German Development Cooperation and Open Access
By Peter Rave, German Technical Cooperation, GTZ
德國的發展合作與開放進用
In the context of the global structural change fromagricultural and industrial societies to knowledgesocieties, knowledge has become a basic factorfor sustainable economic and social development(73). One of the goals of German developmentcooperation at university level is the independentdevelopment and acquisition of knowledge, aswell as its application to local needs and problemsin the partner countries(74). In this context,Open Access to digital research repositories andvirtual research environments harbours greatpotential for developing countries.
全球社會結構由農業轉變為工業社會到知識社會，知識已經成為經濟和社會發展持續的基本要素(73)。德國大學的發展目標之一是水平獨立的發展及獲取知識，不但適用於本地的問題和需求也適用於開發中的國家們(74)。在數位儲藏索跟虛擬研究環境的開放近用背景下，對開發中國家是一種良好庇護。
The digital and academic divide數位鴻溝和學術鴻溝
To ensure that scientists and scholars in ourpartner countries, particularly in Sub-SaharanAfrica, can share in current research results, itis generally necessary to first overcome whatis known as the ‘digital divide’: weak infrastructurefor information and communicationstechnologies (ICT), high access costs and/orlacking deregulation of telecommunicationsproviders, as well as a lack of local ICT service-providers and experts. This digital divideslows down communication with internationalresearch institutions, access to internationallibrary initiatives(75), and also the production,archiving and distribution of (electronic)publications (cf. diagram). Looked at in thisway, the digital divide reinforces the existingacademic divide between developed anddeveloping countries.
為了確保發展中國家的科學家和學者，特別是在撒哈拉以南的非洲，可以分享目前的研究成果，首先必須克服一般稱為'數位鴻溝':
基礎信息及通信技術（ ICT ）建設薄弱 ，缺乏管制的電信供應商、高使用費以及缺乏地區性的通信技術服務供應商和專家。國際上圖書館（ 75 ），生產、存檔和分發出版物及電子出版物（見圖表）的同時，這個數位鴻溝減緩國際研究機構的交流。看這張圖，數位鴻溝加強了已開發國家和開發中國家目前的學術鴻溝。The size of the countries is proportional to the percentage of all scientific and scholarly publications published there by authors in 2001. (Source: http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map205_ver5.pdf)
Improved access in developing countries toICT and the global communications networkshas been the object of international initiatives(76)since the late 1990s. Germany supports theseinitiatives and treats the subject of ICT as aninterdisciplinary issue, which, in conjunctionwith improvements in education and research,is intended to ease the way towards knowledgesocieties for partner countries.
自90年代後期到20世紀，能在發展中國家妥善利用全球通訊網絡的信息和通信技術，一直是國際倡議（ 76 ）的對象。德國支持著這些倡議並且把信息和通信技術當成跨學科的問題，其中，結合改進教育和研究意在緩衝合作國家轉向知識社會。
73 Cf. ‘Knowledge for Development’, World Development Report 1998–1999, http://www.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr98/overview.pdf.
74 Currently there are approx. 70 partner countries, see: www.bmz.de/de/laender/partnerlaender/laenderkonzentration/index.html.
75 E.g. International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) (http://www.inasp.info/), Programme for the Enhancement of Research
Information (PERI) (http://www.inasp.info/peri/), Initiative Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net) (http://www.eifl.net/), Health InterNetwork Access to
Research Initiative (HINARI) (http://www.emro.who.int/HINARI).
Open Access approachesin German developmentcooperation•••••••••••••
德國開放進用的合作發展辦法
The Open Access approach of the KfWEntwicklungsbank (KfW development bank)focuses on infrastructure. The KfW is part ofthe consortium of development-finance institutionsthat is preparing the funding of the EastAfrica Submarine Cable System (EASSy). Thiswill provide eastern and southern Africa with aninexpensive broadband connection to the internationalfibreglass communications network.Further measures are necessary to ensure thatacademics and entrepreneurs can use such networksand further ICT to process knowledge andadapt them according to their needs. For thisreason the GTZ and InWEnt (Capacity BuildingInternational, Germany) are implementingmeasures for capacity development and institutionbuilding in many educational and researchinstitutions in partner countries. These measuresincreasingly focus on independent electronicproduction, archiving and distribution of digitalcontents, also via regional networks(77). In addition,teaching and learning materials are alsobeing offered in native languages, increasinglythrough the use of alternative licensing modelssuch as creative commons (http://creativecommons.org/), which allow users far-reachingfreedom when exploiting the contents(78).Since Internet access is still severely restricted inmany of the partner countries, innovative channelsof distribution for digital resources must betested. An example is the University of AddisAbaba, which has a bandwidth of only 6 Mbit/s(March 2007) at its disposal. In the context of theEthiopian Capacity Building Programme(79) a socalled‘open toaster’(80) was developed togetherwith the students at this university. The studentsare now able to select digital resources (freesoftware and publications) via a touch screenand burn them directly on to CDs.The measures presented here show how diverselythe Open Access approach is being implementedwithin development cooperation and how much itcontributes to overcoming the academic divide.
德國復興信貸銀行Entwicklungsbank（德國復興信貸銀行發展銀行）的開放近用辦法是側重於基礎設施。德國復興信貸銀行的一部分金融財團機構是準備發展東非洲海底光纜系統（ EASSy ）的資金 。這將提供東非和南非便宜的寬頻連接世界，用光纖連上網際網路。且必需採取進一步措施，確保學者和企業家可以使用這網絡並根據自己的適應及需要進一步的使用這信息和通信技術，。因此，德國技術合作公司和InWEnt（德國，能力建設國際）正在許多合作國家的教育和研究機構實施能力建設和體制建設。透過區域性網路（ 77 ），這些措施越來越集中在獨立的電子生產、存檔和分發數位內容。此外， 也提供的本地語言的教學和學習的材料，越來越多藉由如creativecommons (http://creativecommons.org/)允許使用者自由利用使使用者能對內容影響深遠（78）。由於許多合作國家網路的進入仍然受嚴格限制，必須試驗數位資源新增的途徑分布。如 Addis Ababa 大學的例子，它的頻寬只能處理6 Mbit/s (March 2007) 。在Ethiopian能力建設計劃(79)中，一個讓這所大學的學生共同開發所謂'開放烤箱'(80) 的計畫。學生現在能透過選取螢幕和燒錄CDs選擇數位資源(免費軟體和出版物)。這些措施在這裡表明如何無限開放近用的辦法正在實施，藉由發展合作多少有助於克服學術鴻溝。
76 E.g. G8 (‚Digital Opportunity Taskforce‘), UN (ICT Taskforce, World Summit on the Information Society).
77 http://www.crystal-elearning.net/index_eng.html.
78 http://www.gc21.de/ibt/GC21/site/gc21/ibt/start.html.
79 http://www.ecbp.biz/index.php?id=homepage.
80 http://www.ecbp.biz/index.php?id=toaster.
