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This Quick guide is part of infoDev's series of informal Quick guides to resources and work on ICTs and education in international institutions and donor agencies. Information presented here has been gathered by infoDev from publicly-available documents and should not be considered to be endorsed by the subject organization.
Most of the work within United Nations agencies related to ICT and education has been done by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization). A separate briefing sheet is devoted to UNESCO's work in this area.
In addition to UNESCO, there a number of specialized UN agencies and progams that have been active in this area:
UN ICT Task Force
Founded in 2001, the UN ICT Task Force was established to "provide overall leadership to the United Nations role in helping to formulate strategies for the development of information and communication technologies and putting those technologies at the service of development." Most notably, the UNICTTF was most active in the ICT in educaiton area through its
- sponsorship of a Forum on "Harnessing the Potential of ICT for Education" from 13-15 April 2005.
Results from this event were collected in a document titled "UN ICT Task Force Series 9: Harnessing the Potential of ICT for Education – A Multistakeholder Approach"
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1570
- promotion of the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI)
Established in 2003, GeSCI works at the local, national, and international level to support, to create, and to implement strategies to harness Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) for education and community growth.
http://www.gesci.org
UNDP - APDIP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN's global development network. UNDP seeks to help developing countries attract and use aid effectively.
The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) is a UNDP initiative to promote the development and application of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for poverty alleviation and sustainable human development in the Asia-Pacific region. Two APDIP publications relate to ICTs in education:
UNITEs
The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) is a global volunteer initiative to help bridge the digital divide. UNITeS both supports volunteers applying information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) and promotes volunteerism as a fundamental element of successful ICT4D initiatives. This work includes projects affiliated with UN Volunteers and where ICTs are being applied to development, some of which are in the education sector.
Other
The UN Cyberschoolbus, part of the UN's Global Teaching and Learning Project, is a website about global issues and the UN, for students ages 5-18 and their teachers.
By M. Trucano.