18/03/2008

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently highlighted the importance of international cooperation to overcome the 'digital divide'. The digital divide refers to the gap between those who benefit from digital technology and those who do not. In a message to the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN-GAID - http://www.un-gaid.org) the Secretary-General said cooperation among the international community is key to overcoming the digital divide that separates poor communities from affluent ones. Noting that millions of children in dozens of developing nations lack access to computers, the Secretary-General said that this technology must be made available to students to allow for "a breakthrough in education that will help foster development for generations to come."

At ALISON we believe that ICT education can improve the performance of businesses and the efficiency of markets, empower citizens and communities, increase their access to knowledge, and help to strengthen and redefine governance at all institutional levels. ALISON has therefore made its materials freely available to governments and organizations that are working to eliminate the digital divide.

As an example of this, UNESCO and the Global Learning Portal (GLP) have made ALISON educational resources available to their worldwide learning communities. In other projects, our partner organization OneRoof has translated our IT courseware content into Tamil, and is working diligently to make IT training available across rural India.

We commend the Secretary-General for his comments, and we remain interested in hearing from any government, organization or individual interested in partnering with us to address digital divide issues.