Full Coverage: Capacity building

30.11.2004 ‘Best Practices for the Web’ by University of Utah provides website designers useful guidelines to follow while creating web pages.

28.11.2004 UNESCO has brough out an Arabic version of its popular community radio manual to expand the reach of community media in the Arab region. The original version of this guide, 'How to do community radio', narrates the experience of its author Mr. Louie Tabing who was the project officer of 'Tambuli', one of the first community radio stations in Phillipines.

26.11.2004 In Zimbabwe, Pact, a U.S. non-profit, has partnered with three local organizations to create post-HIV test clubs called “Moving On.” With a cadre of local doctors, pharmacists, ministers, herbalists, and nutritionists, the clubs provide advice, referral services, peer counseling and access to affordable condoms to anyone who has taken the HIV test, regardless of the outcome.

25.11.2004 Microsoft has released the Kannada interface of its application software Office 2003 as part of its project Bhasa to make Office interface available in major Indian languages. In the next 12 months, Microsoft aims to release such interfaces in 12 other languages.

25.11.2004 Participants at the first Round Table on Community Media and Sustainable Development held in Marrakesh have recommended a development fund for community radio in Africa. The Declaration of Marrakesh proposes a stronger partnership between civil society and donor agencies to support community media initiatives.

25.11.2004 Indian state West Bengal has signed a pact with Microsoft to implement the Project Shiksha initiative, a programme to be rolled out in 10 states to make teachers IT literate. Microsoft is planning to train 12,000 teachers and one million students in the state over the next five years.

25.11.2004 New Delhi-based environmental orgaisation - Toxics Link - will organise an international workshop on ‘Managing mercury in India’ in New Delhi in early 2005. The workshop will focus on all aspects of mercury-related issues in India.

24.11.2004 As treatment of numerous HIV/AIDs patients in South Africa becomes unmanageable, an AIDS treatment program called Sizophila Project has started experimenting with cell phones to build an easy communication system between doctors and patients. The project implementing a database software and cellphones to track patient records and call medical attendants, has been successful in providing timely medical assistance to the patients.

23.11.2004 Au cours de l'année 2004, le CRDI a initié une série de consultations sur l’état des biotechnologies et des technologies émergentes dans les différentes sous-régions dans lesquelles il travaille.
La consultation de Dakar permettra de réaliser un inventaire aussi complet que possible des biotechnologies en usage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. Les diverses sessions prévues au programme devraient amener des précisions sur le type de biotechnologies prêtes à être utilisées dans la sous-région et celles qui nécessitent encore des recherches avant leur mise en marché. La consultation définira des éléments d'une stratégie pour le développement des biotechnologies en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, précisera les questions de recherche prioritaires dans la sous-région et dégagera des axes d'intervention possible pour le CRDI dans les années qui viennent.

23.11.2004 Chobi Mela III, the Festival of Photography in Asia, is being organized by Drik Picture Library Ltd. in association with a number of organisations worldwide where fine artists, documentary photographers and photographers will display their works.

22.11.2004 By 2010 sub-Saharan Africa's total labour force is expected to shrink by 9 per cent due to HIV/AIDS, with losses topping 20 per cent in the worst affected countries, a United Nations-organized workshop has been told. By 2015 these losses could reach up to 12 per cent overall, reducing the labour supply by as much 30 per cent to 40 per cent in the highest prevalence countries.

22.11.2004

Blogging from Rio's favelas © Advocacy Project

"I can't help but think how much circumstance matters when I read about cases like this," writes Alex Goldmark in his first dispatch from Rio de Janeiro, where he will be blogging his experiences with a project to save street children from systematic violence over the next six months. "I wonder how successful I would have been if I was born into other circumstances."

19.11.2004 Education standards in Pakistan, which are one of the poorest in South Asia, are being improved through the training of administrators and schoolteachers under a USAID funded programme.

19.11.2004 Education standards in Pakistan, which are one of the poorest in South Asia, are being improved through the training of administrators and schoolteachers under a USAID funded programme.

19.11.2004 This is an introductory self-learning guide on using a personal computer running the Linux operating system.

19.11.2004 This slideshow captures the growing influence of independent local radio stations started by Internews in Afghanistan.

19.11.2004 Indian agri and rural industries minister Mahabir Prasad has suggested the networking of agencies supporting small and medium enterprises in Commonwealth countries under the Commonwealth-India Small Business Competitiveness Development Programme.

18.11.2004 Responding to the high demand across Africa, a mobile company has launched a payphone that can be taken into the most remote areas of the continent. The phone has the option of a second network, which helps it support two cellular operators.

17.11.2004 Community radio stations across Timor-Leste can now produce their own live talk shows after a week-long training by Internews. Fourteen journalists from 10 stations around the country learnt how to research, produce and host shows.

16.11.2004 Around 66,000 villages across 12 states in India will get telephones under a project by a state-owned company. The project will be supported by the Universal Services Obligation fund.