africans live in rural areas where there is no infrastructure for information and communication. But one of the four theme's on the Conference of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's 40th Anniversary in Addis Abeba was 'African Women and the Information Age: A New Window of Opportunity'. It is important that African women take advantage of old and new technologies to provide them with an opportunity to share some of the information and knowledge that is available. ICT is an increasingly important tool. But new technologies are predominantly available in the commercial sphere, and most women lack the skill to use it . Most existing information projects are irrelevant for women if they don't have the skills to interpret and repackage it. Research on women is usually poorly funded. But now that the national information technology are still in the formulation stages women should contribute to and support policies that take their needs into consideration. ABANTU for Development has launched a training programme on the effective use of new technologies and on the opportunities for policy engagement they present. Nankunda's last question was: "Are we going to gaze through this 'New Window of Opportunity' or are we going to hold our collective breath and leap through it?"

Research, and especially statistics that are a result of research, has an important function in making information more acceptable to the government. You must learn how to communicate with the government. Don't complain, but share your suggestions and ideas for improvement with them. Policy should learn to look at the impact of their decisions for men and women. We should be more aware that policy decisions concern us all. We can make people listen to us by:

- demanding or pressing the government to live up to ratified international laws

- using the media, see to it that we are in the news

- learning to speak their language.

Women are language makers: they learn the language to their children, they sing, they tell stories. We shouldn't be afraid of it. Language , as a strategic way to communicate is the first issue.

A representative of The Dutch Women's Party told about the goals of the Party and another representative, Dorien Mijksenaer, spontaneously ended the session with the following rap: