huridocs-tech FRY: Kosovo Refugee Internet Assistance

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16 August 1999

Kosovo Refugee Internet Assistance Plan Begins New Phase
(Nancy Ozeas of USIA Outlines Next Steps) (730)
By Michelle Johns
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- The U.S. Information Agency's (USIA's) Kosovo
Internet Assistance Initiative -- a public-private
partnership that uses information technology to help address
the information and humanitarian needs of Kosovar refugees
-- has entered an exciting, new phase.

Nancy Ozeas, USIA's Information Bureau Chief of Staff,
recently returned from a trip to the Balkans where she
worked with IOM (International Organization for Migration)
and OTI (Office of Transition Initiatives, U.S. Agency for
International Development) partners to plan for the
establishment of seven Internet Information Centers
throughout Kosovo. The new centers will provide local
communities with Internet access and create a regional
network of programs that will promote sustainable
information infrastructures, develop a long-term information
and technology knowledge base, and strengthen civil society.

In a recent interview, Ozeas, discussed the scope of phase
two of the USIA initiative that was first launched in May.

"Now that the refugees' return home is almost complete,"
Ozeas said, "it has become necessary to switch gears from
disseminating information -- including Albanian language
news reports, via Internet centers in Kosovo Albanian
refugee camps around the world -- to establishing a network
of Internet centers in Kosovo that will continue to provide
information to the refugees as they begin to rebuild their
homes and communities."

It is now time to prepare for the next phase of the Internet
Assistance Initiative, which is to focus "resources and
efforts in Kosovo," she added.

In July Ozeas and representatives of USAID and IOM, an
international non-governmental organization, took the first
step toward making those Internet centers in Kosovo a
reality. They toured prospective sites for the centers that
will be established in six cities -- Pristina, Pec, Urosevac
(Ferizaj in Albanian), Prizren, Dakovica, and Gnjilane -- to
evaluate available physical space, to consider how
requirements for electricity and other needs could be met,
and to consult with community leaders and members of local
groups that could benefit from the centers. Mitrovica is
under consideration as a location for a seventh Internet
center, but final plans are pending because of the unstable
situation there.

The Kosovo Refugee Internet Assistance Initiative began as a
one-time response to a specific humanitarian crisis, but has
evolved into something with far greater implications and
longer term applications. The public-private partnership is
the realization of a plan conceived of and implemented by
USIA's Information Bureau Director Jonathan Spalter, who
calls the Internet "a sharp new tool in the diplomatic
arsenal."

The initiative has brought together government agencies,
information technology companies, and international relief
organizations in a coordinated effort to utilize technology
and the Internet to meet Kosovar refugees' urgent
information, humanitarian, and communication needs. Some of
the entities participating in the project are USAID, the
Department of State, National Security Council, Apple
Computer, Inc., Hewlett Packard, Xerox, International Data
Group, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees,
and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Through Internet information sites established in refugee
camps in France, Germany, Poland, the United States (Fort
Dix, New Jersey), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
and Albania, as well as USIA's Albanian language newsletter
"Kontakti," the initiative has been able to provide
real-time Albanian language news, offer access to refugee
registers to locate lost family members and other loved
ones, facilitate coordination of non-governmental relief
agencies on the ground, and offer a means of communication
among the refugee camps.

Aided by more than 1.5 million dollars in donations, this
partnership -- combining the money, resources, and
technology of the private sector with the access and
initiative of the public sector -- has succeeded in
mobilizing the tools of the information age to help
alleviate Kosovo's refugee crisis. Using technology that did
not exist ten years ago, the initiative demonstrates an
achievement that neither the public nor private sector could
have accomplished on its own without the aid of the other.
It also reflects an evolution in the nature of strategies
for humanitarian crisis relief/response, diplomacy, and the
rebuilding of civil society.

"Technology is changing the way we respond to international
events," Ozeas said. "Tools such as the Internet provide us
with new opportunities to respond to situations such as the
humanitarian crisis in Kosovo."




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