Lwati August 2005, Number 14

*LWATI *

The monthly e-newsletter of the Southern African
Non-Governmental Organisation Network (SANGONeT)

August 2005, Number 14

www.sangonet.org.za

"Lwati" is an isiSwati word meaning information.

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<> EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS
<> GOVERNANCE
<> EVENTS
<> TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
<> CIVIL SOCIETY INFORMATION SERVICES
<> NETWORKING AND OUTREACH
<> CONTACT DETAILS

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<> EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS

Dear reader

Welcome to the 14th edition of SANGONeT's monthly e-newsletter!

After an intensive period of hosting various Thetha forums, focus group
discussions and other events since May 2005, the past month at SANGONeT was dedicated to internal planning activities and preparations in support of various new and future activities.

The re-launch of PRODDER: The South African NGO and Development
Directory (www.prodder.org.za) continues to receive priority attention. The launch of Phase One represents an important first step in the process of transforming the SANGONeT website into a comprehensive development information portal for and about South African NGOs and development organisations. The target date for the launch of the new portal is 24 October 2005 and will coincide with World Development Information Day. SANGONeT will host a special event on 24 October 2005 to celebrate this day. The revamped NGO.ZA service (www.ngo.za) will also be launched during this event.

SANGONeT hosted the World Summit Award (WSA) - South Africa
Competition during  July 2005. This initiative aims to select and promote the world's best e-Content and Creativity and is held within the framework of and in cooperation with the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

A South African winner was selected for each of the following categories:

* e-Learning - Marketing in South Africa
   cd-rom produced by Van Schaik Publishers

* e-Government - Cape Gateway
   www.capegateway.gov.za

* e-Culture - State of the Arts
   http://fest.ru.ac.za

* e-Inclusion - Agenda
   www.agenda.org.za

SANGONeT will also continue its activities in support of civil society involvement in WSIS during August 2005. We will host a second Thetha forum on 22 August 2005 in Cape Town (refer to Events section). One of the outcomes of this meeting will be the South African WSIS Civil Society Statement which will be presented to the Department of Communications.

Following on the WSIS Thetha forum, SANGONeT and telecentre.org will host a meeting  for various telecentre stakeholders on 23 August 2005 in Cape Town.

Finally, we have also started the initial planning for the next SANGONeT "ICTs for Civil Society" Conference and Exhibition which will be held from 1-3 March 2006 in Johannesburg. Building on the success of this year's event, we aim to expand the focus and scope of the conference with many exciting discussion sessions, product demonstrations and networking opportunities.

As always, we are very interested in how you think we could best serve the NGO sector  with relevant ICT products and services. Please send us your views, comments and suggestions.

Best wishes

David Barnard (dbarnard@sangonet.org.za)

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<> GOVERNANCE

Mirriam Zwane joined the SANGONeT Board of Directors during July 2005. She is the Director of Praxis Computing. In 2004 she became the first black woman to win the Workgroup Businesswoman of the Year Award. In 2003 she received the African Diva Award and the African ICT Achievers Award for the Most Progressive ICT Company. Praxis Computing was also recently nominated as one of Business Day's Top 20 Non-Listed Companies and Impumelelo's Top 300 Empowerment Companies. Ms Zwane is involved in a number of social development projects, including the Vuk'zenzele Skills and Training Project, Youth Development Trust mentorship programmes, Life After Prison and AIDS Link.

Gerald Leissner resigned from the Board of Directors during July 2005 for personal reasons.

The Audit Committee met on 19 July 2005 to discuss the audited financial statements for 2004/5.

The second Board of Directors meeting for 2005 was held on 28 July 2005.

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<> EVENTS

# Thetha - World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

SANGONeT will host a second Thetha forum on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on 22 August 2005 (09h00-15h30) at the Civic Centre in Cape Town (5th Floor, Crush Room).

The first WSIS Thetha was held on 29 June 2005 in Braamfontein.

The WSIS Thetha forums provide South African civil society organisations (CSOs) with an opportunity to reflect on the focus and objectives of WSIS and related processes. It will also provide a platform to discuss the position of the South African government and civil society in this regard.

In the past few months SANGONeT has compiled a draft WSIS civil society document with the support of various local CSOs. This draft document focuses on issues such as local content; community broadcasting; freedom of expression, diversity and pluralism; financing the digital divide; education and ICT literacy. The document is available on the SANGONeT website and will be reviewed at the WSIS Thetha in Cape Town.

Speakers at the Thetha will include David Barnard, SANGONeT; Adama
Samessekou, President, WSIS Geneva Phase; Dr Harold Wesso, Western Cape Provincial Government; Paul Esselaar, Internet Society of South Africa; Tracey Naughton, WSIS Media Caucus; and Raymond Louw, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

The WSIS Thetha forms part of a series of "Information Society" events taking place in Cape Town from 22-26 August 2005.

If you are interested in participating in the WSIS Thetha, please contact Refilwe Rakhibane at SANGONeT before 19 August 2005 on
Tel: (011) 403-4935 or
refilwe@sangonet.org.za

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<> TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

# URL Shortening Service

SANGONeT has developed a URL shortening facility which allows users to type or paste a long Web address (URL) into a text box. On clicking a button, a much shorter URL is generated. This facility allows long web addresses to be accommodated within e-mails and mailing lists. The URLs can be from any website or  portal.

For more information on this facility, please visit
http://www.sangonet.org.za/url

# Youth Communist League Website

The website of the Youth Communist League (YCL) was comprehensively updated in preparation for the upcoming National Policy and Strategy Conference in Mokopane (11-14 August 2005). The updates include posting of several conference discussion documents, press releases and the latest issue of Bottomline.

For more information on the YCL, please visit http://www.ycl.org.za

# NGO.ZA

The NGO.ZA website is currently undergoing major upgrades to enable online procurement of technology using eCommerce software. The successful integration of online shopping will enable users to place orders for ICTproducts and services on the website through a shopping cart facility. NGO.ZA offers a range of connectivity, hardware and communication services. Additional ICT services and products at competitive rates will be added shortly.

For more information on NGO.ZA, please visit http://www.ngo.za

# Technology Consulting

SANGONeT offers a wide range of customised technology solutions, including open source software consulting, facilitation of website workshops and developing a technology plan for your organisation. For more information on how we can assist you, please contact Joseph George on Tel: (011) 403-4935 or joseph@sangonet.org.za

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<> CIVIL SOCIETY INFORMATION SERVICES

# NGO Portal

With the bulk of our consultative work completed, the month of July was largely one of reflection for SANGONeT's CSIS Programme. It started with an internal planning meeting to determine the structure and content of SANGONeT's forthcoming "development information portal" for and about the NGO sector in South Africa. The portal will be a combination of Thusanang, PRODDER and a new SANGONeT project, NGO Pulse. Together, these projects will create a one-stop information portal that will carry news about the local NGO sector, contain the largest directory of NGOs and development organisations and include information that can be used to promote the institutional development of the NGO sector, within the context of organisational sustainability.

# Thusanang: The Southern African Funding Information Facility

Thusanang is an Internet portal (http://www.thusanang.org.za) that aims to disseminate information on funding and fundraising issues, promoting good grantmaking and  grantseeking practices.

Thusanang continues to be one of the most popular NGO websites in the country with more and more people visiting the site on a daily basis. This is largely due to the fact that its notice board has become a community exchange space, carrying current news about developments in the NGO and development arena. For example, Thusanang was among the first to carry news about the closure of INTERFUND, which has inspired interesting debate on the sustainability of the non-profit sector in general. See the  "Reflection on INTERFUND Closure" article by clicking on the link http://www.thusanang.org.za/pdf/GbyGG.doc, which is commentary submitted exclusively to Thusanang about the untimely demise of this intermediary grantmaking organisation.

To keep abreast of new developments on Thusanang, you may wish to subscribe to the weekly "Thusanang Alert", which informs subscribers on a weekly basis about new postings on the website. To subscribe to the alert and for more information about Thusanang, please send an e mail to thusanang@sangonet.org.za.

# PRODDER: The South African NGO and Development Directory

The technical solution for the PRODDER Directory was largely completed during July 2005. Many organisations from the original PRODDER Directory were contacted in our drive to update and validate all entries in the database. The first phase of PRODDER will be launched in August 2005, during which listed organisations will get the opportunity to view and update their information online (http://www.prodder.org.za). Organisations that have never been listed on PRODDER before will also be able to submit their details for inclusion in the directory via an online form.

For more information about PRODDER, please contact Julie Machin on
Tel: (011) 403-4935 or prodder@sangonet.org.za

# SANGONeT Conference Calendar

A new feature on the SANGONeT website is a comprehensive listing of forthcoming  Southern African and international development conferences.

To have your event included in this facility, please forward details to info@sangonet.org.za

For more information about forthcoming conferences, please visit the "Conference Calendar" section on the SANGONeT website at http://www.sangonet.org.za

# SN-Announce

SN-Announce is an electronic mailing list that has provided an invaluable service to the CSO sector in Southern Africa for the past six years.With a potential readership of  more than 10 000 people, it remains one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to reach non-profit organizations and the development community in general.

All members of the development sector, including government departments and commercial organisations with a development focus, can advertise on SN-Announce. The type of information distributed on SN-Announce includes alerts for vacancies, events, campaign launches, conferences, meetings, lobbies, petitions and services in the development sector.

For more information about how to subscribe to SN-Announce or post an announcement, please contact Refilwe Rakhibane at SANGONeT on
(011) 403-4935 or refilwe@sangonet.org.za

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<> NETWORKING AND OUTREACH

# SANGONeT's Executive Director, David Barnard, attended a briefing on the World  Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on 12 July 2005 at the Tunisian Embassy in Pretoria.

SANGONeT's Technology Services Manager, Joseph George, participated in the colloquium on telecommunication costs and services hosted by the Department of Communication on 14 July 2005 in Midrand.

# SANGONeT's Deputy Director and Civil Society Information Services Manager, Fazila Farouk, attended a meeting from 20-21 July in Parktown, hosted by the Non-Profit Consortium (NPC), to determine the framework for developing a general "Capacity Building Initiative" for the non-profit sector in South Africa.

Joseph George represented SANGONeT at a roundtable on 18 July 2005 in Braamfontein focusing on the cost of telecommunications and access in South Africa. It was hosted by the Open Society Foundation.

He also attended a strategic workshop about Open Source on 22 July 2005 at the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development (PNC-ISAD) in Pretoria. The workshop was co-hosted by the Government Information Technology Officers Council (GITOC).

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<> CONTACT DETAILS

SANGONeT
P O Box 31392
2017 Braamfontein
SOUTH AFRICA

10th Floor
76 Juta Street
Braamfontein

Tel: (+27) (11) 403-4935
Fax: (+27) (11) 403-0130
E-mail: newsletter@sangonet.org.za
WWW: http://www.sangonet.org.za

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CopyLeft. 2005. SANGONeT.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and modify this
document. Please provide an acknowledgment to SANGONeT.

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