Carlos Afonso of RITS has been elected to the Brazilian committee which manages the internet in Brazil and controls .br. The election results were announced on July 15. He is one of four representatives from civil society. Other sectors represented are the scientific community, the business and telecommunications sectors, and internet service providers. It is the first time in Brazil that internet governance has been opened up to the public. In Portuguese.

APC member in rural Nigeria, Fantsuam Foundation, has recorded yet another first in rural ICT programmes. Earlier this year, Fantsuam launched a VSAT facility which provides the first rural-based internet access in Kaduna State, if not in Nigeria. APCNews talked to Fantsuam’s director, John Dada, about the impact the new internet satellite connection is having on the community and the Foundation.

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.

Until now, a native Cambodian has needed to be able to read in a foreign language to be able to send email in Cambodia. Software was not available in Khmer. But APC’s member organisation in Cambodia, the Open Forum, is changing that. The KhmerOS portal, set up earlier this year to bring together previously isolated developers is starting out by providing Khmer translations of well-known free applications such as the powerful e-mail application, Thunderbird. Thunderbird was ready for use after just two months – sixty days earlier than expected! The Open Forum has sent APC the report on their advances in the first half of 2004.

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."