ASSR's Virtual Library: Index by topic: Information and Communication for Development

Arab Resources

• Arab Advisors - monitors the evolution of the information economy in the emerging Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets through comprehensive market research, analysis and forecasts, and assesses the potential of these markets.
• Arab ISPs - Internet Service Providers in 13 Arab countries.
• ITP.net - information technology publishers speciliazied in technology and business online information news for the Middle East. ITP.net deliver daily news in English and Arabic covering the most important technology and business events, products and trends in the Middle East.
• REACH Initiative - Jordan's national strategy to develop an export-oriented Information Technology Services sector. The REACH initiative was devised by a core group of members of the Jordan Computer Society (int@j), with technical support from AMIR (Access to Microfinance and Improved Implementation of Policy Reform) project of the United States Agency for International Development.
• Regional Arab Information Technology Network (RAITNET) - is a regional non-governmental and not-for-profit organization, founded by member and participating institutions of the Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center and supported by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and /United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
• The African Information Society Initiative (AISI) - is the African mandate to use information and communication technology to accelerate economic and social development in Africa. AISI was adopted by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of Ministers of Development and Planning in 1996 as the African Information Society Initiativw: an action framework to build Africa's information and communication framework. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was mandated to work with partners to implement the Initiative throughout Africa.

• Economic TeleDevelopment Forum - forum provides a virtual place to discover useful insights regarding the paramount function of telecommunications (telecom) infrastructure as an enabling medium of evolving smart cities and communities. And, to portend and explain some of the new idioms that represent the culture of the global networked economy.
• The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) - is an evolving, informal partnership of public, private and not-for-profit organizations. Partner organizations are committed to sharing information, experiences and resources to promote broad access to, and effective use of, knowledge and information as tools of sustainable, equitable development.
• InfoDev - Information for Development Program - is an initiative of the World Bank for promoting information and communication technologies for social and economic development. InfoDev is also a good source of funding for technology projects in the developing world.
• International Telecommunication Union Operational Activities in the Arab States - see also Telecommunication Development Sector - Country Data by Region.
• Information Networks and Knowledge Research Center - INK's research and teaching programmes investigate how people are designing and implementing the new social and technological tools for building knowledge-based societies and examine how participants in social and technological networks transform information into useful knowledge. INK is a founding member of the European Economic Interest Group ENCIP (European Network for Communication and Information Perspectives), which is a vehicle for developing new lines of research on the social and economic implications of advanced information and communication technologies and hosts the annual European Communications Policy Research Conference.
• The Internet SOCiety (ISOC) - is a professional membership society with more than 150 organizational and 6,000 individual members in over 100 countries. It provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
• Knowledge Base of the European Survey of Information Society Projects and Actions (ESIS) is sponsored by the European Union's Information Society Project Office (ISPO). The database contains IT indicators, information on regulatory developments, lists of information society (IS) key persons and organizations (for some countries with contact information) and more. The survey covers the European Union, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean countries.
• Knowledge Management: Implications and Applications for Development Organizations - provides access to knowledge management related workshops, papers, and links to resources in the field of knowlege management for development.
• NMIT - a website of Working Papers on New Media and Information Technologies in the Middle East, features preliminary formulations of new data and findings from on-going social science research on information technologies in the region, their uses and impacts in work, leisure, education, commerce, media cultures, social movements, local and regional identities, globalization and transnational ties. They concern changing access to communications, production and consumption of media, the evolving political economy of telecommunications, policy issues, and their cultural registers in the countries of the region and the Middle Easts overseas. The editors welcome suggestions and works in progress, via email to aip@gusun.georgetown.edu. NMIT is a project of the Arab Information Project at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporay Arab Studies in cooperation with the Social Science Research Center at the University's of Arizona's Center for Middle East Studies.
• The Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) - a non-profit organization, NSRC has been involved for the past decade with the deployment and integration of appropriate networking technology in various projects throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Oceania.
• SURF-AS - Sub-Regional Resource Facility for Arab States is a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) website focusing on Information Technology (IT) and the public-sector development in the region. SURF-AS provides access to discussion fora, briefs on e-government and projects for developing it, networks and organizations promoting it, UNDP policy documents and studies, contacts, and databases of experts, projects, and IT resources in the region.
• UNDP Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) - operating at the country level, UNDP- SDNP help launch and support local Internet sites, build national capacities and knowledge resources. See SDNP Arab States.
• UNESCO Observatory on the Information Society - the site provides a selection of, a) documents related to governmental initiatives, action plans, policies and strategies implemented at the national, regional and international levels to prepare the transition to an Information Society, b ) legal or regulatory texts related to the protection of transborder privacy, global e-commerce and cryptography, and c) legal or regulatory texts related to intellectual property rights, copyright and violence in cyberspace. See also regional information related to Africa and the Arab States.
• USAID Information Technology - the page provides access to USAID's information initiatives in developing countries.
• TeleCom Information Resources on the Net - contains references to information sources relating to the technical, economic, public policy, and social aspects of telecommunications. All forms of telecommunication, including, voice, data, video, wired, wireless, cable TV, and satellite, are included. The intent is to provide "high-level" pointers to other WWW servers, with a brief description of the type of information.
• World Bank WorLD Program - the work of the WorLD Program in participating countries has five major areas, 1) Internet connectivityfor secondary schools in developing countries , 2) training and educational content to promote economic and social development, 3) regional and global partnerships with public, private and non-governmental organizations, 4) telecommunications policy advice for the education sector, and 5) monitoring and evaluation support. See also the World Bank Human Development Report 1999 Globalization with a Human Face - analyzes the challenges and opportunities of globalization, and notably the growing inequalities between rich and poor states and the people within them, by indices of human development, poverty, and gender empowerment.

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