Mrs. Flora Emilia lives deep in Tanzania’s mountainous region. Owning a mobile phone has helped her access the latest market prices, and therefore get better rates for her crops, rather than being taken advantage by the middlemen.

She can now contact buyers on her own and search for market prices in town, none of which should could do before being involved with the  Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS), a small grants fund initiated in 2002 to support work on gender-related issues in ICTs for the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions.

“I am a better woman now,” she says with pride.

By being able to search for market prices, she can now bargain and is looking into ways of increasing her crop production and expanding different crop types.

Emilia is a beneficiary of the Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) GenARDIS funded project,  which distributed mobile phones to a group of women from the village of Peko-Misegese in Tanzania.

Small grants making big changes

According to Jennifer Radloff, Manager of GenARDIS project for Association for Progressive Communications (APC), women living in rural areas must overcome multiple barriers, relating not only to their location but also their gender, to access information and communication technologies (ICTs).

GenARDIS recognizes the constraints and challenges encountered by rural women–lower levels of education, cultural attitudes preventing women from visiting public access points without being accompanied by men, caregiving responsibilities, to name but a few– and has disbursed small grants to diverse and innovative projects in order to counter these barriers, to document the process and results, and to contribute to more gender-aware ICT policy advocacy.

For instance, radio (and increasingly the mobile phone), are perhaps the most ubiquitous communication devices in many rural areas, are often not accessible to women since men control and usually own the radio and the mobile phone in the household.

“With all the GenARDIS-supported projects, ICTs are only a means–albeit a very powerful means to an end in themselves. Access to information is the tool that allows women to envision small advances in everyday life and more monumental strides over time,” said Keane Shore, an Ottawa-based writer and editor.

Women play a central role in the agriculture economy and centralizing ICTs adds tremendous potential for improving rural livelihoods.

By demonstrating in tangible ways women’s huge contribution to agriculture and household income and the positive increase in livelihoods, gender relations are improved and women’s role in communities more valued.

“The love has increased in my house,” added Emilia whose new found financial independence has made space for more equality, respect and harmony in the household.