It is an evaluation tool for determining whether ICTs are really improving or worsening women's lives and gender relations, as well as for promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader social levels.
[2] GEM was developed by the Women's Networking Support Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC WNSP[3]).
[5] In November 2009, the Dominican Republic became the first Latin American country to pledge to include a "gender perspective" in every information and communications technology (ICT) initiative and policy developed by the government.
The gender evaluation methodology has been used in Chhattisgarh state in India to evaluate why women, rural heads of village, are not participating actively in local government despite the fact that they are numerous in number (30% of all local government seats being reserved for women) and that they can, in theory, remotely communicate the needs of their villages through the use of a Simputer – a low-cost computer that does not require computer literacy.
The GEM study revealed that numerous technical problems related to the Simputers and ingrained inequalities, mean that even designated female representatives remain voiceless.