Here is a set of comments furnished to DG Management upon request on a draft two-page outline of the above mentioned paper. 1. The first issue that can be highlighted is that so-called “changing development landscape” is not new to UNDP. We have been facing this at least since the late 1990s and the change…

Below are the set of comments I prepared upon request on the above mentioned paper. 1. Although the paper is divided in 4 separate sections, in reality it addressed 11 critical issues that UNDP will need to eventually address to continue to be a key player in the development arena. 6 of those issues are…

We finally hooked again with the Danish organization, Danish Management who has interest in working with UNDP and developed e-governance policies and programmes in St. Kitts and Nevis. A 5 day mission has been tentatively scheduled for the week of 7 March. ToRs and Agenda are being prepared by the Danish organization and government officials.…

RBAS had prepared a draft regional strategy which is supposed to present UNDP’s response to the current crisis -and the ones emerging almost on a daily basis. We received the strategy document on Friday and were asked to provide comments by Sunday morning. Here is what I shared with DGG. 1. Not surprisingly, there is…

Two more conference calls this week on WSIS and UNGIS. The latter is getting a bit more interesting as UNGIS has secured a side event of ICTs and LDCs in the upcoming UN Conference on the LDCs on May 10. And UNDP is having a DG session on 11 May. We need to sync up…

Below are some minimal comments I shared with the UNGIS Secretariat, prior to the conference call, in relation to the upcoming UN Conference on the LDCs. UNGIS will also be preparing a report for the conference, in addition to the side event it has secure for 10 May. 1. The proposed title of the report…

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…