Introduction AjialCom

AjialCom is a regional youth empowerment project initiated by UNDP/ICTDAR in 2004. It aims at empowering Youth in the Arab world, enabling them to reach their potential by harnessing information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve their access to knowledge, to network, and to have a meeting space where they can collaborate, exchange information, and address subjects that impact their present and future.

At its core, AjialCom provides underprivileged Arab youth with an alternative to hopelessness that leads to extremism, crime, and wasted potential. Its ultimate goal however is to create a new outlook on citizenship by educating Arab youth on their duties towards their societies as well as on their rights. As today’s youth will be the leaders of tomorrow, they have to be prepared to understand and face challenges and address them courageously and in an informed manner. This will lead to a shift in mindset, creating new types of leaders who will play an active role in their local communities and in the developmental process at large.

The main vehicle for this are full-service Community Access Centers (CACs), created and operated through multiple partnerships. They allow young people access to computers and to the Internet, and provide them with basic ICT and business skills training. In areas where CACs already exist, the initiative aims at using them as a base to introduce additional developmental components. In addition, where necessary and feasible, special hardware, software, and content are made available to allow access to the visually impaired.

The CACs are created and operated based on a business model that has been developed by ICTDAR, which aims at turning them into self-sustaining micro-enterprises. By becoming bases for outreach to rural and underserved communities and by providing much needed training and advice on sustainable economic activities in these communities, CACs are proving that they themselves can also become economically sustainable.

Relevance to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Reducing poverty and illiteracy are part of the MDGs set for the 166 UN member states to achieve by 2015. AjialCom, by empowering youth including women and unemployed graduates, contributes therefore towards the achievement of these goals. By using technology as a tool to provide underprivileged youth with skills that are pre-requisites to better jobs, AjialCom offers new opportunity to segments of society that have long been deprived of it.

Objectives

The objectives of this initiative are focused on providing disadvantaged Arab youth, particularly those living in underserved areas, with access to information technology through the establishment of CACs, to achieve the following:

• Reduce illiteracy, through training on basic ICT skills.
• Develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills.
• Reduce poverty through creating an environment that improves the chances of employment by providing standardized IT and business skills training.
• Raise awareness of social, health, and gender issue

Implementation strategy

To successfully reach these objectives, the initiative performs the following:

• Based on need and enabling environment, choose locations of new CACs or of existing ones to be included in the initiative, after extensive consultations with local UNDP offices as well as governmental, civil society, private sector and non-governmental agencies.
• Create and equip CACs where they don’t exist, including preparing the physical locations, providing technical infrastructure, and installing computers and peripherals.
• Install hardware and software for the visually-impaired where applicable.
• Provide standardized technical and relevant business skills training curricula.
• Provide digital educational material (digital libraries).
• Select trainees and provide ToT on the curricula.
• Customize the business model to the CACs. Provide management training on running the CACs.
• Launch and operate the CACs.
• Monitor and assess impact.

Management Arrangements

ICTDAR retains overall management responsibility throughout the lifetime of the project. However, a steering committee is formed with representatives from all partners to provide general guidance, oversight, and facilitation.

Partners

ICTDAR partners with ministries and local government agencies, the private sector, and NGOs among others to execute its initiatives.

In the case of AjialCom, government agencies have typically been responsible for providing the locations of the CACs, their preparation (furniture, accessories, and connectivity), as well as for the management and operational costs. In some instances, they have also provided some of the hardware.

The private sector partners typically provide software, training curricula, ToT, and contributions to the hardware.

ICTDAR typically provides overall management and technical expertise, the business and management models, training curricula, toolkits, ToT, monitoring and impact assessment, and fund-raising activities. ICTDAR also researches and selects local implementation partners.

Partners who have collaborated with ICTDAR on AjialCom include:

• Ministry of Communication & Information Technology (MCIT) – Egypt
• Secretary of State in Charge of Youth – Morocco
• Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology- Yemen
• The Social Fund for Development- Yemen
• SIWA Association for Community Development (SACD)- Egypt
• General Youth Union – Yemen
• Microsoft Corporation
• Several national private companies

Country Impementation

AjialCom has already been successfully implemented in Morocco and Egypt, and in several cases the project exceeded its stated objectives. Agreements have also been signed to replicate the project in Yemen and Algeria, while in Morocco agreements have been completed to implement Phase 2, involving the creation of 100 new CACs.