An environmental portal that pools information from eight different environmental partners in the Balkans has become part of a United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) clearinghouse which showcases good practices. The UN initiative is expected to make implementation of the 1998 Aarhus Convention which aims at improving access to information and public participation in decision-making regarding environmental matters more effective.

This advocacy document produced by APC member in Senegal, ENDA, presents the major issues faced by African countries in relation to their inclusion in the information society, as perceived by women. It’s a tool for public, private and civil society stakeholders and decision-makers for integrating gender into ICT policies to contribute to a fair, plural and inclusive African information society. The foreword is written by APC.

APC member, the Third World Institute (Instituto del Tercer Mundo, ITeM) has launched a research project intended to contribute to the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) decision-making process. Research will be focused on key issues of interest to developing countries. Based on the research, position and briefing papers will be produced to advise Southern negotiators and working groups on the policy implications of the different proposals they will be considering during the Summit process.

Kenya’s new Minister of Information and Communication, Hon. Raphael Tuju, has announced his support for the liberalisation and advancement of ICT policy in Kenya following a week-long ICT policy advocacy workshop in Nairobi organised by APC. The multi-stakeholder workshop – which ran from 19-23 July – brought together some of the most influential ICT policy stakeholders from civil society organisations, the private sector and the media from nine African countries.

In a few years, an old woman in rural Africa should be able, if all goes according to plan, to connect to the net and communicate with her children in the city. This is what an information and communications technology (ICT) workshop held in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, by APC is seeking to explore.

APC is holding a five-day ICT (information and communication technology) policy advocacy workshop in Nairobi starting July 19. The workshop intends to galvanise the growing interest there is in ICT policy into a network of policy advocates working in their home countries. It will be the first of two regional ICT policy advocacy workshops, the second being held in Dakar, Senegal later this year. "Through the workshop, we hope to kick start concerted policy actions at the national level," says APC executive director, Anriette Esterhuysen. "There’s a lot of interest and concern and a lot of expertise out there but not enough collaborative action. We want to do more than just build capacity."

The second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) the first-ever UN conference on information and communication has started. Delegates are meeting in Hammamet, Tunisia in the first ‘prepcom’ of phase two, and APC is amongst them. As input to the debate of the issues that were most contentious during the first stage of WSIS internet governance, financing for ICT initiatives in developing countries and "e-strategies" APC has commissioned discussion papers written by civil society experts in the areas. You can download the papers from this site.

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in collaboration with regional network, APC-Africa-Women, and the LINK Center, Wits University, Johannesburg, hosted a pan-African workshop to develop a multi-country action study in Africa to measure how people especially women are making use of the ICT sector since the popularisation of cell-phones, telecentres and other communications innovations.

In March 2003 the Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) launched Thetha – the SANGONeT ICT Discussion Forum. The forums focus specifically on the ICT challenges facing the CSO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned to date. Given the success and positive feedback received in response to previous Thetha forums, SANGONeT co-hosted its fourth provincial Thetha in the Northern Cape Province and the fifth forum in the Free State province.