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ISSUE NO 55 USEFUL WEBSITES AND DISCUSSION LISTS

ONE PERSON’S CHOICE: KWAMI AHIABENU

This week AITEC’s Kwami Ahiabenu looks at the web sites that provide interesting and useful content on Ghana and the organisations developing the internet there:

Ghana has its fair share of websites with content on religion, sports, economics, politics, fun, business, etc. The majority of these websites are found in the private sector. The government sector has been very slow to put content on the Internet. From my estimates, less than 2% of Ghanaian internet content comes from the government. Government of Ghana website www.ghana.gov.gh <http://www.ghana.gov.gh/> is not very current and a lot of work needs to be done to update it.

The number of organisations (both public and private) with their own website is relatively very low. The good news is the number of organisations with web sites is rising each passing day, a reflection of the growing Internet culture in Ghana. The design and hosting of majority of websites are out-source both locally and abroad, with most sites designed and hosted outside Ghana. It is very interesting to note that most media houses have online version of their print publications with electronic media streaming voice and video.

NATIONAL INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE PROJECT

The National Information Clearing House Project of the Ministry of Communications is part of national communications strategy. Established in September 2000 as a pilot project, to establish links between the electronic information systems operating within different ministries, department and agencies of government to facilitate improved access to and sharing of information. The project will ensure that effective use is made of existing capacity and support information exchange between various government institutions.

The core component of the Information Clearing House is the developing of Web-based information systems within government institutions. Other components include the developing a website for Government of Ghana with links to various government institutions and building ICT capacity through the use of training and raising awareness within government. The existing Government of Ghana website has not being updated since October 1998 and as part of this project, this site will be updated and redesigned.

INTERNET SOCIETY OF GHANA

The Internet Society of Ghana was established to promote the expansion of the Internet in Ghana in all the related areas including infrastructure, value-added services, content, use and technical advancement. It has a particular focus on the Internet reaching our rural communities in a manner and language suitable for their participation. But unfortunately the society has gone to sleep and left unattended the objectives it set out to do. We are all waiting for it to wake up from its slumber and champion the cause of Internet development in Ghana.

GARNET - GHANA’S ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK

GARNet - Ghana’s Academic and Research Network is a project devoted to the provision of Internet access for academic and research institutions. GARNet has a number of Internet access at a lot of sites including, Universities of Ghana and Cape Coast, CSIR and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture- AGRINET.

GHANA NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON INTERNET CONNECTIVITY

The Ghana National Committee on Internet Connectivity (GNCIC) was formed in February, 1996 to implement the InfoDev Ghana Project with the support and sponsorship of UNESCO, ITU, UNDP and the World Bank’s InfoDev Programme. The Project’s objective is to promote the development of telematics in the areas of public concern in Ghana.

AFRICA VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY(AVU)

African Virtual University (AVU)project sites are found in three Universities in Ghana namely University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. As a "university without walls" AVU’s delivery model combines a creative integration of satellite and Internet technologies that allows it to provide quality educational content from all over the world at an affordable cost, while taking into account the technological and infrastructure limitations that currently prevail in Africa.

GHANA COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS (CLCS)

The CLC is fully equipped with computers and has full access to the internet to advance and support, at subsidised rates, learning resources for teachers and students. The main aim of the Community Learning Centers (CLCs) is to enhance basic education, train teachers, develop local businesses, strengthen municipal administration and civil society organizations the Internet among other tools. There are currently three CLCs set up in partnership with three community development and training NGOs: the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM) in Cape Coast; the Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP) in Kumasi, and Partners for the Internet in Education (PIE) in Accra. The establishment of these centres were supported by donor funding though to facilitate long-term sustainability, fee and management structures are being put into place, and community involvement, as well as increased collaboration with the private sector, is actively promoted.

PIE

The Partners for Internet in Education (PIE) was formed in Ghana in February 1997 to bring together schools, companies, organizations and individuals interested in promoting and using computers and the Internet to enhance teaching and learning in schools and in the community. Some initial funding assistance was received from the USAID’s Leland Initiative.

ONLINE THE LINE - OTL

Under the Online The Line project being implemented by the British Council, the Centre for Information Technologies, Research and Development(CITRED) recentlyprovided Internet training and access to over forty five schools in Ghana. OTL project is aimed at linking eight countries on the Meridian line to improve North - South co-operation and relationship using the Internet.

WORLDGEEKS PIONEER OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

http://www.worldgeeks.org is a website under development to promote open source software for use in developing country situations. It is launching at the end of May and is looking for software and other material like articles, links and case studies. If you are an open source developer, do you have any software you would like to post on the site, or links to software, pages and articles of relevance? If so, please email them to John West at salaahuddeen@hotmail.com. For a full FAQ, go to its development site: http://worldgeeks.sourceforge.net.

It will launch with three main elements:

1) A library of open source software where developers who have completed software can post links to their code, comment on it, and have it peer reviewed.

2) A Slashdot.org style contributed news service on open source developments of particular interest to developing countries.

3) A Yahoo-style searchable listings service specialized in links for software development in less developed countries.

John West of Worldgeeks has a plea to News Update’s readers:"Please help us extend open source into the south, so that it becomes a viable choice for IT managers everywhere!"

News Update is a free e-letter produced by Balancing Act that covers African internet content and infrastructure developments, It goes out to government, the private sector, education and NGOs. To subscribe, send a message saying "I want to subscribe" to info@balancingact-africa.com