18 October 2004

Lusaka, Zambia: I was a UN Volunteer in the Maldives for more than 2 years supporting rural atoll islands under the Maldives government poverty alleviation project of United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Under this project I was supporting small-scale micro enterprise development initiatives among island entrepreneurs. One of the challenges in the Maldives is communication due to the fact that the country is comprised of islands. There is wide communication and development gap between urban and rural communities. Communication and transport are extremely difficult and expensive.

Through support from the Canadian and Singapore governments as well as from UNDP, we started an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) project with our colleagues, an initiative among the island communities and for primary school pupils.

The project was managed by the island women development committee, a local community based organization (CBO) on the island, and the local school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA). It was funded by these cooperating partners. We provided networking and management support with my local counterpart staff. It was a big success and islanders were using the project to communicate to each other and training services. The minimal user fees were being charged to adults whilst pupils were paying half the price particularly on Internet. The project has now created partnership with Singaporean students in the exchange of knowledge and study visits. We witnessed more than 40 students coming to Kudafari island in the Maldives for a visit.

It was an interesting experience to see such an exchange of knowledge among different cultures.

By the time I left, more island development committees were starting ICT projects in the four of the atolls I was assigned. This was a learning experience exchange whilst I was giving my expertise as a UNV small business development specialist in the field.

Now in Zambia, I thought I could do the same and carry the former volunteer at work by starting a similar initiative. We have just initiated an ICT project but we are still mobilising resources and consulting the Government, supporting agencies and UN organizations in Zambia to see if we can implement the project at full scale. We hope to be able to mobilise resources in order to run the initiative and make it sustainable for development in Zambia.