Networking with Cisco Systems
By Katrin Eun-Myo Park

Cisco Systems, Inc., a global leader in networking for the Internet, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly launched the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Initiative at the G-8 Summit in July 2000. Since the announcement of the strategic partnership, Cisco Systems, UNDP, the United Nations Volunteer programme (UNV), the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) and the United States Agency for International Development have been working together to train students for the Internet economy by establishing the Cisco Networking Academy Program in more than half of the world’s LDCs that suffer from poverty, as well as from weak human resources and economic institutions.

The Networking Academy Program is a comprehensive 560-hour course designed to provide students with conceptual and practical skills that will enable them to design, build and maintain computer networks. It comprises Web-based educational content, online testing, student performance tracking, hands-on laboratories, and instructor training and support, and is offered at high schools, technical schools, universities and other community-based organizations. At the end of the curriculum, students are prepared for the Cisco Certified Networking Associate examination.

The LDC Initiative highlights the possibilities of strategic partnerships and is a leading example of the collaboration between the United Nations and the private sector to meet the urgent needs of LDCs, by giving their students the same quality training in information technology (IT) as in advanced countries. There are currently 49 LDCs designated by the United Nations, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa. Constituting the most deprived part of the international community and their economic and social development, LDCs have a combined population of 610.5 million, or 10.5 per cent of the world’s population. As UNDP consulted country offices, Governments and academic institutions of LDCs, using its expertise in economic and social development and familiarity with the local and regional situations in 132 different countries, Cisco Systems established a deployment strategy for each country. Shortly, the partners were able to create strong communication links at all levels, ! mainly through e-mail.

When problems arose, including Governments’ withholding of funds for tuition, strikes or political coups, Cisco Systems and the development arm of the United Nations worked together to address them within 24 hours. Partners and individuals of each country came together to bridge the digital divide, and the outcome of this unparalleled collaboration is not only stunning but also quantifiable.

The partners surpassed its “stretch goals” of setting up academies in 24 LDCs by the end of 2001, six months ahead of time. Cisco Systems announced the outcome of the extraordinary partnership at the Third UN Conference on LDCs, held in Brussels in May 2001. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, a Cisco Networking Academy has been founded at the University of Kinshasa, holding its first classes in June 2001. In Benin, the first student class was taught in April 2001, and there are currently 10 academies. Bhutan’s Academy held its first class in February 2001, Nepal in June 2001, and Haiti in September 2001. Thus far, 70 academies have been built in 28 LDCs and 6 non-LDCs, and 140 local instructors, including 13 women, have been trained to teach there. A total of 1,100 students are enrolled and 245 - 22 per cent - are women.

“The tremendous efforts by the strategic partnership and development experts have contributed to the success of the LDC Initiative. No one organization could have achieved this unilaterally”, John Chambers, Chief Executive Officer of Cisco Systems said. Students’ willingness and determination to acquire IT skills to compete in the Internet economy also scaled the Program quickly. Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of UNDP, said: “Cisco’s commitment to the development of learning centres in the least developed countries has been central to the mission of the UNDP.”

The partnership has enabled students in the least developed countries to receive the same education as those in the developed world, says Erin Walsh, manager of International Strategies and Partnerships and Worldwide Education of Cisco Systems, adding that “the students are embracing it”. Today, students and instructors in LDCs, Mr. Chambers affirmed, are performing as well as any of those across the globe. All they need is the access and opportunity, such as that provided through the Cisco Systems/UNDP partnership.

He added: “The LDC Initiative demonstrates that education and the Internet are the two great equalizers in life.” Cisco’s partnerships with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), among other programmes, are specifically aimed at addressing the gender digital divide by proactively promoting greater participation of women in information technology through the Networking Academy Program. The Academy at ECA headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for example, particularly focuses on the training of women. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it comprises two classes designed specifically for female students, reflecting the Initiative’s gender strategy.

“From the very beginning of the LDC Initiative, there has been an explicit focus on recruiting women”, said Christine Hemrick, Vice-President of Cisco Systems. By setting up female classes, focusing on the recruitment of women instructors and reducing tuition for female students, the Company is equipping women with marketable high-tech skills. “Technology careers offer women incredible opportunities for both economic empowerment and personal fulfillment, and women in LDCs are eager to take advantage of such opportunities.”

LDCs are not the only beneficiary of the unprecedented partnerships. In December 2000, UNDP and Cisco Systems hosted a 17-day Internet training course in Ghana, where four academies have already been consolidated. In Jordan, Cisco Systems and Cisco Foundation have partnered with UNIFEM and the Government to establish 10 academies, especially taking into consideration women’s advancement. Its partnership with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization produced a local academy for disadvantaged youths in South Africa, seeking to empower them as they face new requirements of the changing labour market.

Cisco Systems has also embarked on projects with other UN bodies. With the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, it has founded five local academies in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, which are housed at the UNRWA training centres located in refugee camps, giving access to Palestinian refugees in the region. The International Telecommunication Union and Cisco Systems are on their way to establishing 50 training centres by July 2003 in existing non-profit institutions in developing countries. UNITeS and UNV are recruiting volunteers with expertise in IT and gender to dispatch them to participating LDCs.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once remarked that “brain power is the one commodity that is equally distributed among the world’s peoples”. The joint endeavour might just be able to develop and sustain the equally distributed commodity of the world in coming years.

Katrin Eun-Myo Park, an intern with the UN Chronicle, is a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York.