Interesting CAP meeting to discuss he new Individual Contracting (IC) modality. The really new thing here is that ICs can only be granted for 12 months. Any extension beyond this requires the approval of the Director of the Division. The 100k limits still operates but now it seems the calendar year check is out and…

Brief prepared to support GFM’s mission to Tunis, 1-5 February. Background 1. Tunisia was the first country in Africa to gain access to the Internet almost 20 years ago. The connection was done through France and with support from the French Government. As was typical at the time, the Internet was still seen as purely…

Although I missed two additional phone call with the ITU et.al., I was able to join one on Wednesday which essentially dealt with the logistics of the upcoming WSIS meetings that will take place in Geneva in mid-May. The call was rather long and not very interesting as discussions centered on logistics. There seems to…

Lengthy conference call with Brazilian counterparts on the Public Software regional programme. We have agreed to focus 2011 efforts in producing a report on the project that can be shared with and used by other developing countries that are looking to implement similar initiatives. The report will be published in 3 languages and distributed across…

This is a message a sent to the KM team on the above subject. Although I have not seen any official communication from the KM team, I have heard from my DGG KM colleagues that all BDP networks are supposed to be fully migrated into the new TW platform by 1 March. I also have…

Back to the office after one month away. Probably the longest time I have been away on leave since I joined UNDP. Lots of email to reply but luckily I was checking my mail box on a regular basis. Demand from the field is increasing. This week alone I interacted with: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Iraq,…

I first heard about Saramago in the early 1990s but only managed to read him a few years later, before the end of the Millennium. I went for O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo which was originally published in 1991 and had created quite a stir, particularly with the Catholic Church. This in itself increased my…

I. Background UNDP has been supporting the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for Development since the early 1990s. As a direct follow-up to the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, UNDP was requested to implement key areas of Agenda 21 which included a critical information sharing component. UNDP decided to implement…

The sealed envelope I received from UNIMA’s reception had my name on it as well as room number: 2b. That did not tell me anything. As we left the reception area, a woman greeted one of the UNDP colleagues and said that the Compound bar, called UNdercover -or secondary triage area, was still open for…

By the time the Rhinos arrived at Stables, I was almost out of stamina. The 3 plus hours we had to wait to board the armored buses were the worse for me. They seemed like 3 years. I tried not to sit much as that would inevitably crown the sleeping elf. And knowing the Stables…