UNESCO in its weekly Communication and Information (CI) bulletin made available to correspondent, said that in most countries of the world, PC refurbishing initiatives are now active, covering a whole range of tasks from mobilizing donors of second-hand PCs to procurement, refurbishment, transportation, distribution, installation, maintenance and training on the use of refurbished PCs.
The organisation said that shared experience in the past proved that there is a need for improvement of these overall programmes to make them holistic, sustainable and scalable.
“UNESCO strongly believes that much is to be gained from exchanging experiences, improving PC quality standard, sharing know-how, validated processes and tools to enhance access of local populations in the developing countries to low cost or free quality hardware,” the agency stated.
According to the bulletin, UNESCO is fostering international cooperation in this field to enhance impact and further sharpen economical models behind the PC refurbishment pipelines, saying “its at the core of UNESCO’s concern.”
The UN agency also pointed out that it has created a portal on PC refurbishment to enable further understanding on this issue.
It also that part of UNESCO's Observatory on the Information Society, is that this portal was meant to be a clearinghouse of activities, resources, best practices, research and open content in the field of PC refurbishment, between NGOs, associations, private industry and governments.
This UNESCO noted, enables emphasises to be focused on low cost of hardware solutions, open content for off-line PC, programmes, quality requirements for refurbished PC, research, training as well as volunteer services.
It would be recalled that governments at the end of electronic waste confab held last December agreed with the support of the United Nations to work toward minimising e-waste globally.
In particular it aims to foster international cooperation and facilitate collaboration and partnerships (logistics, funding, resource sharing, capacity building development) between NGOs, associations, private industry and governments.
The e-waste confab was an outcome of the first international meeting of PC refurbishment specialists on "New Synergies for Recycling Information Technology Equipment", which took place in UNESCO headquarters in Paris in March 2003.
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