ICT and the Gender Question: Prospects and Challenges for the Knowledge Economy in the 21st Century

Without any doubt, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is acknowledged to have greater meaning and impact among different segments of the societies in the world today. Its capacity to make information more readily available to users in a more efficient and effective manner has accounted for the wider popularity of ICT against the traditional tools of mobilizing information. The gender question is an on-going debate for many scholars, there's a wide gap between men and women's access and utilization of ICT. This position paper examines the role of ICT and gender in advancing the knowledge economy in Nigeria. It seeks to determine the level and rate of adoption of ICT's across gender with a view to ascertaining areas of gaps. The paper identifies the prospects of ICT's readily available for gender to harness, the obvious challenges and the way forward for the knowledge economy in the 21st century. The study adopts secondary sources of data and relevant theoretical positions to situate the paper. It concludes that Nigeria can achieve more in ICT, gender development and the knowledge economy