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Community Technology Access
Computer Gateways to Self-Suffiency
In 2009, UNHCR launched a special programme to give refugees and internally displaced people access to computers in a bid to open up education and livelihood opportunities to them. The Community Technology Access (CTA) project, backed by key UNHCR corporate partners Microsoft and PricewaterhouseCoopers, was piloted at solar-powered centres in Rwanda and Bangladesh.
A further 11 centres are being opened in Georgia in 2010 to serve internally displaced people and Chechen refugees. The refugee agency also plans to establish CTA centres, camp-based and in urban areas, in nine more countries this year.
The CTA project will maximize the role that refugees play in the delivery of information and communications technologies, or ICT. This includes training refugees and members of host communities to become managers of CTA facilities, maintenance and repair technicians, and teachers.
Computer technology company Microsoft provides expert advice as well as software, while PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's largest professional services firms, donates pro bono staff time and advises on project management. The Motorola Foundation has given funding for the running of the CTA centres in Rwanda and Bangladesh.
When the project was announced in New York in September 2009, senior Microsoft executive Pamela Passman noted that the CTA programme "provides not only a platform for improving education, it is also a path to developing valuable workforce skills for adult refugees."
The CTA business model is founded on the principle of long-term operational and financial sustainability wherever conditions are conducive to income-generation activities.