Evaluating a Gender-Based Community ICT Project: Women’s Empowerment, Donors Role and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Abstract: This paper assesses the impact of a gender-based community ICT project in a rural remote part of Zambia. It looks at the impact ICTs have had on the women involved with the ICT project. The paper also assesses whether there has been any empowering impact on the women and whether any MDGs have been met. Additionally, light is shed on the role of international donors in the funding of community ICT projects such as the one in question and how the donor‟s status as benefactors can have some disbenefits due to lack of consultation and understanding of what the community‟s needs in relation to ICTs might actually be. Too often donors impose their own will, targets and ICTs they see fit at the expense of adequately effecting lasting change beyond their „gifts‟. By using the gender-based community ICT project as an example, the paper shows how donor‟s imposition has the potential to go wrong. The paper begins by tracing some concepts of development and how these have had and continue to have an impact on gender equality, empowerment and development. These are then tied into ICTs for development, whereupon an assessment and impact evaluation of the ICT project ensues. Evaluating a Gender-Based Community ICT Project: Women’