The importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the fight against poverty was underscored in the report of the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Millennium Summit. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has long identified the potential of ICT as a means to create earnings opportunities, improve access to education and facilitate information and knowledge-sharing.
Volunteers from a variety of organizations, including the UN Volunteers programme, bring ICT expertise in virtually any field related development, including health, education, environment, governance, gender equity, prevention of HIV/AIDS and support to those affected by HIV/AIDS, and development and sustainability of small-medium enterprises. This includes humanitarian assistance activities.
In this context, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme contributes to these efforts by both mobilizing its own volunteers to engage in information communications technology for development (ICT4D) activities, and by managing the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), an initiative that promotes volunteer involvement as critical to efforts to apply information communications technology for development (ICT4D)
The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) is an initiative that promotes volunteer involvement as critical to efforts to apply information communications technology for development (ICT4D). UNITeS also supports volunteers from any organization who are applying ICT4D. The initiative is based at the UN Volunteers programme.
UNITeS was announced by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in his Millennium Report "We the Peoples: the Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century" (April 2000). UNITeS works through a coalition of organizations, lead by UNV -- nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, development and volunteer-sending agencies, and private sector companies -- who place and support volunteers in ICT4D. This means that UNITeS supports volunteers from initiatives other than UNV.
Volunteers bring ICT expertise in virtually any field related development, including health, education, environment, governance, gender equity, prevention of HIV/AIDS and support to those affected by HIV/AIDS, and development and sustainability of small-medium enterprises. This includes humanitarian assistance activities. Human development is the set of processes which leads to greater choice by people, and, implicitly, to a better quality of life. Building capacity is about strengthening the abilities of people or institutions to manage what they do (or need to be doing). UNITeS promotes the capacity-building dimension of volunteers addressing the digital divide and applying ICT4D.
UNITeS does not promote the involvement of volunteers to take on ICT tasks that do not ALSO have a capacity-building element. This means, for example, that a volunteer assignment may primarily involve wiring a rural school for the Internet, but it should ALSO involve building the capacity of local people to maintain the network themselves, or working with teachers to help them understands the benefits of the Internet and how to find resources they can use in the classroom. The volunteer may develop internet applications that would enable a women´s rights NGO forum to conduct virtual conferences over the Internet, but the volunteer should also engage in activities that build the capacity of the NGO staff to use the application themselves.UNITeS encourages all volunteers who are applying ICT4D to promote volunteerism during their assignments, to multiply their impact and to demonstrate that volunteerism is essential to the success and sustainability to ICT projects.
Through its Knowledge Base for Volunteers in ICT4D, accessible via the UNITeS web site, as well as its online UNITeSCommunity, UNITeS supports volunteers from initiatives other than UNV in their ICT4D activities as well. Also included is a stories section that provides examples of ICT4D activities by volunteers from a variety of organizations and how each contributes to the Millinium Development Goals (MDGs).
In the Philippines with the collaboration of Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, and Universty of the East implementation of the University Volunteers Network, a project promoted internationaly by UNV and UN Information and Technology Service (UNITeS), the agency which promotes volunteerism through ICT.
Some examples of the work being done by volunteers through the UNITeS initiative.