Technology in the service of Maghribi women

The twentieth-first century has been heralded as an era of unprecedented global connectedness due to the rapid development of new technologies including the fax, cell phone, computer, modem, broadband and the Internet. These devices and services make it possible for individuals, communities, organisations and governments around the world to communicate with one another in a matter of minutes and at all hours of the day or night. At the same time, an unsettling myth has emerged around this phenomenon which fosters the belief that all peoples around the world can find entry into this global community. Recent statistics about the low rate of penetration of new technologies in developing countries indicate otherwise. Nonetheless, there are pockets of activities in these countries which are finding ways to counter this reality. This paper describes one such community—the women-focused non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Morocco and Tunisia. Executives, staff, volunteers and beneficiaries in these organisations creatively adopt and use both old and new technologies to develop their own model of technology adoption and application that serves their particular missions. The data supporting this investigation have been gathered from field studies conducted on-site at six NGOs during 2003–4. The findings show that, despite the resource challenges facing these women, some have developed and successfully applied a hybrid model of technology application, that is, a combination of the old and the new, with visible and valuable results that impact on rural communities and promote societal transformation through providing expanded distributive networks

Business · Developing country · Economic growth · Economics · Emerging technologies · Phone · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · The Internet · Computer Science · ICT Impact and Policies