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This programme, spearheaded by
Inter-Réseaux (www.inter-reseaux.org/),
is based on the expectations that members of the network in Africa,
as well as many actors involved in rural development there, have
expressed regarding:
- Access to information and to strategic knowledge
that will allow them to handle better economic, political and
institutional changes
- support for networked communications to exchange
their experiences, to add value to their activities and publications.
To fulfil these needs, an effort has to be made
so that these actors can use existing electronic information sources
and learn to use electronic publishing and communications tools.
It is within this perspective that the P@ssdev programme was conceived.
Its three objectives can be summarised thus:
- To facilitate access to information sources
and information exchanges between actors of rural development
in the South and the North;
- To improve the exposure and use of Francophone
resources;
- To support electronic publishing, the spread
and enhancement of information by the actors of rural development
in the South.
The programme's
activities are built around a Web site and a network of partners.
The passdev.net Web site seeks to guide the Internet
visitor to sources of electronic information on rural and agricultural
development in the South. More than a simple collection of pages
of links, the site offers comments that help Internet visitors judge
their "destination" (Web sites, online documents) and available
electronic media (CD-ROMs, online documents, newsletters). In view
of the difficulties of browsing the Internet in many countries of
the South (low bandwidth), we try to make the contents easily accessible
and load quickly on the screen. It is thus that the site is intentionally
simple in structure, in techniques used and graphical presentation.
All content displayed on Web pages is collected in chapters and
is available as a document that can be downloaded.
The electronic newsletter of the programme, P@ssdev Infos, regularly
informs recipients of the new features and contents of the site
and of programme activities. The P@ssdev network brings together
African organisations involved in supporting the rural world through
publishing, information, training or advisory services. The programme
advises, trains and mobilises these organisations as a way of fulfilling
three aims:
- Enhancing and promoting the activities and publications of
the partners (journals, reviews, documents, technical datasheets,
training material,…) by their publication in electronic format,
and their distribution and promotion;
- Fostering exchanges of debates, experiences and knowledge
transmission between actors of rural development by using networked
communications;
- Producing and distributing information and training material
to facilitate the appropriation of tools and practices by other
organisations (articles, technical datasheets, methodology manuals
on electronic publishing and communications).
Gilles Mersadier Director, PassDev programme contact@passdev.net
PassDev site: http://www.passdev.net/
Inter-Reseaux site: http://www.inter-reseaux.org/
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