Connect the World

Connect the World has identified three key areas of activity that, together, have been identified as constituting the primary building blocks needed to reach the goal of connecting all communities worldwide by 2015. It aims to be a shared global platform for partners involved in the programme to promote existing initiatives, broker new ones where more effort is needed, build partnerships, and share experience and best practice.

The building blocks around which the programme focuses are:

• Building Block 1: Enabling Environment - Activities cover those aimed at creating a conducive environment for the development of ICT infrastructure, applications and services. They include development of transparent, fair and technology-neutral policy and regulatory frameworks, intellectual property protection, consensus-building and transparent dispute settlement mechanisms, model national e-strategies, national and regional technical standardization initiatives, and other business and social development initiatives.
• Building Block 2: Infrastructure and Readiness - Activities include those designed to promote development of ICT network infrastructure, capacity-building initiatives, strategies aimed at raising awareness of the value of ICTs, universal service/access projects and activities geared to developing relevant and accessible local content.
• Building Block 3: ICT Services and Applications - focuses around ICT services and applications, particularly in the core areas of e-Governance, e-Learning and e-Health programmes, use of ICTs to improve disaster readiness and response, and youth initiatives designed to promote use of ICTs among young people.

Connect the World does not seek to duplicate existing efforts, but rather aims to leverage the strengths of its diverse membership to better focus activities so that communities worldwide get what they need, where it’s needed most. Each Connect the World partner is directly involved in activities in one or more of these three Building Blocks. In areas not adequately covered by current Connect the World partnerships, new partners will be actively sought.

To become a partner, organisations must have a commitment at the leadership level to undertake one or more activities that contribute to achieving the goal of connecting all communities by 2015, within the framework of the Connect the World Building Blocks. Each Connect the World partner contributes according to their own circumstances and capacities. There is no cost to become a partner. Each partner is considered unique, and all partners have equal status.

Technology

According to the project website, there are currently 800,000 villages in the world lacking access to even basic telephone service. These communities are found in the poorest, hardest-to-serve regions where standard for-profit service models are unlikely to be enough to ensure access in the near to medium term. Connect the World development projects and partnerships aim to stimulate the deployment of ICTs in these marginalised communities with a view to bridging the digital divide that separates them from the rest of the world.