The APC Africa ICT Policy Monitor’s primary goal is to enable African civil society organisations to engage in ICT policy development processes in order to promote an information society based on social justice and human rights.

The internet has not yet been converted into a giant online shopping mall. There are thousands of projects big and small working online around the world that prove that the internet can be, and is being used, as a powerful tool for development and social justice. The APC Betinho Communications Prize recognise and document outstanding examples of how the internet can make a real difference for the world’s communities today.

The APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize recognises initiatives that are making it easy for people to start using free and open source software (FOSS). The prize is awarded to a person or group doing extraordinary work to make FOSS accessible to ordinary computer users.

The Hafkin prize was established to honour Dr. Nancy J. Hafkin, a true pioneer of networking, and development information and communications in Africa, over the course of a twenty-three year career. APC’s objective is to recognize African ICT efforts, and to extract some of the lessons learned in order to make them accessible to others doing related work.

In 2008 APC launched the new multilingual APC website with an entirely revamped web platform. The new APC.org contains new and improved content in English and Spanish – and for the first time French and Portuguese. Powered by the content management system Drupal, visitors can sign up and post comments. The APC community of members around the world and staff can also access networking sections and internal information on projects and much more.

APC is part of the Building Communications Opportunities (BCO) alliance, which is a loose network of experienced organisations in information and communications for development who have made a commitment to learning and collaboration. BCO members, or ‘partners’ as they are referred to, include donor agencies from Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK and international non-governmental organisations. The BCO has funded important APC projects.

CATIA was a three-year project supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to enable Africans to gain maximum benefits from the opportunity offered by ICTs and to act as catalysts for policy reform.

The APC WNSP and the Global Knowledge Partnership launched the Gender and ICT Awards to honor and bring international recognition to innovative and effective projects by women to use ICTs for the promotion of gender equality and/or women’s empowerment. Offered in 2003 and 2005, profiles of award winners and honorable mentions can be found in the Awards’ database.

This annual watchdog report from APC and the Third World Institute, launched in 2007, monitors commitments by governments and the United Nations on the information society. It is aimed at promoting the development of a healthy “institutional ecology” in the information and communication sector.

For the APC policy programme, 2006 was a year of transition. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process reached its zenith in Tunis in November 2005. In its aftermath, it was necessary to review the policy terrain and see what dynamics were coming into play.