CRI听力:UNICs in Sub-Saharan Africa Launch Websites

Hello, and welcome to this edition of "Africa Express" here on China Radio International. I'm your host, Wei Tong.

United Nations Information Centers in Sub Saharan Africa have launched their websites to enable people to have access to information about the world organization and its activities. The sixteen UNICs, as the centers are known, launched their websites on World Telecommunication and Information World Society Day not long ago.

UN Radio's Yasmin Soliman spoke on the line to Pretoria, South Africa, with Margaret Novicki, the head of the Information Centre there. Ms. Novicki said the launch is the result of a project that has been going on for more than a year to develop these websites.

And we thought with this project being completed, it was a very good day to launch them on the World Information Society Day because, as you know, it's a day that we look to focus attention on the expansion of information and communication technologies around the world, and especially in developing countries.

Q2: And in developing countries, what's your main objective and why developing countries in particular?

Well, most of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are developing countries and, as you know, there is what we call a digital divide between the developed world and the developing world in terms of access to information and communication technology. And in Africa, I think this is very important because we have the digital divide which exists here in Africa, but also more and more and more people are getting access to the Internet and we feel that the Internet is a very good way to get out information on the work of the United Nations at a local level.

Q3: And you are coordinating with other UN Information Centers in launching these websites?

Yes we are officially launching all of the websites today on World Information Society Day. A number of UNICs around Sub-Saharan Africa are having local launches to introduce their websites to their local constituencies, to their local communities, to the media, to students and to other interested stakeholders. And we really hope that through our UN Information Centre offices around the continent, the people will have access to our new websites by coming into the UN Information Centers in their capital cities. In many of our UNICs we have libraries that actually have Internet facilities that are open to the public to come and look at UN content and UN information on the web.

Q4: Now, how often are you going to update the websites because it's one thing to launch a website but quite another to ensure that it's updated all the time so that visitors get fresh information?

Absolutely. We hope to have our websites updated almost everyday if not everyday. And this brings in the role of UNIC Pretoria. UNIC Pretoria has a web master that is here to help serve all the UNICs in Sub-Saharan Africa and in terms of being responsible for the ongoing maintenance and updating of the sites.

Q5: And who is going to benefit from these websites?

Any user will benefit from our websites but we are really gearing our websites towards our communities in the countries that our UN Information Centers serve. We really would like our local constituencies, whether they are students, whether they are young people, whether they are communities, whether they are the media, government, all our stakeholders and partners, NGOs, civil society. We want them to hook into, look at our websites to able to see what the UN is doing in their communities and also what the UN is doing at the global level.

Q6: Also, how do South Africans who don't have access to computers get information about the United Nations?

Well, exactly. The use of the Internet is expanding really rapidly across Africa. Of course, not everyone has access to a computer or has access to the Internet. But what we find a growing phenomenon in many communities are Internet cafes that you find springing up all over the place. And people are able to go into an Internet cafe and utilize that Internet at very very low cost in most cases. Also, if they can't do that, they are welcome to come to the UN Information Center offices and utilize the Internet in our UN UNIC libraries. And we hope as times goes on that the Internet is going to become more and more accessible to people across the continent.

That was Margaret Novicki, the head of the United Nations Information Centre in Pretoria, speaking with UN Radio's Yasmin Soliman.

That brings us to the end of this edition of Africa Express. If you would like to listen to this or other stories again, please log onto our website at www.crienglish.com. You can also contact us via email through africaexpress@crifm.com. I'm Wei Tong. I hope you can tune into our program next time. Bye for now!