COMMUNICATION, INFORMATION AND INFORMATICS

Commitments:

Development of communication and independent and pluralistic press

Since the launching of its activities in the Great Lakes “region in 1994, UNESCO has significantly contributed to the development of communication and of an independent and pluralistic press. Thanks to its programmes, UNESCO has permitted groupings of media professional organizations in Burundi and Rwanda, and several associations have been created : “Association rwandaise des journalistes”, “Association burundaise des journalistes”, “Association des femmes des médias”, “Association des éditeurs de presse”, “Association des journalistes sportifs”, and “Association des attachés de presse”. These associations aim to defend journalistic rights, expand profession, etc. On 3 May 1999, World Press Freedom Day was celebrated in Rwanda as in Burundi. Some Press Houses have even been created.

In September 1998, the third African INPUT Workshop was held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), sponsored by UNESCO, the Government of Canada and Radio Canada. The workshop was attended by 34 participants from 19 different countries, who watched and discussed a total of 29 TV productions. A selection of these African productions, together with their producers, were sent to the International Public Television Screening Conference, held in Fort Worth, United States, in April 1999. UNESCO provided financial assistance for the participation of the African delegation. This year, IPDC is providing US $50,000 for the organization of the fourth African INPUT Workshop, to be held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in September 1999.

A Regional Workshop on New Technologies and Networking Media Women Associations in East Africa was organized in May 1999, in co-operation with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), and East African Media Institute (EAMI). Furthermore, a manual of operations for the East Africa Media Women Association (EAMWA) was prepared to help consolidate the Association through the exchange of experiences and information and to increase co-operation among media women in the region. UNESCO has also provided support to the Federation of African Media Women in Harare to create a web site with a view to increasing women’s access to information on gender issues in society. And, a regional training course in radio production for women was organized in Mauritius in October 1998, in co-operation with Deutsche Welle and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Two model curricula were drafted for training at the pre-university level and at the university level under the special project “Improving communication training in Africa”. Financial support was given to the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) to organize a three-day evaluation workshop on curricula for communication training in Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, from 9 to 11 October 1998. The workshop participants discussed the draft model curricula for communication training and made suggestions for modifications and trial use in actual teaching and training situations. The workshop also generated recommendations for distributing the final versions of the draft model curricula to communication training institutions as well as media establishments and communication professional associations with training activities.

Financial support was given to the Programme Exchange Centre (PEC) of the Union of Radio and Television Organizations in Africa (URTNA) to organize a two-week training workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, in March-April 1999 on the production of children’s educational television programmes in Africa. The principal purpose of the workshop was to improve understanding and skills in conceptualizing and producing children’s educational television programmes among African television producers, and to make a model educational television production for African children.

A regional seminar on promoting community media in Africa was organized, in co-operation with the Uganda National Commission for UNESCO, in Kampala from 7 to 9 June 1999. It was attended by 120 participants from 14 African countries representing community media practitioners, United Nations agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and training and research institutions. The recommendations were on (i) policies, legislation and strategies for funding community media; (ii) appropriate communication and information technologies to use; (iii) content, programming, training and research. In addition, financial assistance was provided to support the participation of female community media practitioners from Malawi in the AMARC Conference in Milan, Italy, in August 1998.

The Intergovernmental Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) financed 39 projects in Africa for a total amount of US $1,580,000 , including : “Bulletin women of Africa” for the PANA (US $40,000); “Translation of training manuals on community/rural radio into the local languages of 12 SADC countries” ($20,000); “Training and research in information superhighways and multimedia” ($44,000); “INPUT African Co-ordination Centre” ($50,000); “Basic and refresher training for West and Central African Radio and Television personnel with a view to the transition to digital technology” ($44,000) and “Support for the development of the Network of African Communication Regulatory Authorities (RIARC)” ($62,000).

Telematics and information highways

A major contribution of the Communication, Information and Informatics Sector to the Priority Africa Programme has been designed around support for the African Information Society Initiative framework, approved by the ECA Conference of Ministers in Addis Ababa, and the priority on “Harnessing Information Technology for Development” within the United Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa. Close co-operation is maintained with regional organizations such as ECA and OUA as well as other partners in the information field.

Nearly US $700,000 were provided in the regular programme for 1998-1999 to help Africa to benefit from the challenges and opportunities of telematics and information highways. Support has been provided for the establishment of centres of excellence in education and training in telematics in Gabon, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Subregional workshops on networking in support of these centres were also organized for telematics and networking specialists to equip them with tools to embark on networking projects in their home countries, and three advanced workshops for African specialists were organized in Israel with the support of the authorities of that country.

Multipurpose Community Centres (MCTs) were developed as a model for universal access and participation in the emerging African Information Society. MCTs are conceived as a sustainable and cost-effective service centre catering for the needs of local populations. UNESCO, through DANIDA funds-in-trust, supported MCT pilot projects in rural areas of Benin, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda to enhance the new role of public libraries, formal and non-formal education initiatives, and grass-roots community organizations. Pilot MCTs are already operational in Mali, Mozambique and Uganda with final planning having recently been accomplished in Benin and Tanzania. In every country, UNESCO and its international partners are encouraging national counterparts to adopt a bottom-up approach, with the widest possible participation of local authorities, community associations and non-governmental organizations, both in holding stakes in the MCTs and in the definition, development and promotion of services.

A coordination meeting of focal points of the Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF) and the Intergovernmental Informatics Programme (IIP), now benefiting from the participation of 43 African Member States, was organized in Dakar (Senegal) in October 1998 to consolidate and reinforce UNESCO’s continuing support to Africa in the telematics field by identifying priority areas for action and laying the basis for a stronger participation of Member States. This activity was reinforced by the commemoration of “RINAF Day” to promote an interdisciplinary, intersectoral approach at the national level and mobilize support for priority regional and sub-regional projects.

UNESCO has extended its efforts to increase the number of trainers in the field of informatics and telematics in African schools and to empower African teachers in the use of information and communication technologies. Activities to support the efforts aiming at introducing computers and informatics into the mainstream of education at the secondary level were initiated in Uganda, and will produce English-language training material to be made available to all countries interested. Through the intersectoral (CII-ED/LWF) pilot project in Zimbabwe on ‘Creating Learning Networks for African Teachers’, a virtual community linking educators in teacher training colleges and the national education administration has been extended from five to eight colleges. Tools for cooperative development of courseware and curricula are being tested, and the interactive Web site adapted in French for use in a new pilot project initiated in Senegal. The network is being extended to East Africa where pairs of teacher trainers and teachers will work with counterparts in Zimbabwe and North America using the Internet to share experiences and develop new approaches to science and mathematics teaching. A virtual laboratory pilot project on “Increasing East African secondary school girls’ participation in science” was carried out in cooperation with International Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE) programme. A workshop for Portuguese-speaking African countries on “Virtual University: Concepts in Transition” is planned for early 2000.

UNESCO is involved in the preparation of the first African Development Forum entitled “The Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age” (Addis Ababa, 25-28 October 1999), providing its expertise in areas such as infoethics, public domain, public service sector consortia, community access and women’s empowerment in the information society. Subregional co-operation in national information and communication infrastructure, policy and content generation for information highways is being enhanced. For example, Ghana was assisted, with funding from the World Bank’s infoDev programme, to set up a pilot public service telematics network, and support was provided to Rwanda for the organization of a National Workshop on telematics (30 November – 4 December 1998) in co-operation with ECA.

As part of UNESCO’s effort to promote the development of African multimedia and Internet content, the 50 best African web sites in the areas of education, science, culture, public service information and community development were selected and presented in an integrated web site, in cooperation with the WoYaa African Web Inventory. The first edition of the electronic anthology related to the development of the Sahel zone, and the “SAHEL point DOC” CD-ROM was published within the publication series of electronic documentary heritage. Funds have been obtained from DANIDA to continue this project in the period 1999-2001, to produce the second edition and an equivalent CD-ROM for East Africa, and to install and evaluate their use in 20 pilot public libraries in the two subregions.

As part of its policy to promote co-operation among its members, the UNESCO Network of Associated Libraries (UNAL), in collaboration with the Gambia National Commission for UNESCO and the Gambia Rural UNESCO Club, organized a subregional workshop on “The Role of the Library in Developing a Well-balanced Society”. The objective of the meeting was to propose concrete strategies and recommendations that could facilitate the role of the library and its development to serve humanity and more particularly societies in the developing world.

The original objectives of the Special Project “Video libraries for Young People in Africa” were to encourage the use of endogenous video materials by young people as a means of promoting cultural awareness and identity and the preservation of specially selected video material. Equipment was provided for viewing a selection of cassettes produced by the governments or made available by the national television stations in Namibia and Cameroon. In addition, video recorders were provided so that young people could produce their own videos for viewing within the libraries. And within the framework of the “INFOYOUTH Programme”, a CD-ROM was produced on the youth situation in Africa. Other INFOYOUTH activities include the creation of information centres, training workshops, development of an information scheme for young women participating in voluntary service activities and the provision of equipment.