This paper examines the rise of low-skilled, low-paying, female dominated jobs in Cameroons information and communication technology (ICT) sector. It seeks to understand why and how women (mostly between the ages of 18 and 35) seem to be naturally drawn to these jobs, described in the literature as pink-collar jobs. Through interviews with ICT workers and observations at ICT training centers and call centers in Buea, a major city in the Southwest Region of Cameroon, the paper explores the factors that hinder womens entry into more technical ICT jobs in Cameroon. It concludes that some of these factors, such as the prior income level of female ICT workers and the absence of female instructors at ICT training centers, further reinforce gender-based job classifications and the rise of ghettoization in Cameroons ICT sector.

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The Internet story in Uganda dates back to April 1993 with associations to a Fidonet node at Makerere University, the largest institution of higher education in the country. E-mail services in private companies became accessible in August 1994, making Uganda one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to gain full Internet connection. This paper presents an overview of developments in the Internet sector since then. The Global diffusion of the Internet (GDI) framework is used to assess the country's Internet diffusion. The framework provides an overview of the state of the Internet while identifying specific ways in which the Internet has been used in the war-torn northern region of Uganda. A case study of the efforts of two nongovernmental organizations to provide Internet connectivity in Internally Displaced Persons camps demonstrates the point that the Internet can serve as a useful tool for giving a "voice" to people in war zones in a process that can potentially reduce internal conflicts.