[Africa-ir-public] [APCNews] APCNews - April 2004 - No. 41

Wed Apr 28 22:01:05 SAST 2004

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           *APCNews, the monthly newsletter of the
      Association for Progressive Communications (APC)*
                - April 2004 No. 41 -
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-- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS --
-- NEWS FROM APC --
-- ICT POLICY & INTERNET RIGHTS --
-- BUILDING CAPACITY & STRATEGIC USE OF ICTs --
-- WOMEN & ICTs --
-- ONLINE TOOLS & RESOURCES --
-- COLLABORATING OPPORTUNITIES -
-- IMPORTANT DATES --
-- WHAT'S NEW ON THE APC WEBSITE --
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-- NEWS FROM THE MEMBERS -

ArabDev, Egypt: No computers means no alternatives for victims of
domestic violence in Egypt

Local traditions in Upper Egypt prevent battered women from seeking
refuge in shelters so finding a job is often the only way out of a
violent family home. APC member, ArabDev, has carried out a survey to
identify the skills needed for potential employment and a training
project is ready to go, but there's one problem - lack of computers. The
Egyptian Ministry of Telecommunications has been promising ArabDev ten
computers for the project for the last two years but due to red tape
none have arrived. "We are in dire need of hardware to improve the harsh
circumstances of these women," says ArabDev director, Leila Hassanin. --
ArabDev
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18647

ArabDev, Egypt: IT skills for an alternative living for Cairo's former
underclass

Living on the fringes of society, the Zabaleen have been making a living
from recycling what Cairo's more affluent throw away for generations.
However, the government is now contracting foreign waste-disposal
specialists and the Zabaleen have found their traditional source of
livelihood cut off. The young Zabaleen often have high-school diplomas
but lack the self-esteem necessary to enter the regular workplace. To
build up their confidence and their marketable skills, APC member in
Egypt, ArabDev, has been training young people in computing and
internet. There has been an unexpectedly high demand from young women.
-- ArabDev
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18702

BlueLink, Bulgaria: Business planning for e-networks links Central
Europe with the Balkans

A Mission-Driven Business Planning workshop for environmental civil
society online networks in the Balkans in February was attended by APC
members from the Balkans and six fledgling electronic networking
initiatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo/a,
Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro. -- BlueLink
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18604

Jinbonet, South Korea: We will not obey the Internet Real Name Law

A new law passed in the South Korean parliament on March 9 requires
internet media and press websites to verify the names and identification
numbers of all visitors who post messages on bulletin boards or chat
rooms -and even personal websites- regarding political elections. Civil
society groups, including APC member Jinbonet, held a press conference
pledging to defy the law which they claim is a violation of freedom of
expression. -- Base21/Jinbonet
http://www.base21.org/show/show.php?p_cd=0&p_dv=0&p_docnbr=30205

RITS, Brazil: First anniversary for Brazilian civil society portal

'Citizens Online' (Cidadania na Internet), a Brazilian civil society
information-sharing portal, celebrated one-year online on March 27. A
multi-institution project managed by APC member in Brazil, RITS,
'Citizens online' started out life with twenty organisations on board.
One year later, sixty people and groups work together daily to produce
information to strengthen Brazilian citizenship in all its facets. -- RITS
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18704

SANGONeT, South Africa: CINSA - A new network of community technology
projects in Southern Africa

The Community Information Network for Southern Africa (CINSA) aims to
build a sustainable network of community ICT projects in the 14 SADC
member states -Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho,
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Seychelles, South
Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe- through research, networking,
facilitating training, service brokerage and more. -- SANGONeT
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18707

Women'sNet, South Africa: Elections in South Africa from a women's
perspective

South Africa went to the polls for the third time since the end of
apartheid in the early 1990s. APC member, Women'sNet, provided analysis
and opinions online about the elections and perceptions of men and
women. Articles included "The Dreary Dialogue", a report on interchanges
between the political parties and women in civil society by director,
Natasha Primo.
http://womensnet.org.za/Elections2004/index.shtml

Women'sNet, South Africa: Conference on ICTs in the service of good
governance, democratic practice and development for rural women in Africa

Held just outside Johannesburg, the conference brought together about
fifty participants from women's organisations, government officials, and
gender and development practitioners and researchers, involved in gender
and information and communication (ICT) projects and initiatives tasked
with finding ICT strategies to specifically benefit rural women.  The
Community Information Network for Southern Africa (CINSA) interviewed a
selection of conference attendees including APC-Africa-Women
coordinator, Jenny Radloff.  The regional workshop was organised by
Women'sNet with the support of the Food and Agricultural Organisation
(FAO).
Interviews with Dimitra participants:
http://www.cmfd.org/sections/ruralwomen.html
Dimitra conference: http://womensnet.org.za/dimitra_conference/

Colnodo, Colombia: "avanza", a website for Colombian development

Colnodo, APC's member in Bogotá, in association with the Colombian
Confederation of Non-governmental Organisations, launches "avanza"
(meaning "advance" or "move forward" in English), a website for
Colombian development. - Colnodo
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18142

INTERCOM, Ecuador: Steps forward toward an Ecuadorian information and
communication technology network for development

An "Information and Knowledge Exchange Network on Information
Communication Technology for Development" for Ecuador has been created.
- INTERCOM
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18144

Green Spider, Hungary: Tea and internet security advice come in the same
cup at recent Hungarian green meeting

Once again, at the Annual Meeting of Hungarian Green Non-profits
(OT2004) APC member Green Spider offered herbal teas and sound internet
access, training and advice to participants. Raising awareness of
environmental contamination and in support of free software, Green
Spider collected up visitors' old CD-roms and exchanged them for new
GNU/Linux CDs.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18716

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-- NEWS FROM APC -

APC elected to the executive committee of the Global Knowledge Partnership

The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is an international
multistakeholder network committed to harnessing the potential of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable and
equitable development. Within the GKP framework, governments, civil
society groups, donor agencies, private sector companies and
inter-governmental organisations come together as equals to apply ICTs
for development.

APC takes its place on the committee which oversees the direction of the
GKP together with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
(SDC), UNESCO, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and others. The
Excomm as it is known was chosen by the members of GKP during online
voting in April.
http://www.globalknowledge.org/

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-- ICT POLICY & INTERNET RIGHTS --

Global Forum on Internet Governance: Not everyone agrees on what is
broken nor on what fixing might involve

A global forum on internet governance organised by the United Nations in
March was the most open and inclusive platform for addressing internet
governance issues to date but time was too short to disaggregate the
various areas of policy and regulation that are loosely grouped under
“internet governance”. There are fundamental concerns around the
accountability and legitimacy of current internet governance structures,
but at the same time the overall tone is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix
it”. But not everyone agrees on what is broken, nor on what fixing might
involve.

The challenges the Global Forum faced will now be faced by the working
group which will take work forward to the next UN World Summit in 2005.
The dilemma lies in having to both expand, and shrink the scope of
“internet governance”, to get to practical proposals that also address
broader concerns. And it has to work in a way that is inclusive of
different stakeholders and perspectives, and actively tackles discontent
instead of glossing over it, says APC.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18720

Positioning for second summit phase has begun

20 March 2004 - The structure as well as the struggles for the second
phase of the WSIS summit process are slowly becoming clearer. One thing
is clear: It will be more complex than the first round, as it has to
deal with many more loose ends. WSIS 2003 only had to deliver two pieces
of paper (the declaration of principles and the action plan). This left
a lot of time for endless discussions, arm-twisting on wording, sorting
out friends or foes in different arenas, and for civil society to start
playing inside the official UN process. Now, the negotiators from Geneva
will meet the real world. And as conflicts remain, the actors are
positioning themselves for the second round. - Ralf Bendrath
http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/609.htm

Read this and some more news on the WSIS in the European Union and
internet governance from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Germany:
http://www.worldsummit2005.org

Internet's governing body meets in Rome: The complicated world of ICANN
– part one

Rome, March 2-6 - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) - the body that's responsible for managing the
registration and distribution system of domain names (eg. www.apc.org)
in the internet - held its first meeting of 2004. More than 600 people
from different countries took part in 27 fora. In attendance was Carlos
Afonso, planning director of APC's Brazilian member organisation, RITS.
His fascinating report is essential reading for anyone trying to
understand internet governance issues and has been translated into
English and Spanish by APC.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18723

Africa: Kenya’s draft ICT policy and strategy negates development goals

Conference-goers at a major multistakeholder event dedicated to
discussing Kenya’s draft ICT policy were outraged to discover that the
most recent government draft was ‘confidential’ and only being
circulated to a select few. “Efforts to query the government
representatives present did not bear fruit and incredulous delegates
were advised to contact the relevant ministry and demand a copy as
tax-paying citizens who have the right to access public policy
documents,” informs APC’s Africa ICT Policy Monitor.
This article and others will appear in the latest edition of Chakula,
APC’s African ICT policy newsletter, out in the next week.
http://africa.rights.apc.org/newsletter.shtml

La Ond@ Rural (The Rural Vibe): Workshop on radio, ICTs and rural
development

Quito, Ecuador, 20-22 April 2004 - This Latin American workshop
considered a series of proposals for promoting the effective use of ICT
and radio for rural development so that rural radio stations, networks,
specialists in ICT for development and policy decision-makers, start to
take into account the effectiveness of combining radio and internet.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18727

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-- BUILDING CAPACITY & STRATEGIC USE OF ICTs --

Free and open source software sweeps US non-profit tech conference

Looking around at the recent Non-Profit Technology Enterprise Network
conference in Philadelphia, it would have been easy to think that free
and open source software is sweeping the non-profit world. With an
attendance of over 700 people, this year's NTEN event featured a full
track of six workshops on free and open source software (FOSS) topics -
almost all of which were packed. – Mark Surman for APC
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18729

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-- WOMEN & ICTs -

Networking for Change - Conference in Rio will bring together women and
men working in the gender and ICT arena for the last decade

The APC women's programme (WNSP) is gearing up for the exciting
culmination of two years of trials of GEM, a gender evaluation
methodology for ICT and internet initiatives, in Brazil in early June,
as part of a seven-day forum on "Networking for Change and Empowerment".
Representatives from community telecentres, women's networking
initiatives, and community-building and training programmes that
participated as pilot testers of GEM from Asia, Africa, Central and
Eastern Europe and Latin America will meet face-to-face to debate
results and share insights. But that's not all the forum offers. There's
also a gender and ICT policy forum as well as workshops and training
offered. – APC WNSP
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18731

Are ICTs contributing to women's empowerment in Central and Eastern Europe?

This was an underlying question addressed in the evaluations of six
information and communication (ICT) initiatives from Bulgaria, Croatia,
Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which participated in the
field-testing of the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM). Evaluated
initiatives varied from an employment training initiative in Croatia, to
a network of women mayors in Romania, to media campaigns around violence
against women in Slovakia and Bulgaria.
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18733

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-- ONLINE TOOLS & RESOURCES --

TRAINING RESOURCES: New ItrainOnline newsletter announces recent
training additions

Resources for training in the following areas were added to ItrainOnline
during March:
1. Radio
2. Chat and instant messaging
3. Blogging
4. RSS
5. Web site development and promotion
6. Ressources en français
7. Recursos en español

The ITO newsletter:
http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/newsletter.shtml
To subscribe to the newsletter yourself, send an e-mail message to
subscribe-ito-announce at lists.itrainonline.org

Una gran cantidad de nuevos recursos en español se agregaron al Sitio de
"ItrainOnline" en el mes de marzo. La lista completa es tan extenso
que no la incluimos aquí. Favor de consultar
http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/spanish/novedades.shtml
para ver los nuevos recursos.

SOFTWARE: APC ActionApps now in Croatian

Thanks to Igor Hrste from ZaMirNET, APC member in Zagreb, APC ActionApps
is now available in Croatian. APC ActionApps is a free software content
management system for building dynamic information-sharing portals,
recently acclaimed “one of the top 10 open source tools for e-activism”.
http://www.apc.org/actionapps (Find out more about ActionApps)
http://www.openconcept.ca/index.php/Top10 (Top 10 tools for e-activism)

NEW BOOK: "Communicating in the Information Society"

This 235-page volume edited by Sean O'Siochru and Bruce Girard of the
CRIS Campaign was launched on 10th December 2003 in Geneva during the
World Summit on the Information Society. With contributors including
Dafne Plou of the APC women's programme (WNSP) and published by the
UNRISD, this is a must-have for all involved in the debates on the
"information society". Chapters are downloadable for free.
http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/231/

DISCUSSION REPORT: Free and open source software in public administration

The ICA web forum on “Open Source Software in Public Administration”
took place online in November 2003 and a final report on the discussion
is now available which summarises the most important points concerning
the debate on concepts regarding open source software, the adoption of
open source software by the State and some experiences. The objective of
the report is to offer recommendations and elements for making decisions
regarding the incorporation of open source software in public
administration.
http://www.icamericas.net/documents/INFORME%20FINAL%20FORO%20OS.pdf
(final document in Spanish)
Key points and recommendations in English:
http://www.icamericas.net/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=344

DISCUSSION REPORT: Wireless connectivity

Also held in November, the resulting document presents a synthesis of
the most relevant issues raised during the discussion of concepts
related to Wi-Fi, its strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats,
as well as experiences described by participants in their respective
countries or in more developed ones. Strategies and policies related to
the issue are also suggested.
http://www.icamericas.net/documents/INFORME%20FINAL%20FORO%20WIFI.pdf
(final document in Spanish)
Key points and recommendations in English:
http://www.icamericas.net/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=348

NEW BOOK: "Free Culture - how the media uses technology"

Lawrence Lessig is a leading voice in how computer code creates laws. He
explains in 'Code and other laws of cyberspace' how those controlling
computer code can influence society. Prof. Lessig is a leading member of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/ and is a Stanford
law professor. His latest book "Free Culture" has been released under a
freely distributable license. The book can be purchased from bookshops
or downloaded free of charge.
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/

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-- COLLABORATING OPPORTUNITIES -

APC: Vacancy for manager for Communications and Information Programme

APC is looking for a strategic thinker with experience in and
understanding of global and regional level ICT policy issues to run our
'CIPP' programme. The successful candidate will understand how ICT
policy issues relate to development and social justice and have a proven
background in civil society networking.

A minimum five years experience in project management is necessary and
fundraising experience is essential. As APC is a truly virtual
organisation, excellent computer and internet skills and familiarity
with working in an online environment are important as well as sound
academic qualifications. Deadline for applications is May 9 2004. - APCNews
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=18526

CRIS Campaign: Sign up to the Communication Rights Charter

"Our vision of the 'Information Society' is grounded in the Right to
Communicate, as a means to enhance human rights and to strengthen the
social, economic and cultural lives of people and communities. Crucial
to this is that civil society organisations come together to help build
an information society based on principles of transparency, diversity,
participation and social and economic justice, and inspired by equitable
gender, cultural and regional perspectives...."

The CRIS Charter has been available in French English and Spanish online
for over a year now, clearly stating CRIS' position, commitment and
areas of action. You are invited to support the campaign by endorsing
the Charter. http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/74

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-- IMPORTANT DATES --

FM at dia Forum '04: Connect Free Media
June 10-12 2004, Prague, Czech Republic
June 13-14 2004, Freistadt, Austria

People from a variety of community-, free-, independent-, sovereign-,
civic-, NGO media and social organisations will gather to discuss and
develop strategies for the liberalisation of the information and
communication situation in Europe - with special focus on Central and
East Europe. FM at dia aims to activate communication and collaboration
between different regions, languages and cultures. Representatives from
several APC members will be participating.
URL: http://fmedia.ecn.cz/

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-- WHAT'S NEW ON THE APC WEBSITE --

APC ICT Policy & Internet Rights

The APC internet Rights site has been redesigned and revised almost in
its entirety to collect the wealth of policy materials -publications,
training materials and resources- produced since 2002 when the site was
first created.

Take a look at:
What is ICT policy? http://rights.apc.org/what_is_policy.shtml
What are internet rights? http://rights.apc.org/charter.shtml
ICT policy resources from APC: http://rights.apc.org/resources.shtml
Newsletters: http://rights.apc.org/newsletters.shtml
About APC's work in ICT policy: http://rights.apc.org/about.shtml

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APCNews, in English, and APCNoticias, in Spanish, are distributed
monthly by APC - a worldwide network supporting the use of internet and
ICTs for social justice and sustainable development since 1990.
APCNews Archive: http://www.apc.org/english/news/apcnews/

CopyLeft. 2004 Association for Progressive Communications (APC).
Permission is granted to use this document for personal use, for
training and educational publications, and activities by peace,
environmental, human rights or development organizations. Please provide
an acknowledgment to APC.
APCNews will next appear in June.

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