We were requested to submit th above report early this week. The actual ROAR reports on this SL are appalling as we usually get very few countries (between 10 -15 per year) directly reporting here. Luckily we have our almost annual mapping exercises and clear evidence of CO reporting to other SLs and in some…

Overview The first face to face meeting of the BBComm WG on Gender and ICTs (WGGICT) which is chaired by Helen Clark took place last Saturday in Mexico City. The objective of the meeting was to build on the first virtual call that took place in end January (minutes of that meeting are here: BBComm-WGGICT-2013-final)…

Building on inputs provided by Ruhiya and Maartje, here are the comments I submitted to the drafting team on the latest iteration of the report. 1. The report, albeit a bit longish, does address most of the current core  issues. However, when it comes to consider the benefits and impact of  ICTs the report seems…

Taking advantage of my participation in the 2013 Global MDG meeting in Bogotá, I arranged with the CO to provide policy support for the upcoming innovation center programme as well as for any other initiatives they deemed relevant.  A couple of additional items did pop up. National Innovation Center The Government of Colombia via the…

I was contacted by BDP directorate to provide input to a draft of the above mentioned report which I had not seen. The report had a long paragraph on e-governance activities which was apparently drawn from a submission our team made to DGG directorate a few weeks back. The content is the draft was not…

2013 is not 2000. This short and seemingly tautological phrase was repeated several times during the first day of the just-finalized 2013 Global MDG meeting in Bogotá. It was also reused to magnify how much has changed since the Millennium Declaration was issued. While many of such changes might have negative implications for developing countries,…

With contributions from team members Ruhiya, Minerva and Maartje, here is the draft issues note that we finished just in time for distribution at the upcoming post-2015 Global Governance consultation meeting that will take place in Johannesburg next week.  Since we did not have time to get the paper peer-reviewed, the issue paper will initially…

I submitted a proposal for a paper (see http://blog.raulza.me/?p=1736) for the upcoming Global MDG meeting that will take place next week in Bogotá, Colombia. The proposal was accepted. I have just finished the paper, which is here: MDG-innovations-ICTs-2013-02-19-rz. I will present the paper at the meeting in Colombia. I have already seen a draft agenda, and…

This article was requested by the UK United Nations Association (http://www.una.org.uk/) and will be published in the next issue of their flagship publication, New World. According to UNA, New World has over 20,000 readers in over 100 countries. Thus, the article is customized for such readership. The new century is just about to enter its…

Below are the inputs we provided DGG for the upcoming global governance consultations in Joburg in less than 2 weeks. The final text builds on inputs from Minerva and Ruhiya. This should be a live document which we should be updating on  a regular basis. Cheers, Raúl ICTs for Democratic Governance and Sustainable Development  …

DGG has been working on this for the last few months. The week before last I got to see the latest version which had bu then changed substantially and added to its title the words collaborative governance and institutional innovations. Ruhiya and I discussed the text and spend a few hours adding track changes. Here…

Introduction As more people get connected to the global ICT networks (Internet, social networks, mobiles, etc.), especially in the developing world, the need to share information and knowledge through such networks increases. UNDP is not immune to these trends. As a result, the demand for IT services from programmes and units is on the rise.…

Oxfam Novib (OxNov, see here for background and short history: http://www.oxfamnovib.nl/history.html) has approach us to explore ways in which we can collaborate. OxNov informed me that they have an ongoing programme on access to information using ICTs. They also have interest on all the stuff we have promoting here at UNDP on empowerment, given voice…

Lats week I attended the second meeting of this group which includes representatives of most of the bureaux  – although RBx representation is on the weak side. We are invited by KICG to present the work we are jointly doing with BCPR which we are branding as governance innovations with ICTs in mind. The presentation…