The Administrator has been asked to chair the first session of the upcoming Broadband Commission meeting which will take place in New York on 21 September. The session will focus on ICTs in the post215 development agenda. It seems some of the Commissioners are unhappy about the recent OWG report in which ICTs are essentially…

Knowledge to master innovation, innovation to augment our stock of development knowledge 1. Earlier this year UNDP approved a new KM strategy which has 6 pillars: Organizational Learning and Knowledge Capture; Knowledge networking; Openness and public engagement; South-South Cooperation and External Client-Services; Measurement and incentives; and Talent management. Note the last three items which seem…

How can the new technologies empower women in politics and political situations and help them be active participants in policy and decision-making processes that directly affect their lives? Latest ITU data inform us that while global Internet penetration is close to 40% of the world’s population, mobile subscriptions are already reaching 100%. In turn, mobile…

Got an unexpected request from BDP to quickly provide one sentence on the role of UNDP on the above. Here is what I drafted in a rush. Forgot to ask though what was this for… As big data continues its grow path, UNDP should be fully aware of it implications, especially when it comes to…

We  received an unexpected and urgent email from UNDP Panamá requesting advice and help on Open Government. Apparently, the Ministry of Government of the newly elected government was asking UNDP to help in setting up ICT platforms that foster transparency and accountability, as well as lead to a possible crowdsourcing of a planned constitutional reform…

A recent report indicates that we are now creating 2.5 quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) everyday thanks to the explosion of new technologies and mobile devices. This is what now is known as big data.  The big issue with big data is the fact that almost 90% of such data is unstructured and thus…

Late last week I got a short notice request from both BoM and ITU to join an impromptu e conference call to discuss UNDP’s contribution to the inter-agency paper we are drafting. As I was unavailable in such notice, we all agree to  rescheduled the call for early this week. The day of the call…

Unlike last year, the GWG has set more modest goals for the annual Broadband Commission NY which usually precedes the opening of the UN General Assembly. This is probably the result of two things: 1. The upcoming change of the USG that heads the ITU and the resulting uncertainty as to the future of the…

The Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender has agreed to produce a short digital report for the upcoming meeting in New York on 21 September. Below is the draft outline I shared with the thematic cluster leaders who are supposed to complete 2 or 3 case studies. Case studies are a powerful way of sharing…

Here is the final version of the interview I did for the above. The final text was edited by Aid Connect staff. A pdf version of the magazine that contains the interview is here. Tell us about your background and experience I’m the Global Lead and Senior Policy Advisor on ICT for Development and e-governance…

After a few long weeks of silence, I got an unexpected message from the innovation center asking me if there was any chance that they could drop the participation element from the overall e-governance framework we shared with them during the mission last March. Even though the constitution of the Western Cape calls for public…

As it is now customary, we will be participating in this years’ WSIS review gathering in Geneva.  But this time it seems to be a very especial occasion for three reasons: 1. UNGIS, led by ITU, is pushing hard to have another global gathering right after the new development agenda is endorsed by the UN…

We received a request from the RR in Tunis on the above. Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is keen on moving on this as e-visas are a) a good way to capture revenue; and b) a starting point for strengthening security concerns at the national level  -with some inherent risks involved in terms of…

UNDP South Africa has been invited to be part of an expert group meeting that will discuss on the policy, legal and technical requirements for Open Government in South Africa on 5 – 6 June. Here are the remarks we drafted that will be delivered by UNDP’s Country Director

Below is the concluding sections of a crowdsourcing paper we submitted to ICEGOV 2014 for possible publication later in the year. 4.4 Main Findings All three examples studied above were undertaken by provincial and local governments where development gaps are usually more glaring. This indicates that in most cases it is probably better to start…