Introduction RESEARCH QUESTIONS: IREX analyzed 1) the extent to which evidence exists for gender-based differences in access, use, and perceived benefits; and 2) awareness among key stakeholders in Myanmar of how such differences deepen gaps in digital skills acquisition and real benefits derived from ICTs, such as improved health and educational outcomes. 1 Key Finding 1: Although manifestations of the gender digital divide in Myanmar are widely perceived to be normative and personal choices by women and girls, gender digital divide in Myanmar than issues of access, for which age/rural/urban “There aren’t any specific groups opposing expansion of access to the internet, but there are many groups that are not prioritizing internet connectivity.” lines are more strongly correlated. —Urban CSO representative they are systemic and detrimental to women’s and girls’ full participation in or ability to benefit from development processes. 2 Key Finding 2: Among the three components analyzed (access, skills, and benefits), both (a) gender-based control over ICT devices and skills acquisition and (b) lack of real and perceived benefits of ICT use are more salient to the 3 Key Finding 3: The lack of a local focal point—whether a government agency or a high-capacity nonstate institution—to champion digital inclusion compounds low stakeholder awareness of how the gender digital divide functions as a brake on development. 4 Key Finding 4: There is more political will to accelerate integration of ICTs than for gender equality as a priority. Why a PEA? This report utilizes a problem-driven political economy assessment framework,28 adapted to incorporate a more explicit focus on gender analysis constructs that are largely missing from standard PEA—despite many commonalities.29 As Browne describes in her extensive review of PEAs through a gender lens, political economy analysis explores political and economic processes to provide an in-depth analysis of the power relations between social groups. Gender analysis explores power relations between men and women as social categories and has long championed the deconstruction of informal power dynamics for insight into how the “personal is political.”30 Global research has extensively documented that men and women are social groups with different political and economic interests and motivations. Both formal and informal politics are highly gendered, particularly the ways in which power relations are produced and reproduced; the intersectionality of gender and other forms of marginalization is a key driver of conflict.31 Taken together, the two approaches enable deep understanding through a multifaceted analysis of a complex development challenge. 28 For example, see Verena Fritz, Kai Kaiser, and Brian Levy, Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis: Good Practice Framework (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009); Harris, Applied Political Economy Analysis. 29 Evie Browne, “Gender in Political Economy Analysis,” GSDRC Helpdesk Research Report 1071, Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, January 17, 2014. 30 Ibid. 31 Agatha Ma and Kyoko Kusakabe, “Gender Analysis of Fear and Mobility in the Context of Ethnic Conflict in Kayah State, Myanmar,” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (2015): 342–56; Win Naung Toe and Roseanne Gerin, “Myanmar’s Parliament Approves Controversial Interfaith Marriage Law,” Radio Free Asia, July 7, 2015. Ending the Gender Digital Divide in Myanmar: A Problem-Driven Political Economy Assessment | 13