04 October 2002

Stockholm, Sweden: For the second year running, the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) has been selected as a finalist in the "Stockholm Challenge", a non-profit initiative of the City of Stockholm, Sweden, and an awards programme for pioneering information and communication technology (ICT) projects worldwide.

UNITeS is a United Nations initiative for volunteers who apply ICT for development in projects with governments, non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, universities and private sector organizations and has a mandate to help bridge the digital divide in some of the world's poorest areas. Announced by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his Millennium Report, UNITeS is managed by the United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV). To date, volunteers have supported ICT-related activities in more than 50 countries.

In its submission to the Stockholm Challenge, UNITeS showcased three examples of how ICT volunteers engage in sustainable capacity-building activities:

• By creating and sustaining the first community telecentres in Jordan within a national programme to network communities across the entire country, and working with the "information poor" in particular;
• By extending professional computer networking training opportunities in 28 least developed countries (LDCs) to reach young people, marginalized populations and women and provide them with marketable skills to design, build and maintain Internet infrastructure; and
• By partnering with universities and providing opportunities for students and faculty to contribute their time and skills for development.

This year the competition attracted nearly 600 projects from 78 countries, competing in six categories -- culture, e-business, education, e-government, the environment and health. An international panel selected ICT projects from 40 countries around the world as finalists for 2002. The winner in each category will be announced in Stockholm on 10 October.