Terms & Conditions

Access to these sites is provided to you, the User, subject to the following terms and conditions which may be updated by us from time to time. Also, use of certain areas of the sites is subject to additional posted guidelines or rules applicable to such areas, and those guidelines or rules are hereby incorporated by reference into these terms and conditions.

1. Swisscontact maintains the Local Economic Development Network of Africa (LEDNA) web site  at http://www.ledna.org as a courtesy to those who may choose to access these sites ("Users"). LEDNA features information and services for development experts from Africa and all over the world.

2. Registration: You may browse LEDNA without registering. However, you may choose to register on the LEDNA portal to take advantage of additional services, such as access to email alerts, newsletters or contributing content to LEDNA. If you register on the LEDNA portal, you agree to provide current, complete and accurate registration information and to maintain such information as accurate, current and complete. LEDNA reserves the right to suspend or terminate any accounts and any and all current use of service, in the event that you provide any information that is inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or LEDNA has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current, incomplete or does not adhere to our community philosophy.

3. User Conduct: LEDNA may contain discussion groups, chat rooms, or other message, third party content or communication facilities (collectively, "Forums"). Users agree to use the Forums only to send and receive messages and material that are proper and related to the particular Forum. By way of example, and not as a limitation, Usera agree that when using a Forum, users shall not do any of the following:

A. Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others.

B. Publish, post, distribute or disseminate any defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent or unlawful material or information.

C. Upload or attach files that contain software or other material protected by intellectual property laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consents.

D. Upload or attach files that contain viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of another's computer.

E. Delete any author attributions, legal notices or proprietary designations or labels in any file that is uploaded.

F. Falsify the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is uploaded.

We reserve the right to terminate service to you, in our sole discretion, with or without notice, if we believe that your conduct fails to conform with this Agreement, to investigate and to involve and cooperate with law enforcement authorities, and to pursue a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution for any alleged or actual illegal activities involving the LEDNA portal or any of its services.

4. Use of Site Content: LEDNA contain information, text, graphics, software, and other content (the "Site Content"). The Site Content is protected under the Creative Common Licence.

5. Contributed Content: We do not claim ownership of content you submit or make available (“Contributed Content”) for inclusion in the LEDNA portal, its services and Forums. However, with respect to original Contributed Content for inclusion in the LEDNA portal, its services and Forums, you grant LEDNA a perpetual, royalty-free license to use as defined under the Creative Commons Licence.

6. Public Forums: Users acknowledge that all Forums are public and not private communications. Further, Users acknowledges that chats, postings, conferences, e-mails and other communications by other users are not endorsed by LEDNA and such communications shall not be considered reviewed, screened, or approved by LEDNA. LEDNA reserves the right for any reason to remove without notice any Contributed Content from the Forums.

7. Disclaimer of Warranties: While LEDNA endeavours to provide current and accurate information, site content is provided “as is” and “as available”. LEDNA does not warrant the availability of the LEDNA portal nor the accuracy, completeness or currency of the site content or any material provided through the LEDNA portal, its services or forums, and does not warrant that the LEDNA portal operates error free nor that defects, errors or omissions will be corrected or that the LEDNA portal is completely secure. LEDNA expressly disclaims any and all warranties of any kind, including but not limited to implied, express or statutory warranties as to non-infringement of intellectual property rights, or third party rights, title, latent defects, uninterrupted service, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and freedom from computer viruses.

8. Disclaimer of Liability: In no event will LEDNA be liable to you for any damages, including without limitation, direct or indirect, special incidental, moral or consequential damages, loss of profits, opportunities or information or for expenses arising in connection with your use of the LEDNA portal, its services, forums or site content, even if LEDNA is advised of the possibility of such damages, losses or expenses.

9. Disclaimer of Endorsement: The LEDNA Portal contains links to third-party web sites. The linked sites are not under the control of LEDNA and LEDNA is not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. The appearance on the LEDNA Portal of the name or logo of another entity, or the appearance of a link to another entity's site, does not indicate endorsement or referral by LEDNA of the other entity or its products and services, and LEDNA expressly disclaims any such endorsement or referral.

10. Governing Law, Choice of Jurisdiction: This Agreement will be interpreted and enforced in accordance with the laws of South Africa. User agrees to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of South Africa.

Privacy

1. Information Collection
In general, you can browse the portal without telling us who you are and without revealing any personally identifiable information about yourself.
When we ask for personally identifiable information, it is used only to provide the information you have requested as well as other key announcements from LEDNA.
We collect statistical information based upon the behavior of users of our portal. We use this information only to do internal research on our users' demographics, interests and preferences, and to better understand, protect and serve you and our community.

2. Use and Disclosure of Information
We use your personally identifiable information to facilitate the services you request (e.g. newsletters, email alerts and member directory).
As a matter of policy, we do not rent or sell any of your personally identifiable information to any third parties.
LEDNA reserves the right to publish non-personally identifiable, summary information regarding our visitors and users for promotional purposes and as a representative audience for potential sponsors of our work.

3. Accessing, Reviewing and Changing of Personally Identifiable Information

A) Registered users become members of LEDNA. We can offer members the ability to review and directly change their information they submit to us by logging into LEDNA.

B) You can deactivate your registration and contact information from our active database by sending us an email to service@ledna.org.

C) Only LEDNA members can upload documents and use all the interactive features of the LEDNA website without limitations.

D) Anonymous users can only see LEDNA members’ name, but cannot access their profiles, and can only comment on information provided by members if commenting is approved by the members.

E) LEDNA members can browse profiles and can contact other members via an electronic form. The e-mail address is protected, but members can decide themselves whether they wish to share their e-mail address with other members.

F) We will retain in our files some personally identifiable information to resolve technical problems, enforce our Terms and Conditions and comply with legal requirements as is permitted by law.

4. Other Information Collectors and Security

A) The portal contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other websites.

B) Our portal has stringent security measures in place to prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of information under our control.