Regional ICTD Initiatives

Since 1993, UNDP has been designing and implementing dedicated IT programmes and pilots at both the national and regional levels to foster the creation of adequate ICT enabling environments in developing nations and promote sustainable development. Regional programmes have been instrumental in providing addional support and promotion of IT for Development initiatives at both the country and regional levels.

Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, APDIP: (http://www.apdip.net), launched in 1996, aims to promote the development and application of new ICT for poverty alleviation and sustainable human development through three core programme areas: Policy Development and Dialogue, Access, and Content Development and Knowledge Management. The programme runs out of Kuala Lampur and operates at both the regional and national levels.

ICT in the Arab Region, ICTDAR: The programme will support participating Arab countries in the use of ICT for human development. Activities aim to help reduce human poverty by fostering a more capable information-enabled society. The programme will apply a coordinated strategy leveraging education, knowledge exchanges and ICT applications, targeting poor people to accelerate poverty reduction through equitable growth and employment generation as well as information creation, distribution and usage. Partnerships with public and private institutions are cornerstones of this programme. The programme will run out of Cairo. Additonal information can be found here.

Bratislava Regional Support Center: As part of a regional Governance programme, the ICTD component focuses in promoting e-governance and e-democracy to help build modern information and knowledge based societies. Support is provided to the following priorities: Access, Content, Policy, Capacity, Partnerships and East-Easr cooperation.

Internet Initiative for Africa, IIA: Launched in 1996, IIA aimed at enhancing national Internet infostructures and promoting the development of national and regional backbones , including a strong component for building national technical capacities and telecom skills in 10 African countries. The programme was hosted in Accra.