THE BRIGHT FUTURE FOR PRO-POOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING

The information and communication technology (ICT) is a cross-cutting issue involving all sectors of the economy. It is recognized as a driver to attaining the millennium development goals (MDG). However, there has been a widening gap between haves and have-nots with respect to access to information and communication technologies and its consequent role in ameliorating the general levels of the quality of lives of people [i4D]. This is referred to as ‘Digital Divide’. Therefore, a concern worldwide has been to narrow the gap and enhance development. The international, regional and local organizations particularly in Africa have come up with strategies to narrow down the information gap.

The Eastern and Southern Africa countries in collaboration with New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) are engaged in a plan to establish the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy). The project is facilitated under the NEPAD Infrastructure Programme. The EASSy cable, one of the NEPAD ICT broadband infrastructure network, is expected to benefit mote than 24 countries. There are other pro-poor ICT potentials to narrow the digital divide in the developing countries. Key potentials discussed in the “Pro-poor ICT workshop” held in Dar es salaam included:
• The potential of ICT-enabled development locally, facilitated through the availability of low cost voice, video, and internet, and including the development of local content and the provision of a wide range of services.
• The potential for the creation of a community-owned enterprise that would build and operate such a network on behalf of the community, leveraging community resources and building on develop experience elsewhere in terms of local cooperatives

OARE was launched in October 2006 to provide free access to environmental related literature to registered public institutions in developing countries. OARE is managed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with Yale University and more than 35 publishers. OARE provides access to more than 1000 scientific journals in a wide range of disciplines contributing to our understanding of the natural environment, including environmental toxicology and pollution, zoology, botany, ecology, environmental chemistry, geology, hydrology, oceanography, meteorology, climatology, geography, environmental economics, environmental law and policy, conservation policy and planning, environmental biotechnology, environmental engineering, energy, and many other disciplines.

AGORA was launched in 2003 to provide access to online resources for research in agricultural and allied sciences. AGORA is managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with Cornell University and almost 30 publishers. AGORA provides access to around 900 high quality international journals covering agriculture, fisheries, food, nutrition, veterinary science, and related biological, environmental, and social sciences in public institutions across the world. Access allows the member institution to download the abstract or full text, read and save or print a hard copy.

HINARI was launched in 2001 with objective of enhancing availability of scholarly literature for Health Research. Today, a close to 2500 public institutions already registered for access in 113 developing countries. The initiative is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with Yale University Library. Around 90 publishers contribute their journals to HINARI. HINARI provides access to over 3400 peer-reviewed journals covering medicine, nursing and related health and social sciences. It also includes many databases, indexes and reference books, as well as journals in several languages. The journals can be searched through a special version of PubMed (Medline).

The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) popularly known as library in a box was the first of its kind availing over 400 journals in CD-ROM to the developing countries in highly subsidized price. The initiative was spearheaded by the Mann Library at Cornell University. Tanzania through the Ministry responsible for agricultural affairs purchased and distributed the resources throughout its seven zonal research and training institutes in the country.