Digital Age : Rural Women Have Less Access To ICTs

Although it is difficult to give an accurate assessment of women's contributions to agriculture, it is estimated that rural women supply about 90 per cent of the food needed for the subsistence of the population in the country. They also participate in the cash crop sector and during the growing season, they devote six to eight hours a day to agriculture in addition to their household work. Yet, study indicates that rural women have less access to ICTs such as phones, laptops, and WiFi because they are confronted with social norms, living in unconnected areas, or can ill-afford these technological gadgets.
While the digital revolution is reaching rural areas in many developing countries like Cameroon, the rural-digital-divide continues to present considerable challenges especially to rural women. These women have problems getting access to these technologies as well as the know-how to use the tools. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, in its Gender and ICTs report talks of “triple divide” -referring to digital, rural, and gender’ inequalities that still persist. Apart from the access to technology and related skills, literacy presents a crucial challenge for rural women living in this digital world. Statistics from FAO further reveal that 2/3 of the 700 million adults who are illiterate are women. Most of the rural women in every nook and cranny of Cameroon do not even know the concept of digital innovations in the agriculture sector.
In spite of the promises of the digital revolution, rural women are the group that is least connected to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In a random survey among 10 rural women in Yaounde and the town of Tiko in the South Wes Region, it was realised that most rural women are not only illiterate, but do not own a mobile phone. Some of them even had difficulties knowing what a mobile phone is until when the reporter said that it is a mobile device that rings in hand bags or pockets of some people. At this point, a rural woman whose name Cameroon Tribune got as Mami Aggie said “tingling tingling” indicating the sound that comes when a phone rings.  Because most...