Executive Summary Women are more likely to extensively use ICTs if they perceive benefits to investing time and resources to do so. ü QUICK WIN FHI360’s Gender and ICT Survey Toolkit enables INGOs to gather In addition to subtle gender-based issues of access to ICTs and strong normative control mobile-focused data on gender- at all levels of the digital skills pyramid, the research revealed that a large measure of the based differences in user access gender digital divide in Myanmar is due to the lack of benefits that currently accrue to and skills. The Toolkit focuses women users of ICTs. Hampered by very basic digital skills; a reliance on family members or on digital financial services and friends to share devices; limited exposure to the types of information, products, and services mobile agriculture, but can be available online; and a dearth of relevant digital content by and for women to tempt them, women are more likely to report “no need” than “affordability” as the reason they do not own a mobile phone. adapted to meet a wide range of community needs. Align More Digital Content with Women’s Needs: Recent gender assessments strongly suggest that men and women in Myanmar have different governance priorities, with women more likely to cite health care, education, sanitation, and microfinance as pressing issues. Current donor technical assistance to the Government of Myanmar in support of e-governance readiness should boost women’s meaningful usage of ICT-enabled public services. It can achieve this through policies and programs to support e-government services in areas women prioritize, such as WASH, education, and income generation. For example, expediting digital security measures like e-ID can increase women’s support for and likelihood to engage in e-commerce, online microcredit, and other financial services. Similarly, mEducation initiatives like parent-teacher communications using social media or SMS can increase engagement with technology by providing concrete benefits like timely or mother tongue information. In addition, to supplement government efforts, private ICT firms, CSOs, and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) should work together to expand the ecosystem for digital services in health, education, and agriculture, such as crowdsourcing geodata on WASH hotspots to identify schools without safe water supplies or adding languages and targeted content like adolescent and geriatric health information to existing apps like iWoman to help those most affected by the digital divide. Ending the Gender Digital Divide in Myanmar: A Problem-Driven Political Economy Assessment | 9

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