The GMM (global management meeting, previously knows ad tte global RR meeting) took place this week in Tarrytown, North of NYC. I heard that close to 300 people took part in the meeting. Substantive discussions before the meeting were arranged using TeamWorks but were closed to the general UNDP public. At least 7 additional groups were created in TWs and I tried to subscribe to most of them to be informed about the proceedings. I believe I got close to 100 notifications out of this many coming from posting that a few participants were doing -most after the events. There was no real-time reporting form the meeting. Most of the postings were rather PR oriented and very few did do into the substance of the discussions. For example, I was informed that one speaker from the Greening Human Development session was one of the best but I have no idea why or what did this person say. Check TWs for more information.
Early in the week I met with a policy analysis from SIDA who has a wide portfolio of issues, one being ICT for Development. She explained to me that her unit, which is sort like a BDP in SIDA, has little to no influence as to how SIDA allocates it resources. I mentioned to her that a few weeks ago BDP directorate met with SIDA reps to discuss options for using some resources SIDA has for ICT and youth. She was not aware of this meeting not was she in a position to follow-up. I shared with her the latest draft of the Social Networks draft paper and the e-governance in West Africa publication. We agreed to continue to be in contact to discuss possible policy collaboration.
Late on the week, I learned that BDP is planning to launch an initiative related to the post-2015 development agenda. The core idea of the proposal is to define such agenda on a more open and inclusive basis by giving more voice to non-state actors and poorer countries. This will entail the use of social networks and mobile technologies. I provided some inputs into the draft and heavily edited the latest version of the documents. An earlier draft has been share with PB and others but so far no feedback has been submitted.
Cheers, Raúl
