Continuation

Strategic Goals

To establish a fully equipped training centre for NGOs to acquire and enhance ITC competencies
To establish and operate a resource centre for West African NGOs to register and receive support for their projects
To facilitate the development and deployment of new and relevant development solutions through the use of various information and other technologies.
To inculcate private sector efficiencies amongst NGOs as they grow to become the most critical sector in the macro-economy
To empower members by creating access to knowledge so as to catalyse the making of informed choices on social issues.

WANGONeT’s Programmes can been broken down into 4 simple categories, namely:

Outreach
Content Development/Management
Training
Connectivity

NGO Outreach/Advocacy: - Reaching out to NGOs across the region, helping them streamline their corporate strategies and evolve into efficient businesses. Extensive needs assessment will be carried out on every NGO joining the Network to determine their individual requirements and help shape a training regimen for the organization.

Web and Content Development: - Building and maintaining the infrastructure that will help our clients generate new and original content, re-purpose existing content, while utilizing the multimedia tools that the INTERNET today provides. The WANGONeT Digital Kitchen provides turnkey, bespoke and interactive websites driven by dynamic databases for non-profit and private sector clients.

Training: - One of WANGONeT’s core competencies will be an all year continuous training program on the comprehension and utility of the INTERNET as a tool for development. The proposed curriculum will be a flexible and scalable set of courses that will cover stark beginners to more advanced training in relevant Information and Communications Technologies and NGO/not-for profits management. By design, the training will especially cater to the IT needs of our primary clients, that being, non-profit organizations, cultural and educational institutions.

Connectivity: - Plans are under way to providing a high bandwidth wireless ISP hookup with a comprehensive suite of services especially designed for NGOs and other clients.

Based on the truism that the growth of the INTERNET is driven by the private sector, WANGONeT’s organizing principle is predicated on private sector participation, practices, procedures and returns. It is being projected that by the year 2003, three years after its establishment, WANGONeT will be a self-financing organization, deriving the bulk of its revenue from the services it provides. Therefore, from the outset, WANGONeT will be run like an efficient service business that provides top-notch Internet services to NGOs and other paying clients. WANGONeT is an attempt at “plugging dot org into dot com.”

Membership within the WANGONeT entitles NGOs/Civil society institutions to help-desk assistance (Technical assistance to any difficulty occurring in the course of their work with their computers), and on-site technical assistance and training (on-site information on how to manage difficulties arising and equipping in-house staff with user skills).

Benefits include:

Listing on the WANGONeT website with a link to your own site, which gives you instant Internet presence.
Reduced cost of web space for your own website with access to global information on research, Funding etc.
Reduced cost access to WANGONeT training centres and partner organisation centres with ccreditation and rating for ICT proficiency.
Reduced cost in WANGONeT Training Programmes.
Access to members’ only, training manuals for enhancing the technical capacity of your staff.
Development of electronic notice board and publication of Newsletter on topical issues across the region.
Free Browsing on the Internet on Fridays

Please note that organisations will be required to meet certain criteria for acceptance into the WANGONeT team.