I travelled  for 24 hours to DC to attend the 2012 edition of Beyond Access (http://www.beyondaccess.net/conference2012/, #BA2012). I took the opportunity to meet with colleagues from WBI who are working on ICTD and governance. At the informal meeting, I realized that the approach of WBI to the issues is similar to ours in the sense…

Additional comments shared with BDP on the platform and a bit more.. The platform in itself is meaningless if is does not attract people who are at the same time willing to put and share content. There are already over 2 billion web sites out there so having one more does not help. So the…

Comments sent to BDP SMs on the above. In a nutshell, the (daily) management of the process has been determined by the Teamworks development cycle which we have been informed by Mitchel and his team is of three/four weeks. That means that any work that we in TAG agree to put on the platform will…

I got several messages from UNDP Colombia asking me to provide comments on an initiative that the Ministry of ICTs in collaboration with UNDESA are designing. The project will establish an innovation center. The documents are here:  http://undegov.org/~raul/egov/country/colombia/innovation. The documents and my comments below are in Spanish (a google translated version can be found at…

Background This mission responds to commitments UNDP made back in June (see my previous BTOB here: http://blog.raulza.me/?p=1532) to support the modernization of CSSC which is under national scrutiny amid a global fiscal crisis which is also affecting Costa Rica. On 26 July CCSS sent a formal letter to UNDP San José requesting support to tackle…

Dear colleagues, I have been following with interest the current discussion on UNDP’s anti-corruption practices and emerging trends. In doing so, I have noted that so far that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for development have been marginally mentioned. My contribution will focus on this area, which UNDP has been supporting for almost 20 years…

The Nordic Office in Copenhagen has started to think on how to reduce the costs of Electoral Voting (EV) systems which apparently are growing overtime and can be a burden for poorer countries. A concept note (BVR Concept Paper 16082012 and annex ANNEX 1_BVR Concept Paper 29062012 TABLE EXPENSES PSO) and ToRs (EVR-Feasibility Study –…

A contact from Intel asked me to provide feedback on a white paper the company is finishing on broadband. The draft paper is here: Intel-Broadband_v 1. The paper looks good but I have a few issues which I briefly highlight below. 1. Unlike others, I do not think broadband alone is going to promote all…

Objectives Conduct 3 day workshop on strategy development with the existing e-governance committee (egovCom), assess gaps and pinpoint emerging issues Meet with local counterparts to explore synergies with other sectors that can benefit from related e-governance work Liaise with UNDP CO and strategize on how to integrate current and pipeline programming using e-governance as a…

I received a request from UNDP Panamá to provide inputs for a press article on e-governance that will be published this coming Tuesday. The office received 5 questions and I am replying to three of them. The article and my inputs are in Spanish. 1.       ¿Qué es la gobernanza electrónica? El surgimiento del Internet a…

Here are some more ideas about the overall content. 1. Overview of e-governance. Definitions. Government vs. governance. Large    context of ICT for Development. Relevance of national contexts.    Insitutional development and national capacities. 2. Policy: assess the overall policy environment, relate to ongoing or  planned development plans and agendas, link to MDGs and other…

Purpose/Objective of Mission: Support to Ukraine’s ongoing Open Government Partnership (OGP) participation, meet local partners and explore ways to finance OGP commitments Liaise with ongoing Local Governance project staff which has a key e-governance component Provide advise on ongoing project to crowd source the theme of the next NHDR Explore ways in which CO can…

Background I have personally been engaged in the post-015 agenda since September of 2011. I helped BDP Dir draft the project document that was finally approved in December. I specially contributed to the section on the virtual platform which envisaged using mobile technologies such as SMS to increase the level of participation in setting up…