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Association for Progressive Communications (APC )
Activities and Programs

Communications and Information Policy - Africa

In Africa, APC’s main focus is on access to infrastructure, particularly broadband internet infrastructure outside main urban areas. There are many active projects, including the CICEWA one, which tries to push for equitable and affordable access the internet through research, adocacy and telecommunication policy reform.

Africans pay some of the highest costs for bandwidth in the world. As the existing infrastructure is largely foreign-owned, the hard currency paid for access leaves the continent. East Africa, which does not have international fibre connections, pays even higher prices than West Africa, which is connected to the monopoly-controlled SAT3/WASC cable.

APC’s FibreForAfrica.net site provides basic information about international bandwidth in Africa, its costs and the politics of monopoly access to. It focuses especially on the proposed East African cable projects and the ending of the SAT-3 monopoly.

Our large-scale research project SAT-3/WASC Post-Implementation Audit: Country Case Studies documents the effect that the SAT-3 cable has had on communications on the African continent. It looks at:

What happened and why? A global view of the cable’s construction.

What is happening and how? National perspectives on the effect of SAT-3 on the ICT environments in Angola, Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana.

What next? Lessons learned, problems to avoid in future infrastructure projects, and positive points to carry forward.

APC has co-organised consultations and workshops with key groups including national regulators. The pressure from this process has indirectly caused a downward trend on SAT-3 prices as the operating consortium tries to pre-empt regulatory intervention by lowering prices. In collaboration with partners, APC organised a civil society workshop on open access to ICT infrastructure in Africa, which made a number of recommendations to the ITU’s Connect Africa Summit in Kigali in October 2007.

The Communication for Influence (CICEWA) project, launched in January 2008, aims to identify obstacles to universal affordable access to broadband ICT infrastructure in East, Central and West Africa. Building on this research, CICEWA animators will develop two sub-regional ICT policy advocacy networks to disseminate research and undertake advocacy on ICTD and access to infrastructure at the sub-regional level. Ultimately, the project aims to create a sound platform for sub-regional connectivity in East, West and Central Africa that will enable the effective use of ICTs in development processes.

The Africa ICT Policy Monitor website (africa.rights.apc.org) doesn’t try to capture every policy document, news item or activity in Africa, but instead focuses more on issues and countries in which APC is active in policy advocacy campaigns. This is partly in response to an evaluation which indicated that the site was visited by international users more than African ones.

Taking account of bandwidth limitations and limited internet access in large parts of the continent, the Chakula newsletter uses a “push” approach to reach a wider audience within Africa.

Communications and Information Policy - Latin America (CIPP-LA)

In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), APC is focusing its policy advocacy with the open access framework to guide research, advocacy and ICT policy capacity development by civil society groups.

We are working hard to open up the LAC region’s only regional policy space following on from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), eLAC2007, to civil society inputs. By strengthening our partnerships with organisations active in policy issues, APC is building its capacity to understand and participate in policy processes, whether regional, thematic or national.

To facilitate the engagement of grassroots activists and communities in ICT policy processes, we are popularising ICT policy and internet rights content, materials and research through various dissemination channels. For example, we are producing radio spots on the APC internet rights charter in partnership with community radio activists. We also produce issue papers on relevant issues, aimed at informing advocacy. We also produce issue papers on relevant issues, aimed at informing advocacy. For instance, we are covering issues such as digital radio and TV and regulatory challenges for the deployment of wireless networks in Latin America.

As in Africa, LAC has adopted the open access framework to guide our different components: research to inform advocacy; ICT policy capacity development by civil society organisations to influence ICT policy processes; networking and collaborating with members and partners to increase our impact; ICT policy advocacy at regional and national levels; and production of relevant information and content resources for monitoring ICT policy developments and orientate advocacy actions.

The APC Latin American and Caribbean ICT policy monitor website (lac.derechos.apc.org) was revamped and re-launched in late 2006. The new site reflects the evolution of the project’s objectives, including new thematic areas and useful resources such as the national statistics section.

The ICT policy newsletter in Spanish (“Políticas TIC y Derechos en Internet”) covers key issues such as the expansion of Creative Commons in Latin America and the eLAC2007 regional ICT policy process.

Communications and Information Policy Programme (CIPP)

APC’s policy programme approaches ICT policy holistically, recognising that, in an era of globalisation facilitated by the rapid growth of the internet and broadband networks, ICT policy reform can be coherently addressed only with reference to developments in other spaces.

This is why APC is active in three policy arenas — global, regional and national. We aim to ensure that policy is not simply handed down from the dominant centres in the United States or the European Union. Relevant input from previously marginalized voices, particularly in the global South, must be incorporated into policy formation. By learning from stakeholders with real experience of ICT policy formation and implementation either regionally or in their own countries, and applying that learning to policy developments in each space, APC is contributing to the opening and expansion of key policy processes around the globe.

International level
The international policy arena that has generated the most energy since the World Summit on the Information Summit (WSIS) process of 2002-5 is the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). At the second IGF in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007, APC presented a set of recommendations for the IGF secretariat to consider as the process moves towards the third forum in New Delhi in November 2008.

On the ICT for development (ICT4D) front, APC’s executive director Anriette Esterhuysen was appointed to the panel of high-level advisers to UN GAID. Moving into a new arena, we are working on a civil society position for a ministerial meeting of the OECD on “The future of the internet economy” in Seoul, June 2008.

Regional level
APC convened an Asia ICT policy consultation in Dhaka in 2006 to pinpoint ICT policy priorities and advocacy strategies in Asian countries, particularly in South Asia, and explore ways of networking and coordinating to effectively influence ICT policy research and advocacy in the region. APC also supported national policy advocacy processes in Bangladesh (broadband policy), India (open access to ICT4D content online and audiovisual content including an online space regarding information and communication policies for India) and Pakistan (community radio).

In Europe, APC members participated in an international meeting on data retention in Berlin in September 2007. APC has commissioned an issue paper on ICT policy-making in the EU. The results of this research will form the basis for our future policy advocacy in the EU.

Check out our subsections on the Latin American and the Caribbean and African regions.

National policy spaces

Although CIPP’s regional-level work is primarily focused on Africa and Latin America, our national ICT policy advocacy network spans the globe. What began in 2004 as an initiative to support ten APC member organizations in their national advocacy strategies has now expanded to become an extensive network of advocacy initiatives in 18 countries over four continents.

Notable successes of the National ICT policy advocacy network include the appointment of network member DMTIC as head of the Civil Society Commission on ICTs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the invitation of network member NodoTAU to become part of the jury for public consultation on the Rosario Digital City project in Argentina.

APC staff and members provide collaborative support for network member engagement in national, regional, and global ICT policy processes. Each network member maintains an ICT policy monitoring portal for increasing awareness amongst local civil society activists about local issues, strategies for influencing public policy debates and monitoring of the WSIS process. Often the first such initiative to collect information on ICT policy in their countries, the portals have become a key source of information for many civil society activists and others interested in the development of ICT policy in their respective countries.


Strategic Uses Programme (SUP)
 
The strategic use programme’s focus is on availability and accessibility to ICTs, skills and awareness of ICTs and understanding organisational context and needs.

What does “strategic use of ICTs” mean for civil society organisations?

It means knowing what technology options are available to help meet their mission. It’s about having the skills and knowledge to use those tools effectively and securely. And it’s about understanding their own organisational contexts and needs.

Availability and accessibility: SUP’s focus in this area lies with promoting and supporting free and open source software and other low-cost computing and connectivity options, such as wireless technologies and refurbished computers, and also endorsing the use of open and/or flexible licences for training materials.

Skills and awareness: ICTs are constantly evolving, and it is difficult for individual CSOs to keep abreast of developments. SUP has a strong focus on developing capacity through training and the development of learning and information resources. We think that training should result in the use of high-quality reusable materials that can be made freely available to other trainers under an open content licence.

Understanding organisational context and needs: The concept of strategic technology planning is a key element of our approach to capacity building: clarifying objectives, identifying needs and making informed decisions about the implementation of technologies.

Women''s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP)
 
The Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) is both a programme within APC and a network of women throughout the world committed to using technology for women’s empowerment. We promote gender equality in the design, implementation, access and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and in the policy decisions and frameworks that regulate them.

Feminist mix with a tech fix
The WNSP is made of feminists and activists who believe that ICTs have a strong role to play in transforming gender and social relations. In our ranks are techies and trainers who help women’s organisations and other civil society groups take control of the tools they use to advance their mission and advocacy. More than 175 women from 35 countries – librarians, programmers, journalists, trainers, designers, scholars, researchers, communicators – come together online to work jointly in various projects in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America.

Gender and ICTs
The power of ICT tools and platforms for advocacy and organising has long been recognised by women’s rights activists. ICTs have been effectively used to document abuses, redefine history and build knowledge. They have helped disseminate information, mobilise support and amplify the pressure for change. New web-based applications enable internet users to easily publish content, control their own data as well as form digital communities – shifting the power dynamics between information creators, owners and users.

Technological paradigms, assumptions about users’ realities, institutional configurations, policy priorities and legislative frameworks must be developed with the participation of women’s movements in order to reflect and respond to women’s diverse knowledge, realities and needs.

The APC WNSP seeks to apply the tremendous transformative capacity of ICTs to strengthen women’s movements and women’s rights agendas.

Taking control of technology
We aim to build capacity within women’s movements in the creative and strategic use of ICTs so that they can shape technology. This in turn gives these women the chance to explore the convergence between ICT issues and women’s rights agendas. We develop tools and resources for fostering a gender analysis of ICT projects and policies. Our work is expressed through several initiatives that we implement internationally with our members and partners. Our work areas are:

 
 
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