August this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the official launching of the World Wide Web, less than a year after the 2nd LDC conference held in Paris in 1990. Back then, 47 countries in the globe were classified as LDCs and, not surprisingly, none of them were connected to the Internet. It was…

I spent most of this week on mission attending the 2nd International Free/Open Source Software workshop sponsored by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (and UNDP Riyadh). Most of these conferences, specially those that have really techie names sch as this one, attract very few women. So I was expecting a 10 to…

I have been out sick most of the week so there is not much to report. I has a longish conference call with one of then members of the GKP ExComm who brought me up to speed on the messy details that are currently going on inside the board. They certainly need some new and…

The still unfolding events in the Middle East have shown once again the relevance of Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) and the role they can play in critical junctures such as this one. ICTs have also empowered  women and provided them with louder voices in  such junctures. Indeed, they can now be real participants in…

DGG Dir prepared draft ToRs for the proposed work on the role of the State. Unfortunately, the draft completely ignored the work we have done in this regard. With this in mind, I submitted the following comments. 1. The TORs are still too broad and seem to miss one key point: what is the role…

Another short week but this time due to an official holiday. I met with the RBA focal point for the Millennium Villages (MVs) which UNDP has been supporting, in partnership with the Earth Institute ,for the last 5 years or so. RBA contact me due to our involvement in the e-health working group of the…

Last week I read this  article, Facebook is the New Superpower, which no doubt builds on the current hype we are seeing in the Western Media on Social Networks. The article makes the extraordinary claim that Facebook is just like any other sovereign state, with the big difference that is it a global state, or…

Last week I read this  article, <a title=”Facebook is the New Supepower” href=”http://theconversation.edu.au/articles/facebook-is-the-new-superpower-897″ target=”_blank”>Facebook is the New Superpower</a>, which no doubt builds on the current hype we are seeing in the Western Media on Social Networks. The  article makes the extraordinary claim that Facebook is just like any  other sovereign state, with the big difference…

It was a short week for me as I had some minor but painful health issues. I was in the office only two days although I was checking email most of the time. We finally got an official reply from Italy regarding the unused funds from the Macedonia e-accounting project. The official communication, send by…

I spent most of the week on mission, attending an international seminar on Technology and Citizen Participation, co-organized by UNDP México and the Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute of the State of Jalisco in México. I have already shared my back to office report will all concerned parties. As mentioned in the latter, I met…

For the last month or so, we have been discussing this issue with the UNGIS co-chairs. I even had a private call with the current UNESCO chair and asked for more details. After careful analysis our idea was to once to pass on this offer (as we did back in 2007/08). While on mission I…

Yesterday afternoon, I got a surprise call from UNDP Cairo late in the afternoon -or almost midnight in Egypt. UNDP Cairo has been essentially covering GKP. I thus shared my mission report with them. But the call was not about GKP, not at all. While the governance team here in NY and in the RSC…

The World Bank has launched a new strategy for Africa’s development. The strategy is here. The strategy has two key areas and one core pillar. The key areas are: competitiveness and employment; and vulnerability and resilience. The core pillar is governance and public sector capacity. This pillar focuses on fostering service delivery, providing access to…

I spent part of the week trying to “save” my surplus leave days (6 in total) that i will lose on midnight 31 March. But I was only able day off (Wednesday) and spent part of it on a longish UNGIS conference call discussing the future strategy for the group. I am sure I will…

ICTs and LDCs: Opportunities and Challenges Introduction More than ten years after the onset of the UN Millennium Declaration, developing countries have, on average, made substantial progress towards the achievement of Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs). Governments, in partnership with the private sector and civil society, have redirected strategic resources to directly tackle poverty and…