Association for Progressive Communications

A new report that reveals how vulnerable the internet as we know it is, has just been published by two global civil society organisations. The annual report, called Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch), was released today by APC and Dutch funder Hivos. GISWatch 2009 is entitled “Access to online information and knowledge – advancing human rights and democracy”.

“With GEM I began to appreciate why sometimes the women that are part of our community resist the empowerment process. I used to be annoyed but now I understand that this is the product of years of conditioning and it will take some effort to reverse the trend. GEM helps you see the situation for what it is, so you can optimise your resources where you can make the maximum impact in creating change,” John Dada has been a GEM user since 2007 in rural Nigeria. GEM is an evaluation tool for determining whether ICTs are really improving or worsening women’s lives and for promoting positive change. GEM has been developed from the ground up, and has involved the collaboration of hundreds of community-based organisations and individuals since its first design in 2002.

In a new publication “Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development”, APC’s Anriette Esterhuysen explores the circular relationship between information and communication technologies for development and Web 2.0 for development, and the assumptions about the “quick fix” that ICTs were expected to provide.

Thetha – a Nguni word for debate – bring together a wide range of national, regional and international stakeholders on the expected ICT challenges and opportunities that the Southern African region will face in the next ten years are being organised by APC member SANGONeT. Pre-Thetha reports on Zimbabwe and Mozambique make useful contextual reading. Find out more about Thetha.

APC member, Fantsuam Foundation established the first rural community wireless internet service provider (ISP) in Nigeria in 2006. On Tuesday April 21 the ISP took a huge blow as the central communication tower was destroyed in a storm. Several buildings including the old network operation centre, a Cisco Laboratory and a neighbouring building were seriously damaged. No people were hurt. This is the second major natural disaster that Fantsuam has suffered in a few months. In August 2008, a lighting strike destroyed a large part of their power and wireless infrastructure. APC is waiting for news of how you can help Fantsuam rebuild. For now visit the IT46 site for more details.

“Training in ICT skills gets the community to start thinking differently and to consider the sources of income available to them more clearly. From a commercial standpoint, they become aware of the fact that their products have to meet certain standards of quality in order to be sold at higher prices,” says Aura Elena Plaza from Villa Paz, an Afro-Colombian community in the Cali region. Dafne Plou reports for APCNews on her first-hand experience of the impact access to information has had on the lives of people in remote villages in Mali, Africa and Cali, Colombia.

One hundred institutions in rural areas of Paraguay with access to the internet. Poor indigenous communities experiencing contact with the world beyond their local surroundings for the first time ever. These are just a few snapshots of the outcomes achieved by Oportunet, a project launched in 2007 in Paraguay that has demonstrated the potential of the internet as a door to economic and social development in the poorest communities.

South African tech site, ITWeb, interviews APC’s Willie Currie on the forum being convened by APC and SANGONeT along with South Africa Connect and the Shuttleworth Foundation with the aim of drawing up a framework for a national broadband strategy.

APC member Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) has been running satellite ground stations in its community of Entasopia, Kenya, as part of a project that has recently been featured in the International Herald Tribune and reprinted in the New York Times. In November 2008, three engineers from the University of Michigan (USA) set off to Kenya, to install a small solar-powered satellite dish to connect a few computers in the community. Chris Nicholson of the International Herald Tribune reports on the project and explores how this new connection has changed life in the community: “When Internet connections arrive in small towns like Entasopia, they put new tools into the hands of people hungry to use them, and for some there, that has had wide repercussions.” Read the article

The Family Alliance for Development and Cooperation (FADECO) has come a long way since 1993, when Joseph Sekiku and friends formed an alliance to help overcome poverty in north-western Tanzania. Starting as a network of people sharing an internet connection, the small telecentre eventually became a computer literacy training station, an internet café, and has expanded to an informative radio station reaching two million listeners, many of whom are farmers. Radio France International interviewed Joseph after his story was featured in an APC study called Unbounded possibilities: Observations on sustaining rural ICTs. Listen to the interview (off-site).

According to March 2008 statistics only 3.6% of internet users in the world were from Africa. Asia contributed to 37.6% of internet users globally, but this percentage is inflated by large numbers of users from China. The number of fixed lines has not increased significantly, and in some cases has even shrunk. And, in addition to this, a new divide is emerging: the broadband (or “high speed internet”) divide. In Manaus, deep in the Amazon jungle, “broadband” is available but at a cost. There, a 200Kbps connection (hardly considered speedy in better connected parts of the world) costs about $100 USD a month.

Monday October 13 2008 marked the beginning of MobileActive08 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Over 350 participants from more than 40 countries attended the first of the three-day event, whose theme is “Unlocking the Potential of Mobile Technology for Social Impact”. The event brings together key stakeholders that are interested in the use of mobile technology for social development, and the participants, which include NGO and nonprofit practitioners, will explore how mobile phones are being used to advance civil society work and investigate new opportunities. Follow the proceedings of the event and read about the discussion topics online.

PROTEGE QV talks about the celebrations of the internet day in Cameroon. They were busy organising workshops, exhibiting new tools and helping young people how to find new jobs through the net.

PROTEGE QV, APC’s Cameroun civil society group, released a multimedia kit late last year. Accompanied by full training of radio broadasters, this tool is meant to provide the general public and professionals with the means to exploit and use technology to create micro enterprises. Called the MMRK is increasingly being recognised as flexible tool which can be used in a variety of contetx, including rural.

Access remains one of the greatest challenges facing the internet community in the developing world. The Nominet judges believe that the work of Computer Aid epitomizes what their access category represents. Computer Aid has enabled thousands of people in developing countries, who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity, to access to the internet. Computer Aid’s partners are also able to provide training, capacity building and routine maintenance, to ensure that the use of equipment is maximized.

Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of APC, delivered a keynote address at the opening of the conference on Web2fordev at the Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, Italy in late September. Her ideas around participatory web for development were reported on in the Web2fordev blog.

Tactical Tech and APC-member Women’sNet are pleased to announce the web launch of the latest edition of NGO-in-a-box, the BaseBox. The BaseBox is a collection of tools for the day-to-day running of small to medium sized NGOs. It aims to make it easier to set up base, find the right software and learn how to use it. Targeted primarily at activist and advocacy organisations in developing countries, the BaseBox contains a set of peer-reviewed free and open source software tools, with associated guides and tutorials. The edition can be accessed online but it’s primary form is as a physical box set of CDs.

Metamorphosis is a think and do tank from Macedonia, gathering experts and activists devoted to the development of an information society, which we see as crucial element in bettering people’s lives. Most of the people currently involved rely on a background in the IT industry and the NGO sector, but in general, we favour an interdisciplinary approach and broad involvement of stakeholders. APCNews interviewed Bardhyl Jashari, director of this newest APC-member.