Press Release, 08-12-2003

An international team of Women journalists will cover the world Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) from 10-12 December 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland. The European North American WomenAction Coalitions (ENAWA) will publish Digit@ll- future - a daily tabloid throughout the summit in English, French and Spanish, to highlight issues relating to Gender for the participants at WSIS. The on-line version of the publications available on www.enawa.org, will provide information about WSIS to readership throughout the world.

Gender perspectives are central to an information society that promotes accessibility of knowledge and information both in North and South. In the Netherlands for instance only 11% of IT workforce is female. In the US, less then 2% of CEO’s in the IT industry are women. In Croatia only 2% of the web sites are made by women. In Serbia, only half as many girls as boys use Intenet more than 3 times a year. In Africa, relevant Information is spread via radio, but many women have no access to radio. Therefore providing and increasing the accessibility to Information for women will be the focus of the women journalists who team up to publish daily paper.

International editorial team will attend WSIS solely for the purpose of participating in the event and reflecting it widely. The team consists of 13 journalists from around the world.

To receive the daily coverage by email, please go to http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ngowomen and scroll down to the section Subscribing to Ngowomen.

Digit@ll Future is a project of that is managed by the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement (IIAV). ENAWA and its partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America regularly provide feminist news and analysis at international conferences.

Note for the Media:
Lin McDevitt-Pugh (Program Director, Department of International Cooperation of the IIAV) will be present at WSIS and can be interviewed. To reach her, please call: +31-(0) 615 04 84 68.

The IIAV is dedicated to working with partners worldwide to provide information on the position of women to public policy makers, women's organisations, researchers and the media. The IIAV uses traditional and new media in its outreach and is proud to house a vast collection of books, magazines, journals and archives.

This message has been published by the IIAV's Communication & PR department
For questions or more information please contact: [email protected] or phone: +31 (0)20 6651318.