Dear GKD members, I would like to join this interesting discussion on e-readiness, especially since the Development Gateway was mentioned in the first message from Mr. Hopmann, dated May 6, regarding the Harvard e-Readiness Guide. My name is Calin Lupan and I am on the Development Gateway team, my role being to help Country Gateways (our project counterparts in developing countries) to elaborate their models and strategies for the local ICT development initiatives. As part of this process, Country Gateway teams perform an e-readiness assessment to research and understand the context of the country where the project will be implemented.
More than 20 of the currently over 40 Country Gateway teams have already produced an e-readiness report. Most of them are indeed using the Harvard Guide, although this was not a requirement, and teams are free to choose the methodology they want to follow. My sense is that teams choose to follow the Harvard Guide mostly because the methodology is straightforward in its application, as well as being cost-effective. These are important factors for many of the Country Gateway teams, which are operating in countries where ICT research and analysis are still very new. As it relates to the context of a Country Gateway, I can also mention some limitations that result from an ad-literam application of the Harvard Guide. These are the quality of local Internet content, the existence of a digital divide within the country itself, the existence of an enabling legal framework (laws regulating e-commerce, copyright protection, digital signature, etc), and the utilization of ICT (particularly the Internet) to create wealth or to sustain a project. (This is very important for Country Gateways, which aim to become self-sustainable within a certain period of time.) Nevertheless, I don't think the Guide should be dismissed as a tool for e-readiness assessments. Our recommendation to any team that chooses this tool is to adapt it to the local situation and to the scope of the Country Gateway project in the particular country (which is also a recommendation by the Guide's authors). The Guide gives an excellent framework for organizing a "quest for knowledge," and its system of assigning ratings is very useful -- this gives a project like a Country Gateway (which aims at promoting ICT development and hence increasing the e-readiness of a country) the possibility to assess over time its impact. Some specific solutions we found to the limitations I mention above include: assigning dual ratings for e-readiness factors to reflect the internal digital divide, more focus on commercial utilization of ICT, qualitative analysis of the local content, and analysis of ICTs other than Internet for distribution of content. I have to say that most of those Country Gateway teams that customized the guide produced some very good assessments and were able to position themselves as competent and useful initiatives. You might be interested to see the Country Gateway reports, which are made public on a country-by-country basis on the Development Gateway site, at: <http://www.developmentgateway.org/node/137849/cs-docs?d_id=1> Best regards, Calin Lupan Development Gateway [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: Http://developmentgateway.org ------------ ***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/>
