huridocs-tech UN volunteer corps is to bridge the technological gap

Title: TECHNOLOGY-UN: Bridging The Technological Gap

By Ramesh Jaura

BONN, Apr 12 (IPS) - The Bonn-based United Nations
Volunteers programme (UNV) will help coordinate a 'high-tech
corps' which will share with developing countries the
benefits of the worldwide information revolution.

UNV's Executive Coordinator, Sharon Capeling-Alakija, told
IPS that this was part of a new initiative proposed by the
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In his Millennium Report, which identifies challenges and
priorities of UN member states to consider at the Millennium
Assembly in September, Annan stresses the importance of
keeping pace with the ''digital revolution''.

One of the four initiatives spelt out by him involves the
creation of a global programme for information technology
(IT) volunteers, which Annan proposes to call the United
Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS).

This will be a consortium of high-tech volunteer corps,
including Net Corps Canada and Net Corps America, which the
UNV will help to coordinate, said Capeling-Alakija.

UNITeS will train groups in developing countries in the uses
and opportunities of information technology, and stimulate
the creation of additional digital corps in the North and
South, she said, referring to Annan's report.

External sources of funding to support the UNITeS are being
explored.

Capeling-Alakija said the UNITeS initiative highlighted the
role given to IT volunteers in the global challenge to
extend the benefits of the information revolution worldwide,
to close ''the digital divide''.

''UNV is responding to this challenge with a strategy
focusing on ways to connect with people in the developing
world ,'' said the executive coordinator of the programme.

According to Capeling-Alakija, UNV is already working with
Net Corps Canada in a pilot programme to field volunteers
with Internet skills in developing countries.

The Bonn-based programme also prepared an online
volunteering module for the NetAid website
<http://app.netaid.org/OV> - a joint initiative of the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Cisco
Systems - to fight poverty through voluntary service.

Cisco Systems is based in San Jose, California, USA.
According to its mission statement posted on the Internet
<www.cisco.com>, it aims at shaping ''the future of the
Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for
our customers, employees, investors, and ecosystem
partners''.

UNV will join with other organisations from both South and
North over the coming weeks in the design of a structure for
the programme. ''Through its involvement, UNV hopes that
UNITeS will become a model for volunteering in the new
millennium,'' Capeling- Alakija said.

Capeling-Alakija leaves Bonn Thursday to begin a six-day
tour of Kosovo and Macedonia where a large group of UN
Volunteers is currently taking part in final preparations
for electoral registration of the Kosovar population.

More than 250 UN Volunteers are already in Kosovo, and the
number will reach 700 from 87 countries by June. Of these,
450 will help register the population with the Joint
Registration Task Force of the United Nations Mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The remaining 250 will work with UNMIK's civil
administrative arm to get the region's public services back
on track.

"UN Volunteers are helping a population stripped of its
identity find itself again," said Capeling-Alakija. "It's
real detective work."

Through the destruction of identification papers and
registries throughout Kosovo, "fifty-year-olds have to
produce signed receipts and anything else they can get their
hands on just to prove who they are -- that they exist."

Arriving in Pristina on Friday, Capeling-Alakija will meet
key UNMIK officials such as Deputy Special Representative
for Interim Civil Administration, Tom Koenigs, and Deputy
Special Representative for Institution-Building, Daan Everts
of the OSCE.

Over the weekend, she will visit UN Volunteers already
working in Peja, the devastated town of Mitrovica and Gilan.

Since last August, UN Volunteers in these cities have
organised decent, warm housing for residents, laid the
groundwork for registration, paid teachers and public
servants and found jobs for thousands of people.

A pilot registration project involving 30 UN Volunteers will
get underway on Monday in Gilan.

On Monday, Capeling-Alakija flies to Ohrid, Macedonia, where
she will address Tuesday's opening of registration training
for the 300 newly-recruited UN Volunteer registration
supervisors.

In addition to their assistance to the people of Kosovo,
through UNMIK and OSCE, UN Volunteers work with several
agencies in the field of humanitarian assistance and
reconstruction.

UNV's major partners in these activities are the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food
Programme (WFP), the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Project Services
(UNOPS).

UNV was created by the General Assembly of the United
Nations in 1970 to serve as an operational partner in
development cooperation at the request of U.N. member
states.

It is unique within the UN family and as an international
volunteer undertaking. It reports to the UNDP and works
through the agency's country offices around the world.

According to a UNV fact sheet there are about 4,000
qualified, experienced and motivated women and men of over
140 nationalities annually serving in developing countries
as volunteer specialists and field workers.

Since 1971, more than 20,000 UN Volunteers from some 150
developing and industrialised nations have worked in about
140 countries. Currently, 70 per cent are citizens of
developing countries while 30 per cent come from the
industrialised world. (END/IPS/raj/sm/00)




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