[GKD] Soros: Transparency Can Alleviate Poverty
Dear Colleagues, From time to time, List Members have raised the issue of transparency and accountability and its importance in aiding development. The following article by George Soros describes some recent developments in this area. Mike Gurstein * Transparency Can Alleviate Poverty By George Soros Financial Times (16 March 2005) http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cbef3bc0-9640-11d9-8fcc-0e2511c8.html Countries that are rich in natural resources are often poor because exploiting those resources takes precedence over good government. Competing oil and mining companies, backed by their governments, have often been willing to deal with anyone who could assure them of a concession. This has bred corrupt and repressive governments and armed conflict. In Africa, civil wars have devastated resource-rich countries such as Congo, Angola and Sudan. In the Middle East, democracy has failed to materialise. Lifting this resource curse could make a large contribution to alleviating poverty and misery in the world, and there is an international movement aimed at doing just that. The first step is transparency; the second is accountability. The movement started a few years ago with the Publish What You Pay campaign, which urged oil and mining companies to disclose payments to governments. In response, the British government launched the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). On Thursday, three years into the process, the UK will convene an important EITI conference in London, to be attended by representatives of governments, business and civil society. Much has been accomplished. International extractive companies are starting to acknowledge the value and necessity of greater transparency. BP has agreed to disclose disaggregated payment information on its operations in Azerbaijan, and Royal Dutch/Shell is doing the same in Nigeria. ChevronTexaco recently negotiated an agreement with Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe that requires publication of company payments in the joint production zone. Investors representing nearly $7,000bn (£3,650bn, Ä5,250bn) in capital have endorsed EITI and called on companies to be more transparent in the reporting of payments. But the most encouraging sign comes from the producing countries themselves. Nigeria is reorganising its state oil company, introducing transparency legislation, and launching sweeping audits of the oil and gas sector. It plans to begin publishing details of company payments to the state this summer. The Kyrgyz Republic became the first country to report under EITI, for a large gold mining project. Azerbaijan will report oil revenues later this month. Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago have also signed up. Peru, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor are in negotiations to implement the initiative. Equally important, local activists are starting to use EITI as way of demanding greater accountability for government spending. My own foundation, the Open Society Institute, has established Revenue Watch programmes in producing countries. But there is a lot more to be done. Two-thirds of the world's most impoverished people live in about 60 developing countries or countries in transition to the free market that depend on oil, mining or gas revenues. The recently published transparency index from Save the Children UK, the charity, shows that transparency is the exception, not the rule. Many important producing countries have yet to make even a gesture towards disclosure. Angola, Bolivia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Chad, Mauritania and Gabon are among the countries outside EITI that need to be brought in. There is no reason why big Middle Eastern producers and Indonesia should not join this transparency push and embrace the EITI. It is also critical that state-owned companies, which account for the bulk of global oil and gas production, be subject to full disclosure. Other governments need to follow the UK and help expand the EITI. France appears to have done little to encourage countries within its sphere of influence, let alone ask its own companies to disclose information. The Bush administration's recent decision to initiate a parallel anti-corruption process through the Group of Eight leading industrial nations leaves the US outside the leading international forum for addressing resource revenue transparency and reinvents the wheel. The US and Britain have not used their power in Iraq to promote transparency in the oil sector. Let us hope the new Iraqi government does better. It is difficult to see how democracy can take root if the country's most important source of income remains as veiled in secrecy as it was under Saddam. The EITI is one of the most effective vehicles available for achieving a global standard of disclosure and accountability. This week's summit is an opportunity to define more precisely what it means to implement the EITI by establishing some basic minimum requirements for host countries. Those committed to
[GKD] UK Government Moves To Outcome Based Conditionality
A potentially very important development. MG - [via PRS Watch] UK Government Moves To Outcome Based Conditionality Report: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/conditionality.pdf The UK Government launched a new policy on conditionality this week, which calls for outcome based conditionality and a de-linking from World Bank and IMF lending signals. The new policy paper 'Partnerships for Poverty Reduction: Rethinking Conditionality' notes that the UK Government will stop making their aid conditional on specific policy conditions, including in sensitive economic areas such as privatization or trade liberations. Instead, the report notes that aid will be provided on the basis of a set of jointly agreed outcome or impact based benchmarks drawn from developing countries own national plans, where possible. Conditionality will be limited to fiduciary concerns only and used to ensure aid is not used corruptly or for purposes other than those intended. The policy states that the UK government will be steered by the following five principles: *Developing country ownership *Participatory and evidence-based policy-making *Predictability *Harmonisation *Transparency and accountability Amongst other things, the policy states that the UK Government will work with other donors to improve aid harmonization and limit the overall burden of conditionality. In particular, the report notes that the UK Government will encourage the World Bank and the IMF to monitor and streamline their combined terms and conditions. Interestingly, the policy also notes that though the UK government will continue to use the analysis from the IMF and the World Bank in making its assessment of progress towards poverty reduction, it will not always follow their funding signals. An IMF or World Bank program going 'off-track' will not automatically lead DFID to suspend its assistance. Finally, the report highlights the circumstances in which the UK will consider reducing or interrupting aid: a) countries move significantly away from agreed poverty reduction objectives or outcomes or the agreed objectives of a particular aid commitment (e.g. through an unjustifiable rise in military spending, or a substantial deviation from the agreed poverty reduction program); or b) countries are in significant violation of human rights or other international obligations; or c) there is a significant breakdown in partner government financial management and accountability. Civil society groups have been broadly welcoming of the report, but question whether it will actually be put into practice. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] Proceedings of Community Informatics Research Network Conference Now Available
The Community Informatics Research Network http://www.ciresearch.net held its 2004 Inaugural Conference and Colloquium with the theme, 'Sustainability and Community Technology: What Does this Mean for Community Informatics?', at the Monash Centre, Prato, Italy, 29 September - 1 October, 2004. Proceedings are now available for purchase. The CIRN 2004 Prato Conference proceedings (ISBN 0-9581058-3-9) include all the refereed and non-refereed papers from the academic, practitioner, and PhD streams. There are 48 papers in the two volumes, coming to more than 600 pages of text and graphics, with contributions from many countries. The Proceedings are an excellent resource for your organisation's research, teaching, and practical activity in community informatics. Additional information (including the table of contents, list of authors and introduction) is available at http://www.communities.org.ru/prato/ Proceedings CD: In addition to all the conference papers being reproduced as bookmarked PDFs, the Proceedings CD contains: * MP3 sound files of the Conference Opening and Keynotes from Don Schauder, Laura Ripamonti, Erica Rosalen and Mike Gurstein, as well as their accompanying Powerpoint presentations. * 200+ Prato photos taken by participants * Inaugural Issue of the Journal of Community Informatics * CIRN Brochure * CIRN Cape Town 2005 Announcement Publishers of the book are the Centre for Community Networking Research, School of Information Management Systems Monash University and Community Informatics Research Network, Inc. The book has been desk-published in Russia by the Centre of Community Networking and Information Policy Studies (CCNS). To order and purchase a copy of the proceedings please go to: www.ciresearch.net/proc2004.htm. As the number of copies printed is limited, you are encouraged to order promptly. Priority will be given to e-payments via Paypal. If you have not used Paypal before, please follow the instructions carefully, as refunds will include an additional cost of transfer fees. If you require a purchase order or are only able to pay by international bank transfer, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] as soon as possible to expedite arrangements. The cost of the two volumes and CD is AUD 76 (approximately EUR45,USD58) plus AUD 17 (approximately EUR10, USD13) postage and handling per set. Estimated surface mail times within Europe are two weeks, North America four weeks, and up to two months for other countries. Current CIRN members will receive a 10% discount on the volumes. We invite you to purchase additional copies for your institution, and to distribute the information below to colleagues. As there are only a limited number of copies available for purchase, please encourage them to do so quickly! Best regards, Anna Petrova Centre of Community Networking and Information Policy Studies (CCNS) St. Petersburg, Russia http://www.communities.org.ru ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] Southeast Asia Tsunami and the Effective Use of Community ICTs
Dear GKD Members, I guess like everyone else, I've been watching the tragic events unfold on television with a sense of sadness and powerlessness. Not much that one can do from so far away except at this point to make a donation and to make the kinds of noises that get governments to move away from inactivity. Fortunately my family and I weren't personally impacted so far as we know, but the events took on a very direct force when we saw what seemed to be video from a resort in Thailand where we had stayed 3 years ago and which indicated that the bungalow where we were staying would have been completely inundated by the wave. And thinking of it and scanning the Net for information and for stories I'm struck by a couple of things concerning the role (and lack of role) of the Net in these events. The Net appears to be playing a very significant part in responding to the needs of those at a distance--the on-lookers for information, stories, ways of contributing and so on; families and friends of those possibly impacted with attempts at creating listings of the found and the lost and for those on the ground to manage the concerns and queries of those farther away; and one expects that behind the scenes much of the co-ordination and planning that is being done by aid organizations is being done in ways that are pushing the boundaries of Computer Mediated Communication and managing at a distance. But I guess I'm a bit surprised that the Net wasn't able (yet?) to bridge the information divides between those who had some idea about what might be coming (the scientists and those immediately impacted) and those who might have been able to make some use of that information in the places where the impact took appreciable time to be realized. The problem here was not, I think, a Digital Divide, rather than perhaps it is another example of what I've referred to elsewhere as the gap between access and effective use http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html. From what I can gather most if not all of the communities impacted had Internet access in one form or another. What they (and here I would include those with the knowledge who couldn't use it as well as those without knowledge) lacked, rather, was the social, organizational, informational, and applications infrastructure which could have turned Internet access into an effectively usable early warning system. Those who had the information couldn't use it, and those who needed the information couldn't/didn't get it. The degrees of separation imposed by nationality, language and perhaps most important, domains of knowledge and profession (and the related social linkages, network based trust relationships, communication pathways and so on), just weren't there--and one wonders whether that was simply a matter of it still being early days in our Internetted world or something more profound and permanent. It seems likely that some sort of Tsunami Early Warning System will be set up in the region probably with an ICT base (I seem to recall something similar being in place for the Pacific Islands, for hurricanes as well as Tsunami's I would assume), but given the infrequency of these events, how useful it will be seems questionable. So I'm wondering now whether rather than spending a huge amount of money creating a dedicated Tsunami Early Warning System, the governments in the region (or better yet the effected communities) wouldn't be better advised to think about how to use the access that they have available to them in ways that will allow them to have some warning. This would mean that they develop local means for scanning the information universe and then ways of linking the knowledge that results into local social and institutional structures that can translate that knowledge into effective uses such as early warnings. Here I'm not thinking just of what are almost singular events like Tsunamis, but also of more recurrent weather events and even more common social, economic and political events in the larger world that will have a potential impact, sometimes negative, but also potentially positive, on community well-being. From a Community Informatics perspective, I'm also wondering whether there shouldn't be a significant future role. Certainly, the Community side of the equation will be of immense importance as much of the reconstruction will be done of and through existing local communities. But what of the Informatics side. Some skepticism has been expressed concerning the value of ICTs in this context where the need for water, shelter and food are so pressing. Certainly, there is a need for Management/Organizational Informatics at least from the perspective of managing aid and a considerable degree of infrastructure reconstruction. But what of Community Informatics...Is this something to be left to a later stage when other matters have been dealt with and as has been suggested, there is some resources and time available for what some
[GKD] Invitation to Virtual Conference on Indigenous ICT Use
Kuh-ke-nah International Indigenous SMART Communities Gathering 17-18 March, 2004 In the Oji-Cree language of Northern Ontario in Canada, Kuh-ke-nah means everyone...together. For Oji-Cree people it describes a traditional network of families living and surviving in the vast wilderness that we now know as the Canadian Shield. Today, Kuh-ke-nah also describes Canadas SMART First Nations. The SMART First Nations Demonstration project is a three year initiative led by the Keewaytinook Okimakanak (Northern Chiefs) Council in partnership with the government of Canada that blends community leadership with technological innovation. Together with everyone the Kuh-ke-nah First Nations are defining a new network of community development, opportunity and wellness. During the past ten years, the Deer Lake, Fort Severn, Keewaywin, North Spirit Lake and Poplar Hill First Nations have applied information and communications technologies (ICTs) to build new skills and transfer knowledge, reduce longstanding forms of cultural isolation and physical remoteness and enhance community well-being. Since 2000, these communities have adopted a SMART approach to ICT development. Each year theyve identified and implemented new education, health and cultural services. And everyday the people living in the SMART First Nations are showing others how everyone really can be brought together through the use of ICTs. The Kuh-ke-nah International Indigenous Gathering is the culminating event of the SMART First Nations Project. The Gathering will provide a virtual space for bringing together Indigenous people from around the world to show how they have used information and communications technologies. Participants will demonstrate on-line how they are influencing positive change in their communities by addressing community needs, achieving community development goals, improving community services, supporting cultural expression and building new capacities. The Kuh-ke-nah Network will host a virtual two day conference where lessons learned, good practices and the SMART project outcomes will be shared. On-line delegates and guests will exchange views and workshop new approaches and alliances. Kuh-ke-nah Chiefs and community ICT champions will show how advanced e-learning, telemedicine and community development applications have been both influenced and supported by Indigenous values and needs. This conference will appeal to Indigenous ICT workers and policy-makers alike. Community representatives as well as government, academic and industry representatives will make the Kuh-ke-nah SMART International Gathering a diverse and rich experience -- a new world of communities in development. Register now at: http://smart.knet.ca/international ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] CFP: Building Bridging Community Networks Conference
, University of Brighton Michael Gurstein, (Visiting) Professor, School of Management New Jersey Institute of Technology Don Schauder, Professor, School of Information Management and Systems, Monash University Graeme Johanson, School of Information Management and Systems/Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash University Larry Stillman, School of Information Management and Systems/Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash University Michel Menou, CoVITALC, Latin America Caribbean Scott S. Robinson, Depto. De Antropologia, Universidad Metropologia, Mexico Stewart Marshall, Professor, Faculty of Informatics Communication, Central Queensland University Wal Taylor, Faculty of Informatics Communication, Central Queensland University Send abstracts, position papers, full papers to Peter Day [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please forward to relevant lists, and please excuse cross-postings ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] Community Informatics Research Network
(This is in partial response it seems to Margaret Grieco's post about Public Sociologies)... MG -- Community Informatics: Enabling Communities With Information and Communications Technologies At the Many Voices, Many Places - Electronically Enabling Communities for An Information Society Colloquium http://www.ccnr.net/prato2003/ held at the Monash University Centre in Prato, Italy a group of participants from some 7 countries and representing a variety of universities and research networks agreed to proceed to the creation of a formal Community Informatics Research Network (.Org) (CIRN). There was an agreement by the CIRN Interim Committee of the Whole that the organization would be open to participation and membership by individuals, institutions, for profit and not for profit enterprises and networks, with an active interest and involvement in Community Informatics Research and particularly those from Developing Countries. The approach agreed to was also that this organisation would seek to build a network of the related organizations that for subject, language or other reasons feel more comfortable operating on their own. In other words it would be pro-actively facilitating the formation of a structured open network among CI research groups. An interim executive steering committee consisting of Michael Gurstein, NJIT; Peter Day, U. of Brighton; and Don Schauder, Monash U./Wal Taylor, Central Queensland U., and Larry Stillman of Monash U. as the Interim Secretary/webmaster was formed to work towards the timely incorporation of the group as a not for profit society under the Australian corporations act. In addition, an invitation was extended by Dr. Peter Day and Brighton University to host CIRN's first research conference in the spring of 2004. The Founding conference of CIRN it was agreed, would be hosted by Monash University at the Prato Centre in late September 2004. It was also agreed that the CI Researchers list http://vancouvercommunity.net/lists/ciresearchers would be the e-list for the organization and that a website based on the design developed by CQU would go on line as soon as possible and hosted by Monash U. in conjunction with CQU. Michael Gurstein agreed to provide an interim linkage with the newly created CI Research Network of the Commonwealth of Independent States formed in conjunction with the St. Petersburg (BIC) conference http://communities.org.ru/conference/ Several members of the Interim Committee of the Whole agreed to liase with a variety of other CI research networks and specifically the CRACIN network in Canada and the network which is currently being created in the United States. It was further agreed that efforts would be undertaken to find resources to move forward with the continued development of the Open Archive Community Informatics Text Book building on the work of Sergei Stafeev, Mike Gurstein and Michel Menou in the publication in English and Russian of Community Networking and Community Informatics: Prospects, Approaches, Instruments Part 1 of a CI Text book (St. Petersburg, 2003) And the website http://www.ci-text.dr.ag/ A statement to be forwarded to the World Summit on the Information Society on behalf of CIRN was adopted and will be circulated in a subsequent message. Those with an interest in either affiliating with the Network or learning more about it are invited to subscribe to the Research list or to the more general Community Informatics interest list. To subscribe send a message To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message: Subscribe CIResearchers And/or Communityinformatics Best, Peter Day, U. of Brighton Michael Gurstein, NJIT Don Schauder, Monash U./Wal Taylor, Central Queensland U. Community Informatics Researchers News: * An informal meeting in conjunction with the Information, Communications and Society Conference at the Oxford Internet Institute in the UK http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/event/conference/iCS/iCS2003_programme.pdf, agreed that efforts would be undertaken immediately to begin the development of an on-line journal with interim resource support committed as available through NJIT/NSF; CIRA in Teeside, UK; Monash U. in Australia; and the CRACIN Network in Canada. A follow-up meeting to brainstorm on the design and development of the journal will be held in conjunction with the AoIR meeting in Toronto in October and with an interim discussion on the CIResearchers e-list as a lead-up to that meeting. * Dr. Peter van den Besselaar, Head of the Social Sciences Department Netherlands Institute of Scientific Information, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, (NIWI-KNAW) presented an important outline of the scope of Community Informatics Research including its links to his own work in Digital Cities and related Community Networks, in a keynote presentation at the Communities and Technology Conference in Amsterdam http://www-winfo.uni-siegen.de/wulf/CT2003/ . * Brian
[GKD] Computer Virus Vaccination Day
How about some positive viral marketing with this idea. MG -Original Message- From: Annie Brody [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: March 5, 2002 2:34 PM Subject: Virus Vaccination Day April 20th 2002 Dear Colleagues, I apologize for multiple postings of this message. Feel free to forward to other organizations you think might be interested. NPower NY, NY Cares, and Symantec Present Virus Vaccination Day April 20th 2002! WHAT IS VIRUS VACCINATION DAY? Virus Vaccination Day is a one-day community service event devoted to helping New York City non-profits protect themselves against prolific computer viruses. Computer viruses, like their human counterparts, come in all kinds of forms and degrees of malignancy, from less harmful strains that insert the word wazzu into Microsoft Word documents, to extremely harmful varieties that can cause hard disks - or entire networks - to crash. Specially-trained volunteers will install donated virus protection software from Symantec on non-profit computers. To round out the virus check-up, volunteers will tutor agency staff in how to update their software in the future, perform general computer maintenance, and inventory their hardware and software for future technology planning. WHO IS ORGANIZING VIRUS VACCINATION DAY? Virus Vaccination Day is a collaboration between NPower NY and New York Cares. NPower NY is dedicated to putting technology know-how in the hands of New York City's non-profits. New York Cares' mission is to unite and enable caring New Yorkers to help people in need and improve our city through volunteer service and creative giving. NEED MORE INFORMATION? Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call 212-677-9622. Annie Brody Director, Special Projects TechFoundation 20 University Road Cambridge, MA 02138 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.techfoundation.org www.imakenews.com/techfoundation TechFoundation delivers technology, expertise and capital to help nonprofit organizations to harness the power of information technology to serve humanity. We envision a world where nonprofit organizations can access the same resources to serve humanity that businesses use to create wealth. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
