By FN for APCNews GOA, India,
Published onPage last updated on
2005 will be the year the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) remembers most for the World Summit on the Information Summit (WSIS). But, says a report of the year’s activities, that event was like a struggle to finding the forest among the trees.
"Key (WSIS) issues, such as access to infrastructure, capacity, knowledge and information, freedoms and rights, and diversity of cultures, ownership and content in the world of information and communications, which have become increasingly crucial to development and socially-just societies, were sidelined by the complexity of the process," says APC Executive Director Anriette Esterhuysen.
She made these comments on this UN-coordinated communications governance event in an introduction to the APC Annual Report 2005, recently released and now available for download in English and Spanish.
APC, says the report, gained visibility and credibility through its work on WSIS, and its local and regional work in projects. These include the Gender Evaluation Methodology for internet and ICTs (GEM), the Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA), as well as the wireless and FOSS workshops, to name just a few.
In the report, APC also pays tribute to board member late Chris Nicol, an Australian based in Barcelona. He became part of the APC community in 1995, contributed significantly to it, and died last year after a battle with cancer.
The global public good, APC’s policy bottom-line
Esterhuysen argued that APC a network focused on using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social justice and sustainable development plugged for the idea that the internet is a global public good, to be developed and governed in the public interest.
APC’s view is that the outcomes of WSIS were "mixed". There were some gains, and participating in WSIS was more productive than would have been, had APC decided to opt-out.
APC has also argued earlier that it is still in the early days of WSIS, whose impact "will only be evident in the next few years".
This, feels the organisation, will depend on action and collaboration at the regional and national level, on southern governments forming alliances, and working together.
It would also depend on their ability to take risks like refraining to enter binding deals with multinational proprietary software companies and creating competitive environments for business, opportunities for local initiatives, or even ensure that private monopolies do not take over from public ones.
"Five years of intense and varied advocacy processes around the World Summit at the global, the regional, as well as the local levels", is how APC Chair Natasha Primo sees the culmination of the WSIS process in 2005.
Wireless connectivity and the ActionKit gained importance
APC’s Strategic Uses and Capacity Building programme extended abilities of members and other groups APC works with "to deploy affordable, accessible and reliable technology options in resource-poor environments".
It did so by promoting cheaper networking options through the regional workshops on community wireless connectivity and the ongoing promotion of free and open source software (FOSS) tools.
The work on the ActionKit a toolkit for activists that integrates elements of the Drupal content management system (CMS) into the APC-developed ActionApps CMS will expand the value and functionality of the ActionApps for members and others who use it. In addition, it will also connect the APC technology support community with other developer communities.
"This kind of cross-fertilisation of communities and useful tools can only benefit the APC community and strengthen members’ work with grassroots communities in their own regions and countries," APC’s report says.
Gender and the environment as thematic cross-cuts
This report notes that APC’s gender and ICT policy monitor, called GenderIT.org, provides women’s rights activists, policymakers and ICT4D activists with "practical tools and guidelines, as well as with gender analysis of existing ICT policy frameworks".
APC’s WNSP, ten years after it led advocacy for including ICTs in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) at the World Conference on Women, continued advocacy within the global women’s movement. It highlighted an expanded agenda of gender, women’s empowerment and ICTs in Beijing+10, the ten-year review of the implementation of the BPFA, notes the report.
APC is looking at ways in which it could focus more on the connections between ICT initiatives and environmental concerns. Of late, these two issues have shown their interconnections more closely in the APCNews coverage of 2005 and is growing increasingly important to the network’s Central and Eastern European members.
In Hungary, a working group of APC members announced separately that it aims to bring environment higher on the ICT policy priorities of global civil society. Information and communication technologies are recognised as a powerful tool for civil society protecting the environment, a BlueLink/APC survey showed. But more is needed to streamline ICT work of different groups and communities, and offer them access to the ICTs they need to secure environmental sustainability.
Steady growth and strengthening of the network
The international network organisation APC was founded in 1990, but mentions to the proposed name date back to 1987. Primo calls 2005 "another packed year for APC", a year that saw a council meeting in Varna, on the Bulgarian coast off the Black Sea.
APC’s membership has grown over the past ten years, and has seen an increase in membership interest in the past five. At the end of 2005, APC’s diverse set of member-organisations counted: eleven from Europe, nine from Africa, nine from Latin America, seven from the Asia-Pacific and four from North America. The three new members that joined in 2005 are ESLARED (Venezuela), Ungana-Afrika (South Africa) and WOUGNET (Uganda).
News from and about APC’s members’ activisties come up in the 2005 annual report. Says the report: "APC members are information and communication technology (ICT) providers, but they are also, uniquely, sustainable development and social justice activists in their own right. We call them ‘social techies’."
Their activities range from promoting civil society and its values through ICT (ZaMirNET in Croatia), to enhancing access to agricultural information through ICT for women farmers (WOUGNET). Other APC members encourage girls to "tell their stories" (Women’sNet, South Africa), offer secure computing workshops (WomensHub, Philippines), and support indigenous languages through ICT (Web Networks, Canada).
Besides its members, APC also has a number of programme teams its women’s (APC WNSP), its communications and information policy (CIPP), and its strategic use and capacity building (SU&CB) programmes and management and support staff.
This report includes a four page note on APC’s governance and staff, many of whom work at diverse locations across the globe in diverse time-zones, countries and even continents linked, appropriately, via cyberspace.
From the pale-blue skies of Colombia punctuated with school-kids in red-white-blue uniforms, to the colourful costumes of South Korea, the APC annual report pictorially depicts the diversity of its members through interesting photographs and drawings.
APC’s digital presence
The 84-page report also highlights APC’s excellence in its niche news production. Flagship monthly newsletters APCNews and APCNoticias, but also Africa ICT policy-specialised Chakula, Latin America and the Caribbean’s bulletin on ICT policy in the region, as well as Africa women and ICT newsletter Pula are described.
In 2005, APC’s websites got an average of 4,475 visitors per day, nearly a 243% growth over the 2003 figure, and a 173% increase over the previous year. A new feature is the APC blogs, which encourage "new voices emerging in the network for the first time".
For this year, APC’s ‘calendar of events’ lists a range of conferences, workshops and other events from the ICT field, totalling over 100, ranging from venues in Argentina to Iran and Tanzania.
There are also links to APC publications and research, and annual financial statements for 2005.
Download the APC Annual Report 2005 in English: http://www.apc.org/books/apc_ar2005_EN.pdf
Download the APC Annual Report 2005 in Spanish: http://www.apc.org/books/apc_ar2005_ES.pdf
