Advocacy statements

IT for Change (ITfC) was one among five civil society organisations invited to make submissions before the Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (WG-IGF) of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology Development (UNCSTD), in January 2011. The WG-IGF has been set  up to provide recommendations (process related as well as substantive) for the democratisation and pro-poor sensitisation of the IGF, a multistakeholder policy dialogue forum on Internet related issues. The report of the WG-IGF will be tabled by the UNCSTD at the next session of the UN General Assembly.

Prepared for a workshop on Open Development organised by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa (Canada) in May 2010, the paper presents a comprehensive critique of the concept of openness, taken from the technology discourse. The paper critically analyses the elements of openness – greater access, participation and collaboration – citing empirical evidence from the field of Information and Communication Technology Development (ICTD) and Internet Governance.

The Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka and Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, have initiated a public software based ICT education programme imed at all the high schools of the state. This entire programme, including the classroom training, has been outsourced. However, preliminary implementation suggests that vendors are finding it challenging to impart an ICT based education in the selected schools.

Read the IBSA's joint statement presented at the UN meeting in New York on 14 December on constructing internet governance and enhanced cooperation.

Public software is 'software developed or procured, for the public good, which is publicly owned'. It is essential for participating in the digital society and thus needs to be provided to everyone as an universal right and entitlement. It includes operating system, text/image/audio/video editors, email, web browser, search engine, etc.

This document was an input into the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) High-Level Intergovernmental Meeting on the Review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.

This case study is part of a research project that sought to analyse how different telecentre models approach development on the ground, proceeding to elaborate a typology based on the cornerstones of participation and equity. To conduct this assessment, four telecentre projects were examined: the Gujarat government’s e-Gram project, the corporate-led venture by ITC called e-Choupal, the private enterprise model of Drishtee, and the community-owned telecentres of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF).

The authors discuss the process of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process and its positive outcomes in terms of Internet governance, and negative outcomes regarding the failure to establish a financing mechanism for Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD).

Anita Gurumurthy wrote about the promise of ICTs for developing countries in World economy and Development In Brief. In this articles, she states that even though the IT revolution did open up new job avenues