ICT for development

The two-stage World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) took place in 2003 (the Geneva phase) and 2005 (the Tunis phase). It was convened upon the recognition that there was “an urgent need to harness the potential of knowledge and technology for promoting the goals of the United Nations Millennium Declaration.” WSIS started out as a primarily development-focused process. The Geneva ph...

What if we found cost-effective ways to expand accessibility, achieve reliability, and save precious public money providing full quality internet for all? By trying to find practical ways to overcome the digital divide, each day more and more community leaders pursue local control of connectivity through public ownership, cooperative models, and other nonprofit approaches, and maybe it is time ...

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation that is committed to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development and promotion of good governance. CITAD sees technology as tool to promote sustainable development, good government and peaceful coexistence. It uses ICT to empower youth and women throug...

For five days last year, I was privileged to attend the Second (2014) African School on Internet Governance in Mauritius, curtsey of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and Association for Progressive Communications (APC). In that beautiful and well decorated conference room of Bel Ombre, Tammassa Resort, I listened to a very inspiring and thought provoking presentation on th...

Raising awareness of the potential of infrastructure sharing is key to APC. As part of our project on Infrastructure Sharing for Supporting Better Broadband and Universal Access, APC is hosting a series of workshops in Southern Africa. The last one consisted of an Infrastructure Sharing Validation Workshop to discuss policy and country reports on this issue. With the support of the Communicatio...

The goal of people-centred information societies can only be achieved through constant adherence to the principle of inclusive participation. This is why meaningful participation of all stakeholders is so important in the ten-year review and in furthering the WSIS vision beyond 2015.

On 9 June, ahead of the UN General Assembly’s first “stocktaking session” on the ten-year review of the World Summit on Information Society, APC and other civil society organisations sent a letter to the President of the General Assembly calling for meaningful participation from non-governmental stakeholders in the review. Our letter includes specific recommendations to make t...