Uganda's ICT Laws and Policies from a Gender Perspective

A survey carried out in 2014 by the Uganda Communications Commission found that only 6% of women in Uganda are online. Kampala has the largest gender gap in internet access across 10 cities surveyed by research commissioned by the World Wide Web Foundation. Only 21% of women reported having used the internet, verses 61% for men. The gender gap in internet access in Uganda is real and perpetuated by a number of factors including limited access to the internet, lack of digital skills and empowerment of women, affordability of ICT services especially broadband connectivity, relevant content as well as safety of women online. These constraints hinder women’s ability to actively participate and influence ICT policy and decision making processes.

Women must be at the forefront of ICT Policy making processes for the internet to be a transformative space for all. WOUGNET in partnership with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) conducted a desk review to ascertain the gender responsiveness of ICT policies and laws and create advocacy and awareness surrounding the need for more participation of women in ICT discussions, policies and decision making processes.

The analysis of the laws was done on several of the existing country’s legislations including on Data Protection and Privacy Bill, the Electronic transactions and Signatures Act, the Computer Misuse Act and the Regulation on Interception of Communications Act among others.

Table of contents

Introduction....................................................... 2

Data Protection and Privacy Bill, 2015..................... 2

The Electronic Transactions Act, 2011...................... 4

Regulation of interception of Communications Act 2010.............................................................. 5

The Uganda Communications Act, 2013................................................................................. 6

The National Information Technology Uganda E-government Regulation 2014.............................. 7

The Telecommunications (Licensing Regulation of 2005)...............................................................7

This report was produced as part of a project funded with an APC member subgrant, with support from Sida.