Workshop on Rural Radio

ICTs are changing the nature of the world we live in, accelerating the pace and volume of innovation and changing the way we transmit, receive, adapt and use knowledge and information. However, for a variety of reasons, this "information revolution" has not spread to the rural poor, widening the already extreme social and economic gaps between rich and poor countries and between the rich and the poor in poor countries, gaps that are particularly alarming in rural communities.
The workshop seeks to improve rural people's access to information and communication by developing strategies for combining ICTs and rural radio and by facilitating collaborative networking on both national and regional levels. The project proposals, strategies, and policy proposals generated at the workshop will be practical and sustainable and will contribute to the strengthening of existing networks of radio stations, injecting them with both an interest in the use of new ICTs and a renewed emphasis on using the technologies to overcome poverty and isolation in rural and disadvantaged communities
These invigorated networks, with ongoing monitoring and support by FAO, will ensure follow-up and guidance on recommendations and proposals in the period following August 2004 until the WSIS summit in November 2005.
The results of the workshop will also be widely disseminated as a book and electronically and input to various policy fora such as FAO's Latin American region ministerial level conference in 2004 and the World Summit on the Information Society.