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FYI - please reply using addresses below.
Don Richardson

DATE:     September 9 1996

TO:       Members of the Canadian NGO Community, and others
          with a special interest in African Development

FROM:     Sam Lanfranco, Senior Programs Specialist,
          Bellanet International Secretariat, IDRC, Ottawa
          <lanfran@bellanet.org> - <dkproj@yorku.ca>

RE:       IDRC Initiative on ICT in Africa

---------------------------------------------------------------

INVITATION

Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is
developing a major initiative:

     "...to determine how, and to demonstrate that, Information
     and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can effectively be
     utilized to enable African communities to solve their
     priority problems and to realize their development potential
     in the coming century."

Bellanet, located at IDRC, invites you to participate in an NGO
consultation on the African initiative. This consultation will
last about one month. Depending on the response, a permanent
electronic venue will be established to monitor, and discussion,
the initiative. For background on Bellanet see:

     URL  http://www.bellanet.org/

The consultation is being assisted by the Distributed Knowledge
Project (DKProj) at York University. I (Sam Lanfranco) am on
faculty at York, coordinate DKProj, and am seconded to Bellanet
as Senior Program Specialist.


HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The initial phase the consultation will use the email address:

      <dkproj@yorku.ca>

This address will act like an unmoderated list/conference, and
send out postings in a DIGEST format. All comments about the
proposed IDRC African ICT initiative should go to that address.
Other questions about this consultation should go to me at:

          <lanfran@bellanet.org> or <lanfran@yorku.ca>

We have selected email as an appropriate technology since many
who will wish to participate do not have full internet web
access. A simple Web Site will be maintained at:

     URL http://www.yorku.ca/research/dkproj/ICT_AFRICA/

This invitation, the "Overview on the Initiative" document, and
all of the Digests will be posted as text files at the Web Site.

A more detailed overview (9K ASCII file) describing the proposed
IDRC African ICT initiative will be sent to all who express
interest in the consultation. Both that file and this message are
available at: http://www.yorku.ca/research/dkproj/ICT_AFRICA/ as
text files.


INTRODUCTION TO THE INITIATIVE

Building on 25 years of work in the information and ICT fields by
IDRC and partners in Africa and elsewhere, this initiative will
determine if and how concerted and focused investments in, and
properly developed applications of, ICTs can serve as catalysts
to increase the viability of a wide range of African communities.

Many of the ideas in this initiative have been developing within
IDRC and its networks for some time. The effort to synthesize
them into a major initiative of this kind originated at the
Information Society and Development Conference (ISAD) in South
Africa in May of 1996.

IDRC is now in the process of developing a more detailed proposal
for its Board to consider this October. It is likely that a
phased approach will be presented, including: an initial
commitment of resources for full and detailed consultation with
stakeholders and partners; design of program components and
overall management structure; elaboration of research,
implementation, and assessment methodologies; and initial program
activities.

This commitment would be expected to increase as partners from
the donor community, public, and private sectors join in and as
progress within the initiative is made.The scope and scale of
this initiative, and the opportunities for partnership and
collaboration, make it imperative that key organizations,
including the NGO community, interested in development in Africa
be informed about it and have the opportunity to participate in
the consultations around the initiative's development.

The ultimate shape of this initiative will clearly benefit from
the input of others. Similarly, it is expected that the projects
and plans of other organizations could be enhanced through
awareness of both the general approach and, as they become more
concrete, the specific activities within this initiative.

Furthermore, specific partnerships around support for some of
these activities, or strategic planning among groups of donors
more generally, could strengthen respective investments and
increase the potential for significant progress towards achieving
overall objectives.

IDRC has requested Bellanet to facilitate a consultation within
the NGO community, since it is aware of the growing interest and
existing competence on the part NGOs in this area. Bellanet is
already facilitating collaborative work in this field (for
example, the African Networking Initiative and the InfoDev
Forum).

Please share this message and overview description with others in
the NGO community as you deem appropriate. The message is aimed
primarily at the Canadian NGO community but others are welcome to
comment. The content of the consultation will be distributed to
the participants as Digests (full postings with headers
'cleaned'). Postings will not be edited, except for a bit of re-
formatting for readability when necessary. They will be shared
with IDRC team, and made public in the Web space cited above.

Comments, suggestions, expressions of interest about the
collaboration should be sent to <dkproj@yorku.ca> . Other
questions can be send directly to me (Sam Lanfranco) at:

      <lanfran@bellanet.org> or <lanfran@yorku.ca>

 If interest warrants, Bellanet will create a public electronic
space (list/conference and website) for ongoing discussion among
interested parties.

     NOTE: If you wish a message to be private and/or
     confidential please direct it to <lanfran@yorku.ca> -or-
     <lanfran@bellanet.org> and write PRIVATE of CONFIDENTIAL in
     the SUBJECT field.

IDRC and Bellanet look forward to hearing from you and working
with you on this exciting and timely initiative.
                                            (September 9, 1996)