Dear GKD Colleagues,
Please find below the third edition of the Development Gateway
e-newsletter. We hope you will visit the Gateway site
<www.developmentgateway.org> and send us your comments and feedback on
the newsletter to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
Many thanks,
Development Gateway
Civil Society Team
______________________________________________________________________
THE DEVELOPMENT GATEWAY NEWSLETTER
Volume 1, Number 3 March 2001
In this issue:
> Content Development
> Country Gateways
> Partnerships and Outreach
> Responding to Users
> The Gateway Organization
> Contact Us
Content Development
E-government
Three members of the Development Gateway team attended the Third Global
Forum on governance in Naples, Italy, in March. The focus of this year's
conference was fostering democracy and development through e-government
applications and services. In cooperation with the World Bank's Public
Sector Management Division (PRMPS), the Gateway sponsored a
pre-conference working session on e-government for a group of 40
representatives from developing nations. During the session, the team
demonstrated the features and functionalities of the Gateway portal,
with special emphasis on the e-government topic page, and solicited
feedback and suggestions from this important client group.
The Gateway team also announced a two-day e-government workshop to be
hosted at the World Bank on June 11 and 12, which will also be
co-sponsored by PRMPS. The event will focus on e-government applications
and services, and their implementation in the developing world.
New Name: Accessible Information on Development Activities (AIDA)
Many people had difficulty with the name for the "projects database",
known as IDAI (Integrated Development Activity Information). When we
presented the project in Paris on November 2-3 at the OECD/DAC meeting,
the signals were that we needed to come up with a better name. Since
then, after much searching, we have settled on AIDA -- Accessible
Information on Development Activities.
Currently, there are roughly 177,000 records in the database -- this is
an accumulation of information provided by eight organizations
participating in AIDA. AIDA is a pilot project that is looking for ways
to leverage available information, and is seeking a solution to
facilitate timely and reliable access to information on development
activities. AIDA aims to provide a directory of information that is
available through the web sites of the participating organizations as
well as facilitate access to an aggregated cross-sectional view of
development activities for multiple donors by different criteria, such
as country, sector and project status. The example in the Gateway is the
first iteration of results from the pilot activity. Many issues related
to the process of gathering information, data reconciliation to identify
real duplicates, and aggregation of information about the same activity
reflecting different perspectives are challenges that the project is
addressing.
Country Gateways (CGs)
Twenty-five CG infoDev planning grants have so far been allocated, with
several more expected to be approved in the coming weeks. For more
information, see <www.infodev.org>. Most of these pilot CGs are in the
early phases of development, with a major emphasis on market analysis,
public awareness, and partnership-building activities. Work is also
starting on building prototype national development portals, preparing
project documentation, and setting up an inclusive and transparent
governance framework that will evolve toward public-private Country
Gateway organizations.
In Russia, the first public presentations and roundtable seminars on the
CG program were held during the conference, "The Future of Russia:
Towards Information Society in the 21 Century", in the Kremlin, and at
the Russia Internet Forum, held outside Moscow. The Russia Gateway
consortium includes some 50 private and public organizations including
leading internet providers, NGOs, major on-line portals, and the
Ministry of Telecommunications and Informatization. More information can
be found at <http://russia-gateway.ru>
In Kazakhstan, the team continues to build a comprehensive partnership
framework and organized a roundtable for civil society and the media to
discuss the establishment of the CG organization. Already, over 70 local
organizations from both public and private sectors are involved. Go to:
<http://www.kazakhstan-gateway.org/>
The Georgian team organized a series of workshops for various
stakeholders to present the Gateway program and portal to civil society,
academia, and the public and private sectors. The Georgia Development
Gateway Union has a very proactive Advisory Board, which provided
extensive support in technology and content issues. Go to:
<http://georgia-gateway.org/>
The Azerbaijan Gateway team launched the demo site of AzDG program at
<http://gateway.az> in early March, and conducted an extensive outreach
campaign that received substantial coverage in the local media.
In Romania, the newly created Ministry of Information Technology and
Communications is providing office space and other logistical support to
the CG team. The Romania Gateway prototype site was recently re-launched
at <http://www.romania-gateway.ro>
In Pakistan, the Gateway is participating at the IT Commerce Network
Asia 2001 Conference in Karachi in late March. This conference aims to
support trade matching of the global and regional IT players with
decision-makers from business and government. Akbar Khawaja, head of
Country Gateway operations, is representing the Gateway team. Link to
the conference web site at: <http://www.itcnasia.com/>
Partnerships and Outreach
Indigenous Peoples Topic Pages
As part of our efforts to highlight initiatives and experiences of civil
society, particularly in developing countries, the Gateway is currently
developing several topic pages on indigenous peoples development. This
is being undertaken in collaboration with international agencies and
indigenous organizations that have agreed to become institutional
guides. These organizations manage topic pages in an autonomous fashion,
and are establishing independent advisory committees to provide
resources and guidance. Below is a list of the topic pages and their
institutional guides:
Indigenous Peoples Fondo Indigena (Latin America) / Inter-American
Development Bank IDB (United States)
Indigenous Rights International Labor Organization ILO (Central America)
/ Inter-American Institute of Human Rights IIDH (Costa Rica)
Indigenous Health University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan
Coast Uraccan (Nicaragua)
Indigenous Knowledge Uganda National Council for Science and Technology
UNCST (Uganda)
There are three main objectives of these topic pages, to: i) provide
practical information, capacity-building tools, and access to resources;
ii) encourage indigenous peoples participation in macro-policy
decision-making; and iii) promote information exchange among indigenous
organizations. As part of the process of establishing these pages,
several needs assessment meetings were carried out by Gateway staff with
indigenous peoples in rural areas of Costa Rica, Venezuela, and
Guatemala. These surveys indicated that there is a growing demand and
interest among indigenous organizations for access to information and
resources via the internet. This new trend is vividly demonstrated by
the experiences of such groups as the Ashaninka community in the central
Amazon area of Peru <http://www.rcp.net.pe/ashaninka/> and the Mirrar
Art Group from the highlands of Thailand <http://www.bannok.com/>, both
of which are using the Internet effectively to further indigenous
peoples development.
The topic pages on indigenous peoples are in the process of being built
with information and resources ranging from articles and training tools
to directories, totaling 448 files and links. These pages are
envisioned to become virtual communities of practitioners, and thus we
invite indigenous organizations, CSOs, donor agencies, and others to
visit the pages and participate by posting their views, acquiring
information, and contributing knowledge.
Global Knowledge Partnership
The Gateway was represented by Robert Valantin in a meeting of the
Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) -- http://www.globalknowledge.org --
in Geneva in late March. More than 80 representatives from the public
and private sectors and civil society attended. Robert presented the
Gateway's involvement in two "action items" in the GKP's Action Plan.
More information on this meeting in the April newsletter.
Responding to Users
We regularly receive user feedback -- individual emails, notes to the
general email account, notes to the new e-newsletter account, online
feedback, and feedback from Topic Guides. This is in addition to the
many valuable comments we hear at the numerous meetings and conferences.
We recognize that we need to do a better job in demonstrating how we are
responding to this feedback, to show that we take seriously the comments
and suggestions. Thus, a new effort is underway to gather feedback
across the team in one place; analyze the substantial comments; and
close the feedback loop, by communicating what we did with the comments
we receive.
We plan to periodically post a brief analysis of this feedback in a new
section under "About Us" on the Gateway site, and in this section of the
e-newsletter. The analysis will elaborate on the kinds of feedback
received, and what action we took -- or didn't -- in response, and the
reasons why. We hope this will be useful, and welcome your suggestions
on how to do this most effectively.
The Gateway Organization
Gateway Foundation
On March 8, a proposal was presented to the World Bank's Board of
Executive Directors for the establishment of the Development Gateway
Foundation, a non-profit organization, which would be a public/private
partnership. The Board expressed their support for the proposal in
principle, and authorized further efforts to develop and help establish
the Development Gateway Foundation and to solicit the participation of
other organizations in the Development Gateway Foundation. A follow up
meeting with the Bank's Board will be arranged probably by mid-year to
assess efforts of the next few months.
The broad objectives of the Gateway Foundation are to:
Support sustainable development and poverty reduction through the
creation of a common Internet platform (the Development Gateway portal),
in partnership with the donor community, governments, the private
sector, civil society organizations, and other key development actors.
Create a knowledge resource that will catalogue, organize, and monitor
initiatives intended to diminish the digital divide and provide a forum
for discussions intended to promote partnerships and synergies between
civil society and the public and private sectors on key ICT issues. It
will also promote the development of an active network of experts on ICT
for development, training staff from partners to strengthen their
capacity for delivering projects in this area.
Establish a research and training center in the developing world where
ideas can be exchanged and programs can be tested on the ground.
Provide seed funding for selected projects and programs at the local,
national, regional, and global levels that are working to overcome the
digital divide and to foster the use of ICTs to enhance the fight
against poverty. Recipients will include local and national governments,
civil society organizations, NGOs, multilateral and bilateral donors,
and private enterprises engaged in projects with the potential for the
creation of significant public goods.
Contact Us
To send comments and feedback about the newsletter, or to subscribe or
unsubscribe, please send an email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Please
note that the general email address for the Gateway has changed. As of
end February, the email address is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. We will
no longer be able to retrieve messages sent to the previous account
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
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