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Developing IAVE.ORG
Paper presented at the International Symposium on Volunteering and Development of Human Capacity in the Information Society, 23-25 October 2003

Symposium international sur le Volontariat et le développement de compétences humaines dans la société de l'information, Dakar, 23 - 25 octobre 2003

By Anthony Carlisle, IAVE, Asia Pacific Area

In this presentation, I will cover three main topics: (1) the current situation of ICT and in particular Internet development in the Asia Pacific, (2) a case study of how IAVE's new website is being built and (3) some ideas for the future of the website and volunteering and ICTs in general, which may be of relevance to the volunteer family's action plans for 2003-2005.

First, the Asia Pacific is a very culturally diverse and linguistically varied region, both full of richness but great inequalities and imbalances at the same time. We have some of the world's wealthiest countries, but 75% of the world's poor also live in the region. In terms Internet penetration, places like South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan (Province of China), some cities in China, and Singapore, have some of the highest levels of Internet penetration in the world; Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the rest of China have limited access but a high potential for growth; while countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma have very low levels of penetration, and even limited land line systems.

In the developing countries, access for women is a particular problem. While Korea has a very high level of women with access to the Internet at 56%, in Malaysia access for women is 14%, only 1% in Indonesia, and almost nonexistent in Laos and Cambodia. (Asian Women's Resource Exchange, Philippines, 2000). But even in a highly developed nation like Japan, more needs to be done. From 1990-2000, during a period of rapid development, the percentage of women ICT engineers actually decreased from 11% to 10%. (Sookmyung Women's University, 2002).

The Pacific Islands are particularly isolated and overlooked by the ICT revolution. Up to as late as 1995, faxes were a novelty, and there was no such thing as email. Most islands have zero e-readiness, with the Solomon Islands being the only exception. Dialogue on national ICT policies at a ministerial level and international aid programs by the UN began only recently in 2001 and 2002.

When comparing Asia to other regions, the difference between trade figures and information exchange is startling. Asia holds an equal footing with North America and Europe in terms of trade flow, but lags far behind in information flow.

As was mentioned on the first day of this Symposium, the digital divide is also evident in the languages used on the Internet. Looking at the relatively equitable diversity of languages in books compared to the dominance of English on the Internet, you can see that it is necessary to redress the balance.

As for positive developments, Korea serves as a good model. In the initial stages when the Internet was first introduced to Korea, 98% of traffic was overseas bound, then there was a period of rapid growth and increase of domestic traffic, and now 85% of traffic is domestic and 15% overseas. So there is a high degree of local content. The positive social effects of this have been increased access for the elderly and disabled, and greater participation of housewives in the information society - 45% of Internet traffic in Korea is generated by housewives. (KT Corporation, Korea, 2003).

Secondly, I will introduce the ongoing project to rebuild the website of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE). You were introduced to IAVE by Theo Van Loon in the opening ceremony, so I won't repeat that information here. IAVE's website at www.iave.org had been redundant for more than two years, so there was an urgent need to get it back online, but at the same time, design a site that would be sustainable and not repeat the mistakes made in the past.

Taiwan (Province of China) became involved in this project when the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) in Taiwan (Province of China), which is an independent research and development institution under the National Science Council, offered to host the site. NCHC and IAVE Taiwan (Province of China) drew up a proposal and raised funds, while IAVE worked in cooperation with IAVE Taiwan (Province of China) to put together an international team to design and develop the site. The backend system and graphic design is supplied by YouthOne in Canada (YouthOne is a volunteer organization run by young people to offer online counseling and advice for young people); the content was written by International Conference Volunteers in Switzerland, who you are very familiar with; and IAVE Taiwan (Province of China) is responsible for research, consensus building among IAVE members - initially concentrating on IAVE members in the Asia Pacific area - and general coordination of the entire project.

Aside from having information on IAVE, its events and activities, profiles of IAVE leaders, and other basic information, the website will also contain links to international organizations, and through IAVE's regional and national representatives, have further links to local volunteer organizations. So the site will be a portal to a wide variety of volunteer sites all around the world. 

To keep the site up to date and relevant, the plan is to make the IAVE national representatives responsible for updating their own sections of the site, with the IAVE board of directors maintaining overall control and responsibility for updating the central sections. In other words, the users become the webmasters. This demarcation of control the website will hopefully avoid the problem of placing too much responsibility on one webmaster, which was the downfall of the old site. The backend system developed by YouthOne will be user-friendly, so there will be no need for ftp software or knowledge of html code to do the updating. However, this still has to be negotiated with the IAVE members, and the process will begin in the Asia Pacific at the regional conference in Manila on November 7-10.

From IAVE's point of view, the new website will be revolutionary, but from a technological point of view, its functions are not very exciting. This is not because we lack the technical capacity to develop cutting edge functions, on the contrary, the NCHC has a talented team of "Science Volunteers" and has developed very interesting ICT applications to volunteer work in Taiwan (Province of China), such as an active personnel database that can identify and help recruit potential volunteers. But, As Theo mentioned in his opening address, it is important not to create new digital divides within the organization between those who do have access to the Internet and those that do not. So we must resist the temptation to adopt the new technologies at the expenses of the old forms of communication. For example, this is why IAVE must make sure the electronic newsletter is also printed and posted to IAVE members. 

Having said that, what separates the Internet from other forms of communication is its interactive quality, so unless a website is interactive, in the long-term, the organization may as well spend its money on a glossy leaflet instead, and simply post it to interested people. However, the interactive functions of chat rooms, online training programs, searchable databases, and so on, are more difficult and expensive to build and maintain, and may place an unreasonable burden on a volunteer organization with limited means.

So IAVE and NCHC are trying to find ways to use the available technology in ways that enhance and help IAVE in its work, rather than doing things just because they 'can' be done. We must remember that it is not the technology, but what it can do to enhance daily life that is important.

Looking to the future of volunteering and ICTs, for IAVE, and volunteer organizations in general, there is an urgent need for prioritization. For example, in development of volunteer training, there should be a high priority on volunteer trainer support and distance learning, but lower priority on direct and widespread use that assumes broadband; and in issue development, the priority is on data collection and processing, and a low priority on real time discussions. (Adapted from IL&FS, India, 2003).

Of course this does not mean that the low priority tasks should not be done. Indeed, we should continue to stretch the boundaries of ICTs and volunteering, which we have to do if we are to make a real contribution to bridging the digital divide. I think we in the volunteer sector should make sure there is an ICT aspect to all the work we do, so that it becomes part of our culture. So when planning a development project, apart from assessing the environmental impact, gender sensitivity, cultural sensitivity, and so on, we must also ask where the ICT content is, otherwise the we will never stay in step with the demands of the information society.

As to development of ICTs in the next two years, looking at just two areas, broadband connections will increase, especially in Asia, where the Japanese Government has a plan to spend US$15billion on the Asia Broadband program. Machine translation technology will also improve. This will provide opportunities for volunteers to greatly enhance the content and quality of online information, especially in terms of digital archives, cultural preservation, and so on.

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