civil society & ICT

22.03.2005 PrepCom III, leading to the Tunis phase of WSIS, will be held from 19 to 30 September. It will take place in Palais des Nations, Geneva. During the Inter-Sessional period between PrepCom – 2 and PrepCom –3, the Group of Friends of the Chair (GFC) will continue to draft proposals for Chapter one (Implementation Mechanisms) and four (The Way Ahead) of the operational part. All the governments and other stakeholders can contribute to this process during this period.

21.03.2005 Bellanet Asia is going to hold a two-day event on ICTs for building partnerships in Kathmandu from March 28 to 29, 2005. E-governance, open content and online networking will be the thrust areas of discussion in this meet.

18.03.2005 Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), an initiative of the UN ICT Task Force, invites proposal of partnerships from public, private and civil society actors. GeSCI works closely with local partners to improve quality of learning by using ICTs in schools.

11.03.2005 Radio Shreenagar of Palpa district in Nepal has started airing programmes to provide tutorial support to the local students appearing for the SLCS examination. On-the-air tutorials on English, Mathematics and Science are being offered for the students of class X and XI.

11.03.2005 Four grassroots women representing local NGOs went to Geneva to lobby for their own space in the World Summit on the Information Society. OneWorld South Asia, a Delhi based NGO, which uses ICTs in poverty alleviation and sustainable development, has promoted the concept of creating a Grassroots Caucus for the Summit.

11.03.2005 Some 30,000 people joined the Online Volunteering (OV) service since the United Nations Volunteers launched it in March 2000. The website of OV connects civil society organisations primarily working in the South with the people who are willing to apply their skills for local development through internet.

10.03.2005 GKP announces its 2005 Annual Meeting in Cairo, Egypt on 4-5 May. The focus of this year’s meet will be on “Advancing ICT Solutions for Development through Cross-Sector Partnerships”.

09.03.2005 UN ICT Task Force invites public comments on the proposal of creating a Global Alliance, a collaborative platform to enable all the stakeholders participate in an open and transparent global ICT policy formulation process.