IGF 2019 WS #248 Towards equitable and sustainable community-led networks

Description: This panel will facilitate a conversation about the ways that connectivity excludes people and what community networks uniquely offer to address these exclusions, from a gender perspective. Community networks help to refocus attention on women's lack of representation in policy spaces and technical decision making that is, all too often, considered normal. For instance, more women than men live in rural areas around the world, so their involvement is more vital to a community network's sustainability and thus their absence is more noticeable than, say, their lack of representation in regulation or commercial telecom spaces. We will reflect on the many benefits that engaging with community network initiatives have provided women, the challenges women face in becoming involved and the strategies and tactics they use to overcome challenges. This will offer valuable insights to people interested in improving community networks. However, just as importantly, community networks expose issues about inclusion and exclusion that are hidden by telecommunications more generally. For instance, on the one hand women have become technically proficient and empowered by community networks because they learn about technologies in accessible and familiar situations in ways that are relevant to their everyday lives. Yet, on the other, women can encounter barriers to using community networks because social norms, and their daily routines and safety concerns, limit their access to public Wi-Fi - a technology that many CNs are forced to use because of regulatory restrictions. That is, community networks can shed light on the ways regulations can be blind to, and complicit with, gender barriers. All the panelists who will put community networks under the microscope identify as women, and all have been involved extensively in community networks around the world. They are the mothers of community networks, community networks builders, leaders, researchers, fundraisers and advocates. Their combined real-world, lived experience of community networks, for over 30-years, will bring to life and extend beyond the findings of APC's study lead by Nicola Bidwell, about the impact of community networks on the lives of women in six countries in the global south. Their stories will illustrate that community networks offer far more than just affordable telecoms and internet access to women. While, indeed, the many impacts of community networks can be translated into economic terms, it is not only that they lower costs, improve trade and afford other income opportunities for women. They can, in fact, also foster women's agency - socially, technically and politically. The panelist's perspectives will illustrate how standard assessments of connectivity interventions, like community networks, which typically evaluate a very narrow range of impacts (e.g. scale, volume, revenue) do not account for the varied, deeper and more nuanced benefits of connectivity in women's lives, as users and as makers of physical, virtual and social internet infrastructures. Participants in this panel present a broad set of skills and attributes that enable women to thrive despite the louder and more frequent voices of men in technical and policy decision making. In contrast with the manels and wanels, that are prevalent in discussion of internet governance, we will learn about women's resilience and resourcefulness in contributing to the various layers of community networks despite the challenges. And, finally, we will discuss recommendations for safer and inclusive community networks that not only ensure women have the power to enjoy the full range of benefits of community networks, but also ensure the sustainability and creativity of community networks benefit from the attributes that women bring. By focusing on the Community Networks model,this session considerably extends the formative work of the Best Practice Form on Gender an Access 2018, which explored the impact of supplementary models. It also supports the Dynamic Coalision on Women and Internet Governance by considering the governance of the community networks as part of the internet governance. The session will provide the grande finale, for the year, of continuous conversations in other international forums to build upon each other's outcomes: IFF2019, SIF, WSIS Outline: 1. introductions 2. directed questions from onsite moderator to speakers and audience 3. open questions from audience to speakers

Expected Outcomes: * Provide an overview of the realities of women in the different contexts (Africa, LAC and Asia). * The audience will get a set of success stories about women in community networks * The audience will hear the testimony of the challenges of the experience of women in Community Networks from the mouth of the doers * The audience will get insight in relation to how to best build a network from a bottoms-up approach that is led by women.