Timbuktu is an old caravan town, founded in the 12th century by the Tuaregs as a trading post, and was the spiritual center of Islam in West Africa. Due to its location in the desert and on the Niger, the town can be reached by water or overland only for a short period each year without major problems. Thus supplying the town with commercial goods is difficult and expensive. The “Télécentre Communautaire Polyvalent de Tombouctou” (TCP), established in 1998, has been able to improve the flow of information and non-material goods.

Apart from services related to telecommunications, the TCP provides services important for science, the economy and regional development: it offers regular courses in text and data processing in the more common programs, and trains librarians. In addition, a large portion of the historical Islamic manuscripts preserved in Timbuktu have been indexed, digitalized and made available to research.

The local journalistic infrastructure of the town has been enhanced by establishing a newspaper and by making it possible for radio reporters to research nation-wide events (via radio browsing).

A campaign against illiteracy has been launched and courses are held in bookkeeping for women and girls. Autonomous women’s initiatives receive support in administrative matters as well as in calculating their small loans from the infrastructure provided by the Télécentre and its special programs in local languages.

In this town, which is an educational center, schoolchildren, students, teachers and clergy (the Imam of Timbuktu is the spiritual leader of the entire Islamic community in West Africa) benefit from the TCP. The sales and distribution of handicrafts as well as tourism, the local population’s primary sources of income, have profited from the Télécentre too.

Timbuktu’s Télécentre is also a testing ground to determine how such a facility must be set up to function under extreme conditions (sandstorms, temperatures of 50°C) and in rural areas. Moreover, it is an opportunity to evaluate the implications of information technologies for cultures and economies in rural regions of Africa.

Apart from NGOs and tourism infrastructure, the primary beneficiaries of the project are isolated country communities and their young people, who can now participate in telecourses. Medical care has also improved in the region (telemedicine, consultations via Internet).

At a future stage of the project, several outlying rural communities are to be connected with the central Télécentre in Timbuktu. Not counting those at the Télécentre, the number of computers in Timbuktu was estimated to be approximately 30 (almost NGOs only) in early 2003.

Today nearly every schoolchild and young adult in Timbuktu has his or her own Internet address and can communicate throughout the world. And this has obviously had a great impact on the literacy, education and training of the young generation in Timbuktu. The “Cybercafé”, a work station with five computers and open to the public, is a much frequented meeting place for all sections of the population at all times of the day.