Gender sensitivity and the drive for IT: Lessons from the NetCorps Jordan Project Deborah L. Wheeler United States Naval Academy, 589 McNair Rd., Annapolis, MD 21402-5030, USA E-mail: dwheeler@usna.edu Abstract. This article uses the NetCorps Jordan project as a case study of the ways in which Information Technology transforms social and economic life at the grass roots. Particular attention is paid to the role of gender in shaping such processes. In the end, this essay explores the motivations, the hopes and the results of one Arab country’s IT4 D experiment using the narratives of the participants as a guide. It is clear from the analysis below that culture, context and gender play a significant role in who gets to do what with IT. Key words: development, gender, information technology, Jordan, sustainable livelihoods Abbreviations: SL: Sustainable Livelihoods; IT: Information Technology; UNDP: United Nations Development Program ‘‘Information technology for development’’ or IT4 D is a defining concept in the 21st century foreign aid community. Many of our hopes for a more humane planet are linked with providing information and communication resources to those on the losing side of the digital divide. 1 Yet concrete data on the rele- vance of information technology to the marginalized remains illusive. What is more common, however, are the dominant discourses of international aid organi- zations, heads of state, and corporate philanthropists predicting an uncertain future for most of the globe’s inhabitants if a commitment to wiring the world hesitates or wanes. The absence of indigenous voices from the grassroots narrating their views on infor- mation technology calls into question global digital hype. Whose interests are being served by IT-based aid – those of local communities, or those of western markets seeking to breed new demands for their products by teaching IT needs? A recent Economist article summarizes this skepticism when it observes, ‘‘The debate over the digital divide is founded on a myth – that plugging poor countries into the internet will help them to become rich rapidly.’’ 2 This same article calls rural telecenters and local infra- structure projects, the backbones of the NetCorps Jordan Project analyzed in this essay, ‘‘of dubious merit.’’ In November, 2004 I was asked to perform a best practices and lessons learned analysis of a Jordanian experiment in IT4 D, namely ‘‘Netcorp Jordan.’’ I approached the project with skepticism. Many of the IT4 D projects in the region seemed top-down driven and more or less designed to showcase a nation’s IT prowess to the global investment community, rather than driven by the needs of the grass roots. Meeting the needs of indigenous, marginalized populations means providing paths to concrete things: employ- ment, more sustainable livelihoods (SL), better healthcare, wider access to opportunities with which to bridge what Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan appropriately calls ‘‘the hope gap.’’ Can Netcorp Jordan and the IT training it provides help local Jordanians fulfill any of these more concrete needs? Or is IT diffusion and training simply a way of attracting international investment or increasing a country’s e.readiness ratings as a means to the 1 See for example, Information Technology Policy and the Digital Divide: Lessons for Developing Countries, M. Kagami, M. Tsuji and E. Giovannetti, editors. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2004; A.P. D’Costa, Catching Up and Falling Behind: Inequality, IT and the Asian Diaspora. In K.C. Ho, R. Kluver and K.C.C. Yang, editors, Asia.com: Asia Encounters the Internet, pp. 44–66. Routledge/ Curzon, London, 2003; and Technology, Development and Democ- racy: International Conflict and Cooperation in the Information Age, J.E. Allison, editor. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2002. 2 The Economist, March 12th, 2005, p. 11. Ethics and Information Technology (2006) 8:131–142 Ó Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10676-006-9122-2