REGIONAL WSIS RUN-UPS INCLUDE GENDER DISCUSSION

Many events are now being announced as run-ups to the Tunis Phase of WSIS in 2005, and the focus on gender is included in some of the regional efforts.

One of these events is the conference taking place in Arusha, Tanzania on 05-07 August 2004 called "Women and ICT: Challenges and Opportunities on the Road to Tunis 2005." This is being conducted by Advancing ICT Knowledge on Africa (AITEC) in collaboration with various stakeholders including the Government of Tanzania and the WSIS Gender Caucus (Africa Region).

The conference will discuss how new ICTs are seen by many as appropriate tools to combat poverty and achieve sustainable development in Africa. However, this requires political commitment as well as effective actions on the ground -- actions that provide opportunities for the underprivileged, actions that will achieve the goal of digital inclusion, enabling universal, sustainable, ubiquitous and affordable access to ICT by all, particularly women who have not taken advantage of these new technologies and to a large extent have remained spectators in the unfolding ICT era.

The organisers are now accepting presentation proposals covering the topics to be discussed in the conference. The topics are as follows:

Policy and Governance

ICT Policies: Who are they made for?
e-Government vs. e-Governance
e-Democracy
Policies towards inclusive e-Services

Networking and Knowledge Sharing

ICT for Development: What works?
Strategies for Virtual Networking
Knowledge Management
ICT and the Media

Applications, Access and Technologies

Empowering the poor through ICT Access
Digital Divide Issues
Rural Information Centres
Universal Access or just Access?

Education, Research and Development

e-Learning
Capacity Building
ICT Resource Centres
Role of Universities

Those interested are also encouraged to suggest other topics which have relevance to the theme of the conference. All presentations will be 20 minutes long, including a 10-minute question and answer session. Programme time will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The deadline of submitting papers is on 02 July 2004.

For further information, please contact: Harry Hare E-mail: Website: http://www.aitecafrica.com/events/2004/WomenICT/call4papers.htm

We will post other gender-oriented WSIS run-up announcements as soon as they are made available.

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