Our specialist areas are issues of energy and the environment, gender and development mainstreaming the notion that women represent the greatest untapped resource for the upliftment of the lives of whole communities, and issues of political formation and development, focussing on policy and decision-making at all levels, as well as recognition and enhancement of the strategic value of traditional African structures of authority.

The AIC started out in life as a set of study aids for undergraduate students of African Studies at Midlands universities in the UK. Many of these study aids were placed onto a website. Aspects such as news about Africa, links to other institutions, carrying out study into different aspects of Africa, maps and library links were staple features.

Since its early beginnings, the AIC has expanded its operations substantially from its original base altho' the provision of information and teaching aids is still very much at the core of the organisation. We are based in Birmingham in the UK and our activities range from the supply of information on Africa to the provision of courses, workshops and seminars for a variety of clients on issues related not just to development but also to issues of political formation, identity, ethnicity, social construction of contemporary modes of citizenship and subjectivity. We also promote our own small development initiative in western Zambia.

Clients for workshops on these issues range from NGOs to universities, government departments and commercial organisations seeking to upgrade the knowledge base of personnel attached to operations in the developing world.

The AIC's founder is Lawrence Flint. After a 20-year career in management in the commercial world of the UK and Africa, Lawrence went back to academia in 1995, completed a BA in Geography and African Studies, an MPhil in political formation in Africa and is currently completing a PhD thesis on the social construction of notions of citizenship and subjectivity in central southern Africa. Fatma Denton majored in French at universities in Dakar, Besancon and Paris, and political science in Paris where she completed a Masters. Later, she completed a PhD thesis on the foreign policy of small developing states at Birmingham. Fatma currently carries out policy and gender analysis in energy and the environment.

With regard to the AIC website, mission objectives are as follows:

• to provide the widest and most up to date range of links to the online media of Africa as well as to news agencies elsewhere in the world who provide specific coverage of Africa. The idea is to provide coverage both to the non-Africanist world as well as to the African Diaspora and those whose interests lie in the continent for whatever reason. Implicit within this objective is the wish to provide evidence that the African continent is composed of lands and peoples, not all of whom are involved or subject to the vagaries of warfare, poor governance, poverty, starvation or other types of catastrophe, human-created or otherwise as the northern media would have the world believe. As part of this objective, a short daily summary of various stories in a wide variety of fields from all over the continent appears in an in-line frame on the Africanews homepage.
• to provide a full set of country by country files dedicated to the provision of as much information on that country as possible through the provision of links and text. Currently, basic coverage includes a map, flag, sets of vital statistics, news links and links to academic institutions and government departments (under construction). The range of info provided here will broaden to include a fuller range of economic statistics, features from around the country provided by local authors and writers etc. The emphasis here is on providing full coverage of Africa, not just Sub-Saharan Africa (as if there were some wall erected from west to east across the Sahara) and not just mainland Africa (as if the islands off the eastern and western coasts of Africa were somehow, not part of and peopled by Africans).
• to provide an ever-expanding range of links to academic institutions specialising in African studies or some aspect of study in Africa. Information will be sought on each institution featured, most of which will be provided by the institution itself. The emphasis here is to feature not only those institutions in the North and South Africa who already have a great deal of exposure on the World Wide Web and in other mediums but also academic institutions within Africa which to date do not have the resources or manpower to publicise their valuable and vital activities. It is expected that these links will become interactive. However, the form in which this will happen is yet to be defined.
• to provide sets of other links, specifically a range of links to government departments all over the African continent. Often, these sites teem with information and resources. The issue of development features strongly on the site with pages linked to specific development agencies, a feature due to expand in the coming months. Links will be made directly to these agencys' sites if such sites are available. Other themes are libraries with an emphasis on Africa, maps of Africa and a set of search engines.
• to develop an online community of AIC 'watchers' and to publish a monthly newsletter that features analysis of hot news issues, developments on the AIC site, African recipes, coming events, a message board and lists of new members. This newsletter is currently sent by e-mail in Word format and will soon appear one week after being sent to members as a web page for general public view. The emphasis here is on interactivity and the objective of extending 'ownership' of the site to a broad Africanist community.

At the start of the twenty first century, the emphasis in the world economy is on the knowledge industry, and information and communications technologies (ICTs). Africa must not be left behind or excluded from this contemporary technological thrust. The mission statement of the AIC is to become the largest provider of access to unbiased and objective information on Africa for Africans and non-Africans alike.

The Africa Information Centre is concerned about Africa's future, present and past. It is dedicated to all those, from whatever colour or creed who care, in whatever way, about Africa and its people.