Initiatives in Global Development

Please see below for the main international ICT-related initiatives in the global development field. To learn more about global development initiatives with ECDL Foundation involvement, click here.

IST-Africa 2011
ECDL Foundation, together with the ICDL operator for Botswana, participated in the 6th IST-Africa (Regional Impact of Information Society Technologies in Africa) conference, held on 11-13 May in Gaborone, Botswana. The conference, supported by the European Commission under the ICT ‘Theme of Framework Programme 7 (FP7)’, brought together senior representatives from both the private and public sector across Africa and Europe, sharing knowledge, best practices and policy issues on bridging the digital divide.

Click here to read the ECDL Foundation news article on IST-Africa 2011.

eLearning Africa 2011
The 6th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training, eLearning Africa, was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 25-27 May 2011. The conference was a great success, with over 1,700 delegates participating and exchanging views on skills development, innovations in ICT and digital literacy issues generally. ECDL Foundation and ICDL Africa were key participants at this year's conference. Mr Daniel Palmer, ECDL Foundation Regional Development Manager for Africa, presented a paper on the importance of technology in the area of economic development.

Click here to read the ECDL Foundation news article on the 2011 eLearning Africa conference.

Click here to read the ECDL Foundation press release, based on its presentation at eLearning Africa 2011, on the central role that ICT can play in global development.

United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)
The Millennium Development Goal for Education aims, in relation to ICT, to: “... develop a global partnership for development: Including making available, in cooperation with the private sector, the benefits of new technologies – especially information and communications technologies – to all.”

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an agreement between national governments and international development agencies, are a list of targets of a global strategy to relieve poverty. Long-term poverty reduction requires sustainable economic growth which, in turn, is reliant on technology. The MDGs call for the benefits of new technologies to be made available as part of the strategy to catalyse growth and ultimately reduce poverty.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, the Resolution on which the MDGs are based, references the United Nations Social Council for the ICT recommendations to be implemented. This recognises that “ICT is central to the creation of the emerging global knowledge-based economy and can play an important role in accelerating growth, promoting sustainable development and eradicating poverty". The Declaration calls on all members of the international community to work cooperatively to bridge the digital divide and foster digital opportunity and warns that “unless access to and use of ICT is broadened, the majority of people particularly in developing countries will not enjoy the benefits of the knowledge-based economy”.

WSIS
The WSIS (World Summit for the Information Society) is a series of events organised by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) aimed at fostering the development of the information society. The ITU is a United Nations agency, and the WSIS events are held to aid in the implementation of the Millenium Development goals related to technology.

Click here to learn more about the WSIS.

United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID)
The UN GAID was established in 2006 to address global issues related to ICT in development, and respond to the need for dialogue and cooperation among diverse stakeholders.

Click here to learn more about UN GAID.

International Actions

Initiatives in Global Development