UNITes Local Student Volunteers support ICT Development in Uzbekistan - October 2002

United Nations Volunteers Programme provides unique volunteering opportunities for students who are willing to share their ICT skills to improve the ICT related environment of local organizations.

UNITeS Uzbekistan Local ICT Volunteers Scheme (UNITes Uzbekistan) was launched in May 2002 in Tashkent, under the initiative of the United Nations Volunteers Programme with the primary goal to assist in building ICT capacity among local non-commercial organizations through mobilizing young volunteers. UNITes Uzbekistan sends volunteers with good ICT skills to needy organizations that are interested in improving their ICT capacity but have limited resources to make it happen. The volunteers undertake different assignments to help these organizations; e.g. train them in basic computer skills, create web-sites and databases or repair their broken computers. This service costs nothing to the host organizations. Over the last five months, UNITes Uzbekistan has constantly progressed in its efforts to meet its goals and to date there are 46 rostered volunteers, and 28 volunteers working in assignments hosted by 18 organizations. By the end of year, it hopes to have 70 volunteers and 50 host organizations involved in its scheme.

In general, the ICT related environment in Uzbekistan is rather underdeveloped. According to the e-readiness assessment conducted in July 2001 by the UNDP Country Office, the percentage of inter-net users in Uzbekistan is merely 0.6 per cent of the total population, while in the capital city Tashkent, the figure rises to 5.5 per cent. The main obstacle is the lack of necessary infrastructure.

Looking at the country's situation from a different angle, Uzbekistan has a certain advantage in ICT development. Thanks to the well-maintained education system inherited by the former socialist regime, there are a number of talented young people with high levels of computer skills who are ready to become ICT volunteers. Most of the UNITes Uzbekistan ICT Volunteers are students who study computer technology at technical universities or who have mastered different skills through playing games and learning computer sciences by themselves. Some of the volunteers are being employed by companies and organizations, but many are still willing to volunteer their spare time. Why are they so interested in participating in this ICT volunteering scheme?

"There are different reasons why young people want to volunteer", says Nargiza Ergasheva, the National UN Volunteer UNITeS Focal Point and coordinator of UNITes Uzbekistan Local ICT Volunteers Scheme. "Some volunteers say they love to share their ICT knowledge and help people learn about rapidly developing technologies, some want to do something for others to promote humanist values and others are interested in practicing their skills in real life settings to improve their hands-on proficiency with computers…"

The rapid expansion of the UNITeS Uzbekistan Local ICT Volunteers Scheme indicates that this initiative has successfully connected the needs and the interests of host organizations and volunteers. The success story becomes even more impressive with the awareness that this initiative has already saved host organizations around 2.5 million Uzbek soums* (*equivalent to around 2,300 USD) since July 2002. This figure reflects what they would otherwise have paid commercial service providers for computer training, web development, etc.

"With this ICT volunteer scheme, we encourage the participation of young volunteers and provide opportunities so that they can make their own contributions to the society", says UNV Programme Officer, Naoko Sakai, "We also want to use this volunteering scheme as a showcase to highlight the benefit and potential of young volunteers in Uzbekistan and make the government more aware of the importance of supporting volunteering action for their social and economic development. Recently, we have been contacted by one of the departments of the State Parliament. This is a noteworthy event for us, since it shows that our activity has started to receive recognition by the government…"

Based in Bonn, Germany, UN Volunteers is the United Nations organization that supports sustainable human development globally through the promotion of volunteerism, including the mobilization of volunteers. In 2001, more than 5,000 UN Volunteers representing 160 nationalities carried out 5,400 assignments in 140 countries. UNV is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITes) is a global ICT volunteering initiative, placing and supporting more than 150 ICT volunteers in developing countries, as well as involving a growing number of online volunteers and promoting volunteer involvement as fundamental to the success of ICT capacity-building activities. It is managed by UNV.