HIV/AIDS Prevention and Women and Girls Empowerment through Access to Information and Education

This pilot project, supported by the United Nations Foundation, will provide access to critical information and education to underserved urban and rural communities in the Asia Pacific region. The focus of the project is HIV/AIDS Prevention and Women's and Girls' Empowerment with a later expansion to other sustainable development topics important to the community. The pilot phase of the project entails establishing 800 sites in Nepal, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. In these sites, locally produced information content will be broadcast in local/national languages by using satellite digital broadcast technology and inexpensive portable digital receivers, coupled with portable solar systems to power receivers in areas that lack reliable electricity supply. The main partners in the project are Equal Access and the UNDP Asia-Pacific Information Development Information Programme. UNDP will provide the resources of their extensive network of country offices and contacts with government and non-governmental organizations and coordinate in-country operations, while Equal Access will provide links to the satellite broadcasting capacity through the WorldSpace Foundation, financial resources, technical support, training and guidance on impact assessment methodologies and approaches.

The main objectives of the project, in its pilot phase, are:

• To design and pilot-test a capacity building and networking initiative for Asia-Pacific on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Women's and Girls' Empowerment that supports the goals of delivering development information to information poor communities.
• To establish the institutional base and collaboration arrangements necessary for longer term sustainability of this innovative way to access development information.
• To identify partner organizations in regional language areas of Asia and to support their development of effective networking and collaboration for the regular production of content material around development themes, while defining a methodology that would be applicable to preparation of messages in other areas of development.
• To identify partner organizations that work in poor communities and to support them in their capacity to take advantage of the development information made accessible.
• To establish feedback mechanisms for community participants to have the most important say in the issues concerning their own development.