The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is planning a $328 million expansion of its global libraries initiative that will bring free Internet access and training into as many as 15 countries over the next seven years.
As reported in the Puget Sound Business Journal, the foundation on Thursday announced $17.5 million in grants for Botswana in Africa, as well as Latvia and Lithuania in Eastern Europe. The grants mark the first time the Seattle-based Gates Foundation has awarded money to Eastern European nations.
“We are hoping to expand our efforts and we are studying this region to determine where we could possibly collaborate in the future,” said Martha Choe, director of the foundation’s Global Libraries initiative.
The largest of the three grants will go to Latvia, which will use $16.2 million of the Gates money to put at least three computers in every library and to equip buildings with broadband and wireless connectivity. Latvia’s government will provide more than $21.1 million and Microsoft Latvia will provide more than $7.9 million in software.
The $1.1 million grant for Botswana will launch a pilot program to put computers and Internet connectivity in urban libraries and rural “reading rooms.” The $220,396 grant to the Republic of Lithuania will go toward a national effort to improve access to computers and the Internet in libraries.
The libraries initiative, launched in 2002 with grants to Chile and Mexico, is overseen by the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, which started in May. The program is evaluating ways to assist the developing world by improving agricultural productivity and access to financial services and technology resources, as well as by funding water and sanitation projects.
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