IT for Change, on invitation, prepared a document for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) on the progress made on the Beijing Platform for Action, concentrating especially in Section J about Women and Media that required considerable reframing in the light of the epochal techno-social developments characterising this historical juncture. This document aims to use the powerful lens of the 'information society' to defiine the emerging priorities for analysis and action towards gender justice.It offers a conceptual framework that takes from Section J the critical concerns articulated around issues of Media and Access to Technology, but it also goes a step further to flag two more issues for women's empowerment (not grasped by Section J) that the information society casts its long shadow on – Violence Against Women, that the BPfA addressed as a central concern and Access to Knowledge, which at the time of Beijing, was not anticipated to transform so profoundly the very basis of power in society. In including these two additional dimensions, the document explores the new context of self-expression and social relationships vis-a-vis digital reality and the centrality of knowledge ownership and sharing paradigms to the new social and economic order.

While it is tailored to speak to the overall trends of the Asian and Pacific region, it is also a document geared towards identifying the way forward for women's empowerment and gender equality. Therefore, it will lay out the critical challenges facing the gender equality project as well as identify the empowering possibilities in the information society context making recommendations for policy action. Anita Gurumurthy presented this document at the Expert Meeting organised by UNESCAP in Bangkok from 13th to 15th May, 2009. The paper is available here.

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