UN agencies to launch telecom project for refugees

Refugees in camps in Tanzania will soon be able to communicate with their far-flung relatives from purpose-built telecommunications centres installed in or near their camps, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) announced on Wednesday.

The US $293,000 project, initiated in partnership with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and UNESCO, will for the first time provide basic voice, fax and internet connections from three community telecentres in and around refugee camps along northwestern border of Tanzania.

"It is very important to help vulnerable people who have been uprooted and displaced and for whom contact with relatives is comforting while at the same time helping local communities get access to information technology and the development opportunities they offer," Yoshio Utsumi, ITU Secretary-General, said at Wednesday's signing ceremony with project partners WorldSpace Corporation and Volunteers in Technical Assistance.

The ITU said that the three centres would fulfil the health, education, information and communication needs of rural residents, relief workers and an estimated 135,000 refugees, a majority of them from Burundi. The refugees, including women, will be trained to run the facilities. They will also serve as educational facilities for refugee children and for teacher training. In addition, the telecentres are planned to provide medical information, WorldSpace radio programmes and web-based multimedia content; as well as stimulate the development and growth of local businesses and developing information technology skills among the local population.

The first telecentre in the district headquarters town of Ngara, which hosts the local administration as well as the UNHCR and UNICEF offices, will be operational by February 2002. Then, another facility will be extended to K9, about 17 km from Ngara, where seven relief organisations and a secondary school for girls are based, the ITU reported. A further 8 km from K9 are refugee camps Lukole A and B, which have no telecommunication facilities. These camps will be the ultimate destination of the telecentre network, the ITU added.

The ITU will provide $56,000 of the project cost and UNESCO $30,000. In-kind contributions will come form UNHCR $35,000, WorldSpace $16,000 and Volunteers in Technical Assistance $6,000. This is the first such refugee telecom project the ITU has undertaken.