From August 2005 until April 2006, an evaluation of APC’s information and communication technology (ICT) policy involvement from 2002 to mid-2005 was carried out by an independent consultant. “The overall conclusion from this evaluation has to be that APC is an energetic, active, committed organisation that has achieved a lot with limited staff and resources. [.. and] APC is highly respected. This respect comes from a range of different players and extends over technical, advocacy, and political aspects of its work”, but, says the writer, “Perhaps the overwhelming message is to aim lower”.

This fifteen page paper by the coordinator of APC’s Latin American ICT Policy Monitor covers the background to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), stakeholders, the process (including the Geneva and Tunis rounds), themes discussed in round one, and looks at results.

This paper explores the connection between new information communication technologies (ICTs) and violence against women (VAW). From the perspective of representation and rapid dissemination of information and communication enabled through ICTs, the paper looks at domestic violence in the homes, sexual violence and women in conflict affected areas. It presents case studies, strategies and analysis on these different areas. The study is the part of APC WNSP issue papers series on ICTs for women’s rights.

This discussion paper asks if new technologies are re-shaping or facilitating trafficking, and/or if the use of ICTs in trafficking will change the way we understand other issues. For example, how should we think about the distribution of women’s images against their will; can we talk about trafficking in images, and what relation does this have to the debate about pornography? It explores government responses and the tension between the right to privacy and the right to freedom from violence in the context of ICTs. This paper is a joint publication of AWID and the APC WNSP.

In 2003 a Pew Hispanic Center survey found that 40% of the adult, foreign-­born Latino population in the United States, some 6 million people, send money home on a regular basis. This paper deals with the issue of the high cost to migrants of sending money back to their families at home, i.e. international money transfers and who controls them, and discusses opportunities of creating an alternative system.

Scott Robinson is a Mexico-based anthropologist who has been a pioneer in community based information services, telecentres and ICTs for social justice in Latin America. APC thanks Scott for permitting us to reproduce his paper here.

Prior to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), UN Summits were largely closed spaces for inter-governmental debate and negotiation on issues of global public policy such as sustainable development or the position of women. Civil society summits ran in parallel to those of governments and usually at some distance. So during the UN Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002, governments met in the elite business zone of Sandton, while civil society met in the black township of Soweto.

On March 10, 2005, The Economist featured reports and an editorial on the digital divide in which it derided the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), which had been welcomed by governments at the WSIS Prepcom 2 in Geneva in February and was due to be launched on 14 March 2005. In its editorial on “the real digital divide”, The Economist made the following claims about the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF):

• That on March 14th the United Nations will launch a Digital Solidarity Fund.
• That waving a magic wand to cause a computer to appear in every household on earth is just the sort of thing for which the UN’s new fund is intended.
• Technology firms operating in poor countries will be encouraged to donate 1% of their profits to the fund.

None of these claims is true.