This is a guest post by Jos Dirkx, founder of the award winning NGO, Girls & Football in South Africa, where she has been living since 2010. She most recently completed a PR assignment at the United Nations RCO in Asmara, Eritrea, a demanding environment with regard to Africa's evolving tech space and gender equality. She was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up in 8 countries across 5 continents, and is an activist for women empowerment.

Looking back on her youth, a 59 year old woman tells the story of how she combated violence against women: climbing on the top of the anthill in her village, she yelled out, “My husband beats me when I give meat to my children! My husband is a glutton, and he only gives me orders!”. Villagers, upon hearing her cries, started to gossip about the husband, eventually embarrassing him so much that he was forced to change his behavior.

Currently, technology provides other creative platforms for a voice to be heard, perhaps a bit more efficient than an anthill (which, regardless, did serve its purpose). Community radio, mobile phones, and an increase in access to internet provide us with powerful means to discuss topics important to development and empowerment. Unfortunately, many women (especially in rural and remote areas in African countries) do not have the required skill or access to these platforms, usually due to challenges faced by high costs associated with using communication devices in addition to the gender divide resulting in men assuming their role as drivers in the technological field.

With NGOs such as the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) founded in 2000, women are encouraged to take tech into their own hands by gaining knowledge, experience and ownership in a field that has potential to skyrocket on the African continent. The main mission of WOUGNET is to promote and support the use of ICT by women based and led organizations, but also by individual women.

Most recently, WOUGNET has covered incredible ground by drawing the link between agriculture, technology and women.

This is crucial work for two main reasons; 85% of farmers in Africa are women, and technology is consistently becoming a more important tool for communication in rural areas.

For that reason, WOUGNET started a project entitled “Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information using ICT” in 2005. It was initiated to improve communications systems by including mobile phones, radio cassettes and community radio for women in rural areas in order to enhance their access to agricultural information. By supporting women in accessing, utilizing and applying ICT, they are able to address development problems. Furthermore, by applying ICT to create opportunities for sharing and exchanging knowledge, women are able to expand their network and gain access to more resources. Although an emphasis is placed on internet-based technologies, WOUGNET also incorporates traditional means of communication (such as telephones, radio, video, television and print media) with a focus on radio for which content is cheap to produce and easily accessible. On various community radio programs, women listeners (especially those in remote regions) gain access to shows about sustainable development, share farming tips, discuss income generation ideas and explore ways to improve education in their own localities. In addition, listerners can phone in to ask questions about prevalent topics such as establishing a healthy relationships and HIV/Aids.

By providing rural farmers with the tools they need to expand, WOUGNET further enhances the role of women on the African continent by highlighting the important work that they do as the continent’s farmers and providing them with access to information and to technology.