“People won’t benefit from improved access to digital networks, if the necessary capabilities to select, apply and interpret the available information are not better developed”, says Arnold Pietersen of CECS. With oversight from ICT NGOs from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia, CECS designed an ‘ICT Literacy’ programme.

APC member Computer Aid International will officially launch an exciting and innovative new partnership with a Rwandan not-for-profit, E-ICT. By providing an affordable solution to high cost computers, the partnership aims to increase access to ICT for schools and not-for-profits.

The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA), together with key free and open source software (FOSS) advocates in the country organized a training-workshop for Philippine non-government organizations (NGOs). Held on 28-29 October 2004 and attended by 30 participants from 18 organizations, the learning activity sought to impart not only with the necessary skills and knowledge of FOSS but more importantly, to provide the trainees with the confidence in using FOSS-based applications.

Arid Lands Information Network – Eastern Africa (ALIN-EA) has successfully completed a one-year pilot phase of the Open Knowledge Network (OKN) East Africa project. OKN is a global initiative linking marginalized communities and facilitating information sharing through Information Communications Technologies (ICTs).

APCmember SANGONeT launched a new joint venture, called NGO.ZA. The overall aim of NGO.ZA is to meet and respond to the South African NGO sector’s connectivity, hardware and e-business infrastructure requirements, and as a result, transform the information and communication technologies (ICT) usage, capacity and infrastructure levels of the sector.

Telecentres in rural Croatia run by APC member ZaMirNET don’t just provide training facilities. They’re also bringing together neighbours of different ethnicities. “During the computer course, we were socialising with other nationalities. We were all in the same position of learning new things and sharing what we know,” recounted a Croat woman. “Now we greet each other in the street.”

APC member in Canada, Web Networks, has integrated APC’s free software ActionApps with a number of other applications to come up with a first – the ability to easily view Inukititut (a Canadian Aboriginal language) online, as well as giving Inuit abilities to easily publish online in their native language.

Using RSS technology, it’s now possible to get news headlines from APC and APC member websites direct to your desktop. News feeds available cover a rich variety of civil society concerns –from the environment in Bulgaria, to human rights in Spain, to peace campaigning in the USA, to monitoring aid agencies in Australia. Find out more about the news feeds.

What we want is an information society based on social justice and human rights. That’s only going to happen if the people affected by the policies get involved in their development. Collecting indispensable documentation since 2001, the new look ‘Africa Monitor’ just launched on October 28 has a new design and structure including powerful cross-referencing which let’s you search by theme and by country at the same time. For the first time, there’s a ‘Getting started’ section for people new to ICT policy and advocacy which collects information specially selected by our editors. Go and take a look!

In a statement, APC has condemned the seizing by US and European law enforcement agencies of the web servers of independent online news service Indymedia, closing down over 21 of the more than 140 Indymedia web sites worldwide. “We are disturbed by the apparently arbitrary and extreme measures taken to silence an independent internet-based source of information,” said Anriette Esterhuysen, APC’s Executive Director. “This is a violation of freedom of expression across international frontiers.”