Demand for e-governance related services continues to grow. In the last week or so, we saw requests from Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, BIH, Costa Rica and Ukraine. While the first three can be seen in the light of traditional e-governance support (development of national strategies and implementation of priorities) the last two are relate to e-health and…

The governance issues for the post2015 activities continues to evolve. On the technical side, we have agreed to bring all the different aspects under one umbrella. This includes the platform itself, the so-called crowdsourcing (now rename to open analytics) and the planned mobile app for enticing voting and participation. An improved version of TWs will…

This is another paper which OGC has commissioned. The first draft has been shared and did generate  negative reaction (unwarranted in my opinion)  from some DGP quarters. The first draft of the paper is here: DG-SHD-Final-Report-IDCR-14-May-2012 ) Here are my initial set of comments. 1. I have issues with the way the paper sees democracy,…

Here are the updates on this on out work with the BCPR’s Conflict Prevention unit: 1. Supporting IPI study on crowdsourcing and conflict prevention funded by BCPR. The study will compile several case studies and shed some light on the usefulness (or not) of mobiles 2. Planning to have a joint e-gov/Conflict CoP before the…

OCG is working on a few papers for both Rio+20 and post-2015. One of them is this one (ODI-Outline-Democratic-Governance-and-MDGs-23-May-2012 which has been commissioned to ODI. Here are my comments. 1. Methodology: I am unsure whether I understood the proposed methodology. The opening paragraph argues for evidence-based contributions, but it is not clear to me where…

Interesting meeting with a rep from Ushahidi who is based not in Nairobi but in cosy San Francisco. Meeting lasted an hour more or less but I think we managed to bore the guy as he was yawning quite a bit while we spoke about exciting UNDP stuff. Or maybe it was too early for…

The new RC/RR in Swaziland has strong interest in supporting e-gov work in the country and the government seems to be very receptive to the idea. I have received this communication from the RR (RZ Swailand Egov letter) which has specific proposals for our support. RBA HQ is also getting involved but has interest in…

Overall UN processes UN announced appointment of three countries to the High Level Panel on the post-2015 development agenda. The countries include: Indonesia, Liberia and the UK Global Governance Meeting OHCHR submitted the first draft on the global thematic meeting on Friday pm. We are expected to get back to the them sometime this week…

Seems that crowdsourcing has become a “third” pillar of the UN-led multi-stakeholder process, with Global Pulse apparently playing a pivotal role. A draft proposal has been prepared (it is here: http://undpegov.org/~raul/egov/post2015/CrowdsourcedPost-MDGideageneration-4.doc. Here are the initial comments that I shared with GP and UNMC, which were addressed to the communications officer of GP. 1. I think…

Overall UN processes BDP shared latest version of the UN Task Team draft report that will be submitted to the SG. DGG provided comments to the text and submitted them on Monday (draft report and comments have been uploaded to this space) Global Governance Meeting OHCHR sent message indicating that they are running 10 days…

I received the visit from a senior VP from Cisco who heads the company’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG, http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/index.html). We first partnered with  IBSG back in 2003 when they came to visit UNDP with the VP heading the delegation. We spent over three hours discussing our approach to ICTD and e-governance and they immediately…

RBLAC is publishing the above mentioned White Book, which has been in the works for at least the last year or so. I got a request for comment form the DD of the Bureau. The White Book (which is here in different presentations: AporteEmpresasTICalaEducacion ) and my comments are  in Spanish. El reporte está muy bien…

Overall UN processes Revised UNDP/UNDP concept note to be submitted to UN Workig group by CoB today. Document will be available in this space in the UN Official Documents section OGC colleagues attended OECD GovNet meetings and presented UNDP’s take on post-2105. Update from the meeting upcoming Global Governance Meeting OHCHR was expected to submit…

The regional IPS (International Public Software) project is still in a limbo as the government of Argentina has been slow in engaging with UNDP Argentina. I had a call with  the representative from the Argentinean government to discuss next steps. It is imperative that the government counterpart meets with the UNDP governance focal point to…

It seems that change within BDP is now acquiring real shape. As the financial situation in the UN in general is far from optimal, we should then expect to have less resources available for the foreseeable future. Needless to say, this has implications not only for programming but also human resources. We will see. It…