huridocs-tech Internet Fund for sustainable development and human rights

OneWorld and Hivos form strategic partnership to harness the Internet for
sustainable development

OneWorld and the Dutch aid agency Hivos are to join forces to help
organisations based in developing countries to use the Internet for
sustainable development and human rights.
 
The strategic partnership starts with Hivos funding OneWorld in a NLG
1.690,000/£470,000 three-year programme to increase the content on the
world wide web from developing countries and bring NGOs based in the South
into the OneWorld network of civil society organisations.

The major initiative includes helping NGOs go online with support and
training, launching major new portals based in the South to focus on
global issues and building online gateways promoting regional perspectives
from civil society in Africa, Latin America and South Asia.

All 800 Southern-based Hivos partners in 30 countries will be invited to
join the OneWorld network (currently just over 700 organisations).
OneWorld is to offer Hivos partners a membership package that will include
capacity building to help the organisations use the Internet effectively
as a publishing, networking and advocacy tool. OneWorld will also promote
their content to strengthen regional online editions of OneWorld.net and
other editorial sections of the OneWorld.net supersite. 

                                             Jaap Dijkstra 
                                            (Hivos, The Hague)

                                               Anuradha Vittachi (OneWorld 
                                             International, London)

Hivos is the first of the Dutch co-financing development agencies to
outline its vision of the role of ICT (Information and Communications
Technology) in sustainable development (details of Hivos ICT Policy and
Action programme: http://www.hivos.nl/Hivos&ICT/engels/index.htm)

"Hivos aims to support NGOs in developing countries in using the
opportunities provided by the information revolution," says Loe Schout,
Head of Hivos ICT programme. "OneWorld is the leading Internet platform
for NGOs. With its extensive network, high quality portal website as well
as its expertise in ICT and development cooperation, we selected OneWorld
as a key partner in the struggle against the imminent worldwide digital
divide compounding the existing gap between rich and poor."

"A great number of organisations based in some of the poorest countries of
the world want the opportunity to use the Internet to further their work
at the front line of reducing human suffering and poverty alleviation,"
says Anuradha Vittachi, Director of OneWorld International Foundation.
"With the support of Hivos, OneWorld will be able to bring our experience
of working with hundreds of NGOs worldwide to help them do just that."

"It is vitally important that perspectives from the South are part of the
worldwide debate on global issues. Marginalised voices must be able to
reach beyond the digital divide to the rest of the world and those working
at a grassroots level in developing countries must have access through the
Internet to the information and knowledge they need."

Hivos is a development organisation, which stands for emancipation,
democratisation and poverty alleviation in developing countries. For this
purpose financial support is given to more then 800 local independent
organisations in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and
South-east Europe.

OneWorld is a non-profit organisation that aims to harness the democratic
potential of the Internet to promote sustainable development and human
rights. Its website OneWorld.net is the world's leading portal on global
justice and a gateway to over 700 NGOs worldwide.

 - ends - 

 For more information contact: 

 Glen Tarman, Publicity Manager, OneWorld International www.oneworld.net
 T +44 (0)1494 481629 E media@oneworld.net 
 Eric Krol, Communication Desk, Hivos www.hivos.nl
 T +31 (0)70-376 55 00 E info@hivos.nl 



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