The Leland Initiative (LI) is a five year $15 million US Government effort to extend full Internet connectivity to approximately twenty African countries in order to promote sustainable development. It seeks to bring the benefits of the global revolution to people of Africa through connection to the Internet and othe Global Information Infrastructure technologies.

The 21 countries involved in the project all have USAID missions: Benin, Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

USAID's Africa Bureau Office of Sustainable Development manages the initiative and coordinates the policy partners. US Department of State provides support for policy assessments/policy reform and the negotiation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between host country governments and the US Government. NASA, the GSA and the Navy provide technical support. USAID's Center for Developent Information and Evaluation (CDIE) provides support for the Internet Development Applications through its Research and Reference Services (R&RS) project staff.

The Initiative has three strategic objectives:

• Create an enabling policy environment. Policy experts negotiated bilateral policy agreements with 6 African countries which allowed free and open access to the information on the Internet and set aside long-standing monopoly practices in favor of private sector Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

• Foster a sustainable supply of Internet services Teams of Leland Initiative experts have worked with USAID and host country colleagues to develop country Plans of Action for expanding the supply of Internet services

• Promote Internet user applications for sustainable development. Information specialists assessed the Internet "readiness" of USAID field missions and their host countries. Plans are made for Internet "workshop" training in as many as 10 countries for 1997.

The Initiative is named after the Texas Congressman Mickey Leland, who died in 1989 while on a government mission to Ethopia. He advocated communication with all governments in order to further humanitarian goals and led successful initiatives expanding funding of primary health care in developing countries.

This presentation was given by Jim Esselman and Jeff Bland of USAID Research and Reference Service.

For further information see the Leland Initiative Website at http:www.info.usaid.gov/regions/afr/leland