A/HRC/39/28 86. Participation in monitoring and evaluation should be considered as a continuum and include the use of social accountability tools, such as social audits, public expenditure tracking surveys, community score cards, social audits, transparency portals, community media and public hearings. Information and communications technology to strengthen equal and meaningful participation 87. ICT participation tools should be human rights compliant by design, and participation through the use of ICTs should follow the same principles of offline participation.6 This entails ensuring that the development and deployment of ICTs, including new data-driven technologies for participation, is guided and regulated by international human rights law, with particular regard to gender equality, in order to avoid any adverse human rights impact on individuals and groups that are marginalized or discriminated against, whether the impact is intentional or unintentional. 88. Effective measures to close the digital divides should be developed and implemented, especially for women, persons with disabilities, older persons, persons living in rural areas and indigenous peoples. In this context, proactive measures should be adopted to make ICT widely available, accessible and affordable, including in remote or rural areas, and without discrimination of any kind. This should include, for example, supporting the reduction and, as far as possible, the removal of social, financial and technological barriers restricting public access to the Internet, such as high connection costs and poor connectivity. 89. The involvement of different stakeholders, including civil society actors and business enterprises, in the design, development and use of ICTs for participation should be promoted. In this context, due regard should be given to the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 90. ICTs should be used to create spaces and opportunities for rights holders to participate meaningfully in a variety of activities that extend beyond communication and information-sharing. Technology should provide real opportunities to influence decision-making processes, for example with regard to submitting, and commenting and voting on, legislative and policy proposals. Where appropriate, States should consider providing additional, complementary offline opportunities for participation. 91. Existing ICT tools for participation should be translated into multiple local languages, including languages spoken by minorities and indigenous peoples, and should ensure their accessibility for persons with disabilities. 92. Media education and digital literacy programmes should be included in formal and non-formal curricula to allow meaningful participation online. For example, these programmes should focus, where relevant, on technical fundamentals of the Internet and develop critical thinking to help rights holders to identify and evaluate information and content from different sources. 93. Media and ICT education curricula should address issues related to hate speech, xenophobia, sexism and harmful gender stereotypes, racism and any other form of intolerance as factors that further exacerbate the marginalization and exclusion of some individuals and groups from public life. The role of civil society actors, including the media, in delivering positive counter-narratives online, including against hate speech, should be supported. 94. Comprehensive and forward-looking media and ICT literacy training programmes for public officials responsible for implementing participatory processes should be developed and delivered in order to take full advantage of the potential of ICTs. 6 See chap. II. 15