Internet Access Via Community Radios: UNESCO Kothmale Seminar Closed

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

Internet Access Via Community Radios: UNESCO Kothmale Seminar Closed

January 29, 2001 - A strong new commitment to provide access to the 
Internet via community radio networks for the rural poor in 
developing countries was made in Kothmale Sri Lanka. The UNESCO 
seminar "Integrating Modern and Traditional Information and 
Communication Technologies for Community Development" ended last 
Saturday in this village in a valley in Sri Lanka.

The participants from community projects in developing countries also 
sent a video message on the digital divide to world leaders gathered 
for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling for new 
efforts to bridge the growing information gap.

Several international development bodies pledged to launch fresh 
projects or boost existing ones to ensure that poor communities are 
able to use the full potential of information and communication 
technologies for their development needs. Participants from community 
radio and telecentre projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the 
Caribbean made a series of recommendations to international partners 
for the successful integration of these technologies at community 
level.

The American NGO, Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) announced 
that it will allocate ground stations on a priority basis to UNESCO-
supported networks of community radios and telecentres for sending 
and receiving email via low-orbiting satellites. This will enable 
remote villages with no telephone lines to access and exchange up to 
50 pages a day of information.

The UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) 
committed itself to providing policy and technical assistance to 
community projects in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, East Timor, Bhutan and 
Pacific Islands region. UNDP APDIP, ITU and UNESCO will further their 
partnership in the Asia-Pacific region for policy and technical 
assistance. 

Further pledges of reinforced co-operation with UNESCO to expand 
projects for community multimedia centres came from the Canadian 
International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International 
Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. 

UNESCO's new partnership programme to combine community broadcasting 
with Internet and related technologies was launched at the seminar, 
organized jointly with the Sri Lanka government, the Sri Lanka 
Broadcasting Corporation and the Kothmale Internet Project of 
Kothmale Community Radio. The Kothmale project has pioneered the use 
of radio to introduce rural communities to the new technologies.


- View a message from Kothmale to Davos (three-minute video in Real 
Media format) 
http://webworld.unesco.org/real_media/davos.ram

- Recommendation (RTF)  
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/2001/kothmale_recommendations.rtf


source:
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/2001/010129_kothmale.shtml