Conference on "Digital Opportunities for Africa - Community Multimedia Centres"
Dakar, Senegal 12-17 June 2003

UNESCO in collaboration with AMARC Africa is organizing a pan-African
symposium on Community Multimedia Centres from 12-17 June 2003 in Dakar,
Senegal. The aim of this meeting is to find out more about how community
radio stations across Africa are using ICTs in order to forge a strategy for
larger-scale CMC development in Africa.

The first part of this meeting will be a workshop from 12-15 June, bringing
together representatives of a selection of community radio stations that are
successfully offering some form of public access to ICTs or planning to do
so and also ICT-based projects such as community telecentres planning to
start community radio as part of their operations.

The purpose of this workshop is to:
1. Exchange experiences and compare models, approaches and contexts
2. Identify needs and recommend measures to meet these needs for successful
project implementation
3. Make recommendations for a coherent programmatic approach to CMC
development in Africa that can serve as a rallying point for all partners
and stakeholders including donors

The second part of this meeting, on 16-17 June, will bring together
international partners including national development agencies and
international governmental and non-governmental organizations in a
roundtable on CMC project support in Africa. The roundtable will examine
models of best practice and determine partnership strategies for programme
development that ensures full community appropriation of NICTs,
sustainability, networking and technical support systems.

ENDS

For more information please contact:

AMARC Africa - Michelle Ntab at tel: +27 (11) 403 7913 or email:
[email protected]

UNESCO - Stella Hughes at [email protected]

__________________________
Shingai Nyoka
Communications Officer
AMARC Africa
Suite 109, Private Bag X42
Braamfontein 2017
South Africa
Tel: 27 11 403 7913
Fax: 27 11 403 7514
E-mail:[email protected]