Yesterday afternoon, I got a surprise call from UNDP Cairo late in the afternoon -or almost midnight in Egypt. UNDP Cairo has been essentially covering GKP. I thus shared my mission report with them. But the call was not about GKP, not at all. While the governance team here in NY and in the RSC had already completed a governance strategy for Egypt (and I was not involved at all!), Cairo was calling to explore ways in which we can support two things: a) social networks as a tool for governments to reach out to people; and b) open government and open data. A mission to Egypt was suggested by the CO. I will head there the last week of April, before I head to Jeddah to attend the FOSS meeting that the government and partners is holding there.
I also spent a couple of days this week finalizing inputs for the Mid-Term Review and the Annual Report (MTR/AR). I was volunteered by DGG management to do so. This is usually a never ending process. But we did manage to make our submission by the deadline (COB Thursday), beating all other BDP practices. I think the quality of the report is improving but it still needs more work.
The Italian saga continues but I am still pushing back PB who seems eager to return the funds to Italy. My view on this is that we should not move a finger until we get an official response from Italy to the Macedonia proposal, followed by an official request to return the resources.
I missed BDP’s Town Hall meeting but heard I did not missed much. The so-called multi-practice groups were formally announce but did not include the one on m-development as discussed with BDP and DGG management. I later asked BDP DIR and was told that I should go ahead regardless.
