The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Latin American Association of Radio Education (ALER-Asociación Latinoamericano de Educación Radiofónica) are launching an audio version of the APC Charter on internet rights available on the web in the form of podcasts, so that community media, blogs and websites may freely reproduce and adapt them.

Since the inception of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the Council of Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) have been working on a joint initiative on public participation in internet governance. The three entities have held joint workshops around this theme at both the Rio de Janeiro (2007) and Hyderabad (2008) meetings of the Internet Governance (IGF), and a "discussion paper (paper 1)" was presented.

APC and KICTANet draw on the experience of their successes in the Africa ICT Policy Monitor project and the CATIA project to bring an integrated approach to ICT policy research, dissemination and advocacy through the building of sub-regional networks. They operate using the principle of multi-stakeholder partnerships developed through the CATIA experience to engage in evidence-based policy change. The project seeks to identify the political obstacles to extending affordable access to ICT infrastructure in Africa and to advocate for their removal in order to create a sound platform for sub-regional connectivity in East, West and Central Africa that will provide a platform for the effective use of ICTs in development processes.

CILAC seek to integrate research, research communications, network-building and advocacy to make internet broadband universal and affordable. It’s a one year project that started on February 2008.

Oriented to influence national and regional ICT policy processes to ensure that demands and perspectives of civil society organisations are considered.

Oriented to develop and strengthen capacities in civil society organisations to effectively engage and influence global, regional and national ICT policy processes .

Oriented to learn, understand, discuss and analyse about the impact of ICT policy decisions on civil society as well as to offer inputs to inform advocacy in Latin America at regional and national levels.

Available since 2001, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) ICT Policy Monitor website gathers essential news and documentation about policies relating to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Through the website, the only one of its kind across Latin America and the Caribbean, APC aims to demystify internet policies and regulations.

What is “harmful content” on the internet? The definition is contestable, subjective and open to a range of interpretations, and the majority of interventions to combat it are mostly concerned with obscenity and child pornography. Sexual rights workers are troubled by the growing role of conservative forces – supported by religious extremists – and their attempts to encourage new legislation that would treat all online sexual exchanges as sexual predation and all adult content on the internet as pornography. This protectionist approach overshadows other important aspects of the internet that directly impact on internet users’ lives and their ability to access to vital information on sexuality, sexual health and sexual rights. EroTICs, an exploratory research just starting at APC, aims to narrow the gap between political assumptions and a better understanding of content and “harm” based on women’s real experience of sexuality online.

While the existence of a “digital divide” between ICT “haves” and “have nots” exists, the additional gender divide is often overlooked and women, particularly women in developing countries, are far less able to benefit from and influence the male-dominated ICT development than their male counterparts. Through skills diffusion and capacity building, the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) seeks to empower women’s rights organisations, advocates and feminists sidelined in the growth of the global digital commons. The Exchange has been developed in response to the expressed needs of feminist and women’s rights movements for greater understanding of emerging ICT and applications. At the same time, the Exchange is an opportunity to foster exchange between feminist and women’s rights movements and the ICT4D community through the participation of individuals involved in ICT for development projects who are looking to get a stronger understanding and integration of gender analysis and feminist values within their work.

The Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) small grants fund was developed in 2002 to support work on gender-related issues in ICTs for agricultural and rural development in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions. In 2008, the third round of small grants was issued, and projects are currently being implemented.

GEM is an evaluation methodology that integrates a gender analysis into evaluations of initiatives that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social change. GEM provides a means for determining whether ICTs are worsening or really improving women’s lives and gender relations, as well as for promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader social levels.

GenderIT.org is a website for women’s movements, ICT advocates and policy makers who want to ensure that ICT policy meets women’s needs and does not infringe on their rights.

The global civil society community and other stakeholders have expressed their commitment to play their role as Global Information Society watchdog.

The Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) report focuses on information and communications technologies (ICT) and how they are being implemented in different countries across the world. GISWatch takes a different thematic focus every year. The focus for GISWatch 2009 is on access to online information and knowledge, and includes reports from 49 countries across the globe – from Kazakhstan to Bulgaria, Colombia, Bangladesh and Namibia, and also includes regional overviews and different thematic reports on pressing issues. The report will be launched in late 2009.

As a network promoting local community sustainable development, promoting the development and use of ICTs has been always closely linked with issues related to environmental sustainability. APC members have been implementing projects ranging from monitoring environmental degradation, to natural disaster and accident reporting, to the use of ICTs in managing energy resources more efficiently to research on low-power computing, alternative energy sources and e-waste management in developing countries. In 2008 these efforts led to a new APC-wide GreeningIT initiative that aims to address two critical challenges: How national ICT policy environments address ICTs, environmental sustainability and climate change; and How ICTs can be used more sustainably by ICTD practitioners, civil society organisations and service providers?

In December 2007 APC members established APC’s strategic priorities for the next five years and favourably reviewed a draft action plan written by staff in December 2008. APC needs to seek funding for the action plan and consolidate the sustainability of the organisation. This project will support this process by strengthening internal organisational processes and through documenting APC as a virtual organisation. It will also enable APC to plan an easy-to-use guide on strategic online communications and design a new programme area on ICTs and environmental sustainability.

The Internet Governance Forum is a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue space convened by the United Nations Secretary General in 2006 to “foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the internet”. APC has found that the IGF is an experimental and influential policy forum for achieving our mission of ensuring open, universal and afforable access to the internet for all people.

Working with a broad coalition on internet rights and principles that emerged from the Internet Governance Forum, APC will update the APC Internet Rights Charter and promote it to internet users and policy makers all over the world. It is already translated into 22 languages mainly through the APC member network. We will gather stories that link internet rights, and violations against such rights, to the real-life experiences of individuals and organisations.

Members will report violations of human rights on the internet and APC will record these online and facilitate solidarity actions as needed.

ItrainOnline is a partnership involving eight organisations with particular experience in capacity building in development contexts. It aims to assist civil society organizations (CSOs) and other development actors in developing countries to confront the challenges posed by new information and communications technologies (ICTs). In seeking to overcome skills gaps in development, it connects people and know-how with the needs of ICT learners and trainers.

The ItrainOnline Multimedia Training Kit (MMTK) is a collection of workshop kits to help trainers working with telecentres, NGOs, community media organisations and the development sector to present effective training courses on a wide range of ICTs and non-ICT topics.

Marginalised women, teenage girls and women in armed conflict in more than ten countries will be the people most likely to benefit in a project launched in January 2009 by the APC women’s programme to tackle what the UN has called a “global epidemic of violence against women”.

This two-year research project examines the nature and extent of media piracy and the effect of anti-piracy legislative and enforcement frameworks on access to knowledge in South Africa. The research was carried out by researchers from APC and several South African universities, and forms part of a larger study by researchers in Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Hungary, on media piracy in their countries.

The APC Member Learning and Exchange Fund (APCMEF) aims to support member driven skills-sharing, internships, and planning for collaboration among APC members. The fund supports APC member staff travelling to visit one another when effective collaboration requires on site work or face-to-face meeting.

In Africa, APC’s main focus is on access to infrastructure. Africa currently has to pay for some of the most expensive bandwidth in the world and the hard currency paid leaves the continent. Because East Africa does not have international fibre connections it is paying even more than West African countries connected to the monopoly-controlled SAT3/WASC cable.

APC’s FibreForAfrica.net site provides basic information about international bandwidth in Africa, its costs and the existence of monopoly access to it. It focuses especially on the proposed East African cable projects and the ending of the monopoly of SAT-3.

APC and the women’s programme are taking a closer look at internet censorship and surveillance practices from a gender perspective, which takes into account its potential impact to women’s rights and realities and how gender considerations affect the development of research methodologies. In collaboration with APC WNSP member, Heike Jensen and the Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia, the project aims to develop a research framework that can be applicable not just to the project partners in Asia, but to future research initiatives that are looking into the area of online surveillance and censorship.

In order to reduce poverty and foster inclusive development through affordable access to the internet, APC is working on a resource kit for realising a universal access agenda, present promising options, experiences, lessons and opportunities in pro-poor access provision in developing societies.

The Rapid Response Network (RRN) is an initiative that is aimed towards ensuring that rights of expression, communication, association and protest on the Internet are protected. More specifically, to enable people and organisations to use information and communications technologies for social justice and equality. APC has long been concerned with trends that show that such rights are being violated. As one response, some APC members and partners, have decided to act as a “Rapid Response Network” (RRN). Members of this network have the ability to rapidly mirror a threatened website throughout the world, and raise awareness about the issues involved.

APC is currently building a coalition of civil society organisations and businesses to campaign for the lowering of costs associated with the internet in South Africa. The project being carried out with the support of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) will mobilise a number internet service providers (ISPs), communications workers, content providers, academics, alternative energy experts, a number of civil society organisations and private sector associations to advocate for affordable broadband access for all South Africans.

APC has been commissioned by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) to investigate the potential for the use of ICTs for advancing democracy. The study is intended to look beyond the simple “use” of ICTs (mainly internet and mobile phones) for democracy and are digging deeper to find out how ICTs permeate the different levels of society. Among others, the study assesses how civil societies and citizen-based initiatives participate in the democracy process, and the potential ICTs have to promote democracy in terms of outreach and advocacy.

“Take Back The Tech!” is a global campaign by APC WNSP during the 16 days of activism against gender violence each year. Starting in 2006, the campaign calls for everyone – especially women and grrls – to reclaim technology for the fight against violence against women – using cell phones, instant messengers, blogs, websites, digital cameras, email, podcasts and more. It creates awareness on how ICT are connected to violence against women, strengthens the ICT capacity of women’s rights advocates, creates original and varied content and is building a community to strategise around eliminating violence against women through digital platforms. Different groups, organisations, networks and individuals have also initiated local “Take Back The Tech!” campaigns to further advocacy and urgent issues on violence against women and ICT in their specific context.

While the media sings the praises of Facebook and YouTube for social networking online, APC is concerned with what web2.0 tools can do for people who don’t have good internet access and equipment. In mid 2007, APC joined a partnership of like-minded organisations with which it organised a large conference around this preoccupation. At the same time, APC started working on several initiatives related to the application of web2.0 tools for development work.