I finally managed to speak to the EU/Danish consultant who had originally planned the e-governance workshop in St. Kitts. Apparently, the situation was much more complicated than what I originally thought. The workshop was going to be partly financed  by a EU project that is implemented by the Ministry of Finance and Sustainable Development (MFSD),…

There is a TWs group running under this name, apparently managed by the KMG person out posted in Bratislava. The group is somewhat active, thanks in part to this same person’s dynamism. At any rate, I am not entirely sure what Development 2.0 means, but it does remind me of the now old and obsolete…

Cell phones make extensive use of radio frequency electromagnetic fields to function properly. From this point of view, cell phones are pretty much like sophisticated digital radios with computer power, connected to large radio or wireless networks. However, unlike old style radios, cell phones must be used in close contact with our body and specially our…

Over the long memorial day weekend, I managed to hurt my back one again. Spend a couple of days mostly in bed and was unable to go to the office or work on email for long periods of time. I was supposed to be on official mission in St. Kitts and Neves the day the…

Being back in Caracas for the fourth time in the last 5 years has given me the opportunity to gauge the evolution of the Revolución Bolivariana launched at the beginning of the Millennium. I was indeed surprised when the CO told me that they will collect me at the airport, something that has never happened…

Social innovation seems to be emerging as a new development priority where “social entrepreneurs,” both for-profit and non-profit, are being called upon to assist governments in delivering essential services and enhancing access to information. But unlike the now seemingly old “public-private partnerships,” social innovation is also fostering new solutions to deliver the goods (or improve…

Being out of the office sick all week considerably reduced my activity. Emails however did not stop coming so they required a daily (and large) dose of attention. The mMDGs saga continues as the developer is still dragging his feet. We are almost there (although we are about 8 months late!) but the last mile…

PG has prepared a paper on this topic for discussion within BDP’s Policy Group. The paper is here: Inclusive Growth Strategy Paper sj 8 March 2011 (2). Oslo in turn commissioned a it review which is here: GSDRC Helpdesk Research Report_Inclusive growth and governance. I submitted the following comments as part of DGG inputs. 1.…

Belize is working on the above and the CO contacted me for advise. All related documents are here: Belize Docs. These are my inputs. 1. I am impressed by the quality of the research that has been done in  terms of e-readiness and ICT benchmarking. This is really a good professional job and will certainly…

Due to health reasons I had to cancel the missions to Turkey (this week) and Bahrain and Moldova (next week). I was also not able to come to the office at all during the week. So there is not much to report. I got a request from the Belize country office to provide policy support…

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…