The Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) Using ICTs to effectively support the Rio Agenda Background The idea of SDNP ( http://www.undpegov.org/sdnp/) emerged during preparations for the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit with the perception that many countries, especially poorer ones, lacked a reliable information base to make effective decisions and promote sustainable development issues.…

Demands for Open Government (OG) initiatives seem to be on the rise as this week alone I was involved in two conference calls. In addition to Macedonia, where UNDP and the WB have agreed to work together on the topic  (and work will expand to Moldova eventually), we spoke to a group of Tunisian activists…

Such is the title of a recent post on a Davos meeting of thirty-five or so social innovators from around the globe. Social innovation is not a new concept, not by a long shot. What perhaps is unique about social innovation today is that it is natively emerging in developing countries, including some of the…

I was on leave all of last week so no real updates to report from trying to rest  -although I did spent a lot of time trying to finalize the Mobiles primer. It seems that my mission report on Costa Rica was apparently not well received by project staff. Not sure I understand the reason…

It seems that the Motorotola Solutions Foundation (http://responsibility.motorolasolutions.com/) is having second second thoughts about the mobile apps mapping research we have proposed. I got an email from our counterparts there asking for additional information. Below is that I sent. 1. UN and UNDP guidelines are clear in terms if the way we can engage with …

Once again, we have witnessed the power of the Internet (not only social media!) to empower stakeholders and oppose potential legislation that, some will argue, takes only into account the perspective of those who have resources to lobby the US Congress. For now, SOPA/PIPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act), essentially promoted by the film and recording industry of the…

On an invitation of the autonomous government (Junta) of Andalucía, I spent the whole week meeting with government representatives, private sector companies and academics working on ICTD  and using Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) to deliver services and information to the people. Political stability and political will has made this possible as long term policies have…

Another short week for me as I came back to the office on the 4th. Not that work stops because I am on leave, not at all. We had our first e-gov staff meeting of 2012 and focused on identifying priority areas for 2012. They are: Ongoing Mobile governance – primer, case studies, guidance note,…

BDP has been asked to submit a three page document to the AA by Friday. Below are some of the inputs I provided. Here are additional inputs as well as 5 slides on the KM cycle that you might want to share at the meeting tomorrow 1. It is essential for BDP to seriously take…

I was on leave most of the week although I was checking email all the time. If I don’t then I will spend a lot of time just catching up on reviewing and replying to accumulated emails. Here are some small bits: the Bangladesh evaluation mission is on.The CO wants to start the consultancy before…

As part of the so-called “Internet Freedom” agenda which is being pushed by several Western Democracies, we can also find a complementary economic development agenda that highlights the potential growth and job creation benefits of the Internet. The recent G-8 meeting in Paris had a two day e-G8 forum (see http://www.eg8forum.com/en/) which mainly focused on…