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UN Least Developed Countries Report 2007
Open education is not addressed directly in this report, but it’s a useful primer on the challenges faced by Least Developed Countries, and issues of how to support and promote the learning as an underpinning to development run throughout this report. An example from the overview:
…the effectiveness of ODA [official development assistance] for non-agricultural technological learning and innovation has been severely compromised because donors typically do not support this activity. Although agriculture is still the major source of employment and livelihood in the LDCs, the employment transition which they are undergoing means that this position is not tenable if development partners wish to reduce poverty sustainably and substantially. There are, however, difficult issues regarding how aid should be used to support technological learning and innovation outside agriculture.
One challenge for the open education community is to understand the role OER can play in helping LDCs to improve their own educational systems. I suspect the answer will be somewhat more complicated than straightforward adoption of open content. (via Information Policy)
