CAIRO: The telecentre.org program in association with Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) recently hosted a telecenter stakeholders' consultation workshop. The event was part of the ongoing telecentre scoping study the program commissioned to document telecenter experiences and challenges in North Africa and the Middle East. The process is expected to inform future telecentre.org programming for the sub-region. One of the unique profiles of the study is the Centre Nationale l'informartique pour l'enface (CNIPE) in Tunisia that is using information technologies to train young people with special needs. The workshop aims at increasing the depth of the telecenter scoping study in North Africa and the Middle East; providing telecenter stakeholders with an opportunity to meet and share experiences; and providing stakeholders with a chance to acquire new knowledge regarding telecentres. Telecentre leaders, managers and program officers from the North Africa and Middle East sub-region will attend the event. During the workshop 38 participants committed to establish knowledge sharing systems across the region. Contact persons in each from each of countries that attended were nominated to spearhead continued sharing and mobilise other colleagues working in ICT4D. Participants came from Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Palestine and Tunisia. Other commitments included the creation of a telecenter practitioner's mailing list for the Middle East and North Africa region MENA. The telecentre.org program is a CAN$21 million global collaborative initiative of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Microsoft and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The program aims to strengthen the capacity of tens of thousands of community-based telecenters around the world. To this aim, the workshop also decided to translate telecenter.org website content into Arabic. This will include translating key telecenter planning documents and manuals into Arabic. All information will be availed on a website for easy access.
