Projects

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 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.

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.

The Harambee project is designed to support increased capacity among both the project’s initiators and a range of Africa-based networks and communities to coordinate and facilitate the interactions of their respective constituencies.

“Participation has always been the Achilles’ heel of eLAC2007”, the regional plan of action for the information society adopted by Latin American and Caribbean governments in 2005, says APC’s Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) policy coordinator, Valeria Betancourt. In 2006 APC developed a proposal for the inclusion of civil society participation in the eLAC2007 implementation process.

The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) ICT Policy Monitor was involved in a number of research activities during 2006.

The research: “Effective access of rural communities to broadcasting in equal opportunities: A key strategy for digital inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean” aimed at answering the question: “How can broadcasting be used as a digital inclusion strategy?”.