Section 3 | RULES OF THE GAME Figure 13: National and Subnational Governance Structure Union Territory (Naypyitaw) and 14* States & Regions Districts (74) Townships (330) City or Town (422) Wards (3183) Village Tracts (13602) Villages (70838)** The interviewee also reported that there are very few women in decision-making positions anywhere in the GAD even though women make up, on average, 38 percent of GAD staff below “officer” level in the state and region, township, and ward/village tract administrations.189 More recent research by UNDP released in December 2015 found that out of 16,785 village/ ward administrators,190 only forty-two or .25 percent are women. Previously appointed positions, they are now elected for five-year terms and serve as a bridge between village/ ward administration and the township AD. In a video accompanying the research report, three of the six women village/ward administrators featured mentioned that their fathers had been ward administrators, and two had less than sixth-grade educations. The nearinvisibility of women at the most local level of government administration speaks to deeply entrenched gender norms about public leadership by women, women’s relative lack of leisure time compared to men, and the continuing strong influence of township-level GADappointed civil servants with military ties on the newly elected village/ward administrators. Several key informants described a system in which local governments have become used to merely relying on the national government to hand down tasks for them to carry out, IREX INSIGHT as most policy and budgetary decisions are made at the union level. This indicates that With approval power over local township-level advocacy efforts by CSOs and other stakeholders to bridge the gender digital development projects and very divide should focus on implementation and enforcement rather than policy development. opaque incentive structures, local At least one CSO reported that the Department of Social Welfare is assessing NSPAW-related tasks to assign to local township administrations; to encourage this development, they planned to conduct more trainings and events for female township staff. But women’s access to local governance through male family members and as civil servants must not GAD appointees are potential spoilers of more equitable ICT access and skills acquisition at be conflated with control over resources and decisions, making it critically important to the township, city and village/ incentivize male allies to support equitable ICT access and skills for all. ward level. 189 190 Ibid. Village tract administrators govern rural areas, whereas ward administrators are in urban areas. Ending the Gender Digital Divide in Myanmar: A Problem-Driven Political Economy Assessment | 57