3.2. 53% of the users are women Access to internet for women, especially women in rural communities or with low income, has been limited due to various factors that include the cost of devices, cost of data, limited digital literacy skills and also societal perceptions and norms28. CICs have provided opportunities for women to have an equal access to information as reflected in this survey which is important in reversing gender inequalities. Of those who responded to the survey, 53 % were women and 47% were male hence indicating the access and use of CICs by women in the communities. Providing access to the internet can promote gender equality and women’s empowerment by ensuring that women are able to access information to make informed choices on elements of their lives, push their governments and other power holders to guarantee their rights, have greater agency and control over their lives, and more meaningfully, engage in public life29. Graph 2: % of Female and Male Respondents N=247 3.3. Respondents with special needs More so, Graph 3 below, shows that 9.3 percent of respondents to the survey on access to CICs also indicated that they had special needs. These included people with visual impairments and also limited mobility as shown in Table 2 below. However the available CICs are not disability-friendly as they lack specialised equipment to support their needs. For example, digital tools such as Rodger voice which uses voice to text recognition to convert voice to text so that people that are hard of hearing can hear phone calls by reading or Jaws which is a software program that enables visually impaired users to read the text displayed on their screens. 28 The Sunday Mail, 28 March 2021. Bridging The ICT Gender Gap in Zimbabwe https://www.sundaymail.co.zw/bridging-the-ict-gender-gap-in-zimbabwe 29 Available at: https://www.article19.org/resources/tackling-gender-inequality-through-access-to-information/. (Accessed on 31 October 2022). MISA Zimbabwe • The State of Access and Use of Community Information Centres (CICs) in Zimbabwe 7