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TechnologyDaily Mobile
Delivering Mobile Phones To Africa
by Winter Casey
An initiative for improving the lives of people in developing nations is aiming to deliver mobile communications and the Internet to some 400,000 people in 10 African countries.
The Millennium Project is based on the findings of a United Nations project commissioned to recommend a plan to combat poverty, hunger and disease. The initiative is led by teams at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, the nonprofit Millennium Promise, and the U.N. Development Program.
Last week, the telecommunications supplier Ericsson and Columbia's Earth Institute announced that they had formed a partnership to deliver mobile phones to Africa through the project.
"Providing these developing villages with mobile communications will not only improve basic infrastructure such as health care, education and safety but, equally important, will be a foundation for fostering economic growth and development," Ericsson President Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement.
"With more than 3 billion mobile subscribers around the world, the mobile phone plays a key role as one of the most powerful tools to fight poverty, particularly for poor communities in remote areas of the world," said Jeffrey Sachs, a special adviser to the U.N. secretary-general. "Mobile technology will not only facilitate communication beyond borders but will also be an engine for empowerment and a driving force for economic growth."
Stockholm, Sweden-based Ericsson, described as the dominant telecom supplier in Africa, plans to work with others in Africa to develop a comprehensive strategy in the villages and to support delivering mobile connectivity to selected areas. The company also said it will deliver connectivity to power remote and resource-poor areas through the use of renewable energy tools.
The five-year Millennium Village project, which began a year ago, does not provide direct cash to the villages but offers low-cost practical resources, supporters say. "From here the communities use the tools and guidance the project provides them with to educate and coordinate ways to lift villages out of extreme poverty," according to a project spokesman.
The village sites were chosen by Millennium Village project organizers and are believed to represent the poorest regions in each country, according to a project spokesman. There are currently 79 such villages in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Though the specific ways to increase development are based on research and recommendations by initiative participants, the project itself is primarily implemented by local staff and the communities themselves.
Zimbabwe's Weapon Against Western Dominance
Zimbabwe should use information and communications technologies to defend itself against Western domination, President Robert Mugabe said last week, according to The Herald, a state-controlled newspaper in the southern African country.
"We have our own sphere, our own space, which we must self determine and govern as a sovereign people," Mugabe said. "We will never be that image the British or Americans have put on BBC or CNN, never. They do not want us to assume full control of our land, and hence the present fight.
"And because it is a fight where we again stand on the side of right and justice, the British have sought, through [information and communications technologies] and other means, to mobilize around extraneous issues and images to sidetrack the world from the core matter at the heart of the present fight."
He also claimed that his Western critics "have used propaganda and their global news networks to leverage international opinion against us. This is as 'innocent' and as 'neutral' as information and communication can be. They control the nether, we control truth; and in the end, right will be might."
Mugabe insisted that his country "should appropriate the power of ICT and use it to defend the interests of our people. That is the major challenge: to make ICT an instrument in the defense of our culture, national rights and the rights of our people. ICT must, thus, be accorded an appropriate domestic or national environment, the recognition nevertheless remaining that our environment also exists in a broader continental and world environment."
The U.S. State Department reported this year said the "government of Zimbabwe rarely allows entry to foreign journalists and continues its crackdown on anyone who criticizes the regime."
The State Department also has accused Mugabe's government of attempting to eliminate government criticism by beating peaceful pro-democracy protestors and of destroying the country's agricultural sector.
The White House said in July that the "United States deplores actions taken by the Mugabe regime that have further eroded human and economic liberty in Zimbabwe" and that the "regime also continues its violent crackdown against the democratic opposition in advance of the March 2008 election, including the imprisonment, abduction and torture of democracy activists."
Mugabe is viewed as a foe of information technology freedom, according to the international media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. The group said in August that Mugabe signed into law a communications bill that enables his government to intercept phone calls, e-mails and facsimile messages with the goal of protecting national security.
Canadian Database Created For School Emergencies
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has created standardized procedures for emergency response to schools by law enforcement and other emergency-service agencies.
So far, some 300 schools have provided information for entry to a computer database police officers will have access to use for emergencies, the Canadian government said. The database will contain photographs, floor plans and pre-identified emergency procedures for each school.
The Canadian government said the program is modeled after one that was developed following the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in the United States.
For this initiative, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's chief information officer used a "survey of Canadian school information to develop an up-to-date and readily available computer database of school blueprints, aerial photos, material inventories, and emergency procedures." The government said the new plan "will help standardize a national lockdown procedure and will assist law enforcement agencies in coordinating responses to emergencies."
Meanwhile, a Canadian partnership program led by Natural Resources Canada enables Canadian decision makers to use maps, satellite images and other location-based Internet technologies to address challenges in areas such as public health, according to the government.
The Canadian government is supporting research projects under the program, known as GeoConnections.
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