Policy implications for using ICTs for empowerment of rural women in Ghana

Abstract

Using rural household survey data collected from 1000 female household heads selected from all the ten administrative regions in Ghana, this paper explored the policy implications for using ICTs for empowerment of rural women. A contingent valuation (CV) method was used to quantitatively estimate the influence of selected socio-economic factors on rural women’s willingness to pay for alternative information delivery technologies. Even though the government sets the overall national ICT policy, the results from this study suggest some merit in allocating considerable authority to regional and local authorities in setting priorities and approaches to empowering rural women through the use of ICT. The study results also point to a need to cast rural empowerment policies and programs within the broader poverty reduction policies of the government and also within the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The results again indicate the need to formulate policies and programs to prevent duplication of efforts and critical “Political Will”.