The ambitions of the Dutch government are to provide a first class, affordable, accessible and reliable (tele)communication infrastructure; a premium quality know-how position; citizens and firms capable of gaining access to the new electronic media and gaining skills in them. The Dutch government stimulates "long-life learning" and stimulates the elderly and disabled people to participate employment longer. The opinion of the government is that ICT is a tool to facilitate a social life for every citizen.
A goal formulated in the government-program Care 2002: focus on ICT and disabled people with a view to increase the accessibility of internet services for disabled people to reinforce their social position. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is promoting the use of ICT-products to enable work from home, which will increase the labour participation of work-disabled people. One driving force among others is to extend labour participation of older people because of labour shortage, non-age discrimination and social participation of elderly people. There are no official legislation/regulations in this respect. The policy of government is that government has the responsibility to facilitate the following processes:
The government supports several projects to stimulate the elderly people to use ICT-applications, e.g., Seniorweb: internet use in (housing)care centres, many courses for internet organised by lobby groups for elderly, internet-access in public buildings such as public libraries. There is no official legislation/regulations in this regard but the Dutch government supports several initiatives as follows:
There are many different lobby groups active in the Netherlands for older people. The most prominent include the following: the Unie KBO, which is an Association of Catholic Organisations of Senior Citizens (6-7% of the Dutch elderly > 50 years is a member); ANBO, the league for 50+ (5-6% of the Dutch elderly > 50 years is a member); (PCOB) De Protestants Christelijk Ouderen Bond(2-3% of the Dutch elderly > 50 years is a member)'Vitality in Age' is the Brabant approach to an innovative policy for the elderly; National Bureau Discrimination of the Elderly (LBL), Seniorweb and the National Deliberation Council Discrimination of the Elderly (LOL).
Unie KBO develops new activities, such as in the area of IT, and supports local KBO's in conducting these activities. A project group of the Unie KBO, in co-operation with KITTZ, is called "elderly people and technique" and this project group has three subjects: ICT, technical devices and utensils. Every year there is an over 50s market in the Netherlands with 95.000 visitors (2001), where a lot of attention is given tot eh use of ICTs for older people.
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