UNESCO to set up 150 community multimedia centres in Africa

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced today that it will work with a Swiss government agency to set up 150 multimedia centres in marginalized communities in Africa, providing locals with access to information and communication technologies through the Internet.

In a statement released at its headquarters in Paris, UNESCO said the community multimedia centres (CMCs), which will have radio, telephone and fax facilities, as well as computers, connected to the Internet, will be built in three countries: Mali, Mozambique and Senegal.

The multi-million dollar project is being run in conjunction with the Swiss Agency for Development and Change (SDC). Already there are 20 CMCs established across Africa under an earlier UNESCO pilot scheme.

The additional 150 CMCs will be launched on Wednesday at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, in a ceremony featuring UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure, Mozambique’s President Joaquim Alberto Chissano and Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade.

UNESCO said that some services offered by the CMCs would operate commercially, helping the centres to become financially self-supporting.

The agency added that the existing CMCs are providing tens of thousands of people with indirect access to online information, including many people with low literacy skills.

The centres are being used by many small businesses for bookkeeping, by others to scan ancient manuscripts and photographs of ancestors and by voters to obtain electoral information.