Government to donate more PCs to Africa

The government has hinted strongly that it could send growing numbers of its old PCs and laptops to be reused in the developing world.

Speaking at an event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of IT re-use charity Computer Aid International, Shahid Malik MP, Minister for International Development, said that growing numbers of government departments were considering working with the charity to donate end-of-life IT equipment to projects in the developing world, adding that the Department for Children Schools and Families was currently investigating the idea.

Malik said that given the recent spate of lost government laptops, it had been particularly impressed with Computer Aid's policy of wiping data from all donated machines and tracking where they ended up.

He added that there was a strong case for donating PCs to be reused, noting that the practice limited environmental effects and aided development projects in countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

Computer Aid claims that re-use represents the most environmentally friendly means of disposing of IT equipment on the grounds that the bulk of carbon emissions are associated with a computer are released during its manufacture. Consequently, it makes sense to use a computer for the full length of its working life and not break it up after just three years.

Malik also pledged that the Department for International Development would donate 1,000 used laptops and would continue to campaign across government for other departments to follow suit.

Since 1998, Computer Aid has shipped over 100,000 PCs and laptops to not-for-profit education, agriculture and health organisations in more than 100 developing countries. It is currently aiming to reach a target of 50,000 donated PCs and laptops this year.

Computer Aid International founder Tony Roberts said that the pipeline of donations was currently pretty strong, as more and more firms upgrade their PCs to support Microsoft's new Vista operating system. But he added that demand for the machines from projects in the developing world was also continuing to climb rapidly. As a result, the requirements for new computers invariably outstrips the number Computer Aid can offer. "We always need more machines," he said.