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2.3.4 National gender policies
According to the Academy for Educational Development [AED] (n.d:4), the
South African Government is committed towards gender equity in IT and
"creating an enabling environment for South African women to participate in
IT training programs". The Commission on Gender Equality, the National
Gender Forum housed in the Department of Justice, and the Office on the
Status of Women in the Office of the President, are examples of government
efforts that have been initiated for the sake of emancipating women. Others
include initiatives in the telecommunications sector, embodied in the
Department of Communications', Gender, Youth and Disability Desk. The aim
is: "to integrate gender, youth and disability sensitive perspectives in all
departmental programs and policies... The Department will also ensure that
empowerment strategies, policies and legislation designed to ensure more
r:neaningful participation of historically disadvantageet citizens, are sensitive
to biases which exclude equal participation in the communications sector of
the economy" (AED, n.d:S).
2.3.5
2.3.5.1
ICT services
Telephones/Telephone Density
Research lCT Africa (2004) denotes that the telecommunications sector in
South Africa is characterized by relatively high retail prices, super profits,
job losses, licensing delays, and deadlocks with minimal new foreign
investments. Nevertheless, according to the DoC [USA] (2006: 21), South
Africa's telephone system is the best developed and most sophisticated on
the African continent. The report explains that domestic systems consist of
carrier-equipped open-wire lines, co-axial cables, microwave radio relay
links, fiber-optic cables, radiotelephone communication stations and wireless
local loops. Currently, Telkom has well over five million main fixed lines in
use.
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