THE DEVELOPMENT GATEWAY NEWSLETTER

Volume 1, Number 3 English/Spanish March 2001

In this issue:
> Content Development
> Country Gateways
> Partnerships and Outreach
> Responding to Users
> The Gateway Organization
> Contact Us

Content Development

e-government
Three members of the Development Gateway team attended the Third Global
Forum on
governance in Naples, Italy, in March. The focus of this year's conference
was
fostering democracy and development through e-government applications and
services. In cooperation with the World Bank's Public Sector Management
Division
(PRMPS), the Gateway sponsored a pre-conference working session on
e-government
for a group of 40 representatives from developing nations. During the
session,
the team demonstrated the features and functionalities of the Gateway
portal,
with special emphasis on the e-government topic page, and solicited feedback
and
suggestions from this important client group.

The Gateway team also announced a two-day e-government workshop to be hosted
at
the World Bank on June 11 and 12, which will also be co-sponsored by PRMPS.
The
event will focus on e-government applications and services, and their
implementation in the developing world.

New Name: Accessible Information on Development Activities (AIDA)
Many people had difficulty with the name for the "projects database", known
as
IDAI (Integrated Development Activity Information). When we presented the
project in Paris on November 2-3 at the OECD/DAC meeting, the signals were
that
we needed to come up with a better name. Since then, after much searching,
we
have settled on AIDA -- Accessible Information on Development Activities.

Currently, there are roughly 177,000 records in the database -- this is an
accumulation of information provided by eight organizations participating in
AIDA. AIDA is a pilot project that is looking for ways to leverage available
information, and is seeking a solution to facilitate timely and reliable
access
to information on development activities. AIDA aims to provide a directory
of
information that is available through the web sites of the participating
organizations as well as facilitate access to an aggregated cross-sectional
view
of development activities for multiple donors by different criteria, such as
country, sector and project status. The example in the Gateway is the first
iteration of results from the pilot activity. Many issues related to the
process
of gathering information, data reconciliation to identify real duplicates,
and
aggregation of information about the same activity reflecting different
perspectives are challenges that the project is addressing

Country Gateways (CGs)

Twenty-five CG infoDev planning grants have so far been allocated, with
several
more expected to be approved in the coming weeks. For more information, see
www.infodev.org. Most of these pilot CGs are in the early phases of
development,
with a major emphasis on market analysis, public awareness, and
partnership-building activities. Work is also starting on building prototype
national development portals, preparing project documentation, and setting
up
an inclusive and transparent governance framework that will evolve toward
public-private Country Gateway organizations.

In Russia, the first public presentations and roundtable seminars on the CG
program were held during the conference, "The Future of Russia: Towards
Information Society in the 21 Century", in the Kremlin, and at the Russia
Internet Forum, held outside Moscow. The Russia Gateway consortium includes
some
50 private and public organizations including leading internet providers,
NGOs,
major on-line portals, and the Ministry of Telecommunications and
Informatization. More information can be found at http://russia-gateway.ru

In Kazakhstan, the team continues to build a comprehensive partnership
framework
and organized a roundtable for civil society and the media to discuss the
establishment of the CG organization. Already, over 70 local organizations
from
both public and private sectors are involved. Go to:
http://www.kazakhstan-gateway.org/

The Georgian team organized a series of workshops for various stakeholders
to
present the Gateway program and portal to civil society, academia, and the
public and private sectors. The Georgia Development Gateway Union has a very
proactive Advisory Board, which provided extensive support in technology and
content issues. Go to: http://georgia-gateway.org/

The Azerbaijan Gateway team launched the demo site of AzDG program at
http://gateway.az in early March, and conducted an extensive outreach
campaign
that received substantial coverage in the local media.

In Romania, the newly created Ministry of Information Technology and
Communications is providing office space and other logistical support to the
CG
team. The Romania Gateway prototype site was recently re-launched at
http://www.romania-gateway.ro

In Pakistan, the Gateway is participating at the IT Commerce Network Asia
2001
Conference in Karachi in late March. This conference aims to support trade
matching of the global and regional IT players with decision-makers from
business and government. Akbar Khawaja, head of Country Gateway operations,
is
representing the Gateway team. Link to the conference web site at:
http://www.itcnasia.com/

Partnerships and Outreach

Indigenous Peoples Topic Pages
As part of our efforts to highlight initiatives and experiences of civil
society, particularly in developing countries, the Gateway is currently
developing several topic pages on indigenous peoples development. This is
being
undertaken in collaboration with international agencies and indigenous
organizations that have agreed to become institutional guides. These
organizations manage topic pages in an autonomous fashion, and are
establishing
independent advisory committees to provide resources and guidance. Below is
a
list of the topic pages and their institutional guides:

Indigenous Peoples Fondo Indigena (Latin America) / Inter-American
Development
Bank IDB
(United States)
Indigenous Rights International Labor Organization ILO (Central America) /
Inter-American
Institute of Human Rights IIDH (Costa Rica)
Indigenous Health University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan
Coast
Uraccan (Nicaragua)
Indigenous Knowledge Uganda National Council for Science and Technology
UNCST (Uganda)

There are three main objectives of these topic pages, to: i) provide
practical
information, capacity-building tools, and access to resources; ii) encourage
indigenous peoples participation in macro-policy decision-making; and iii)
promote information exchange among indigenous organizations. As part of the
process of establishing these pages, several needs assessment meetings were
carried out by Gateway staff with indigenous peoples in rural areas of Costa
Rica, Venezuela, and Guatemala. These surveys indicated that there is a
growing
demand and interest among indigenous organizations for access to information
and
resources via the internet. This new trend is vividly demonstrated by the
experiences of such groups as the Ashaninka community in the central Amazon
area
of Peru (http://www.rcp.net.pe/ashaninka/) and the Mirrar Art Group from the
highlands of Thailand (http://www.bannok.com/), both of which are using the
Internet effectively to further indigenous peoples development.

The topic pages on indigenous peoples are in the process of being built with
information and resources ranging from articles and training tools to
directories, totaling 448 files and links. These pages are envisioned to
become
virtual communities of practitioners, and thus we invite indigenous
organizations, CSOs, donor agencies, and others to visit the pages and
participate by posting their views, acquiring information, and contributing
knowledge.

Global Knowledge Partnership
The Gateway was represented by Robert Valantin in a meeting of the Global
Knowledge Partnership (GKP) -- http://www.globalknowledge.org -- in Geneva
in
late March. More than 80 representatives from the public and private sectors
and
civil society attended. Robert presented the Gateway's involvement in two
"action items" in the GKP's Action Plan. More information on this meeting in
the
April newsletter.

Responding to Users

We regularly receive user feedback -- individual emails, notes to the
general
email account, notes to the new e-newsletter account, online feedback, and
feedback from Topic Guides. This is in addition to the many valuable
comments we
hear at the numerous meetings and conferences.

We recognize that we need to do a better job in demonstrating how we are
responding to this feedback, to show that we take seriously the comments and
suggestions. Thus, a new effort is underway to gather feedback across the
team
in one place; analyze the substantial comments; and close the feedback loop,
by
communicating what we did with the comments we receive.

We plan to periodically post a brief analysis of this feedback in a new
section
under "About Us" on the Gateway site, and in this section of the
e-newsletter.
The analysis will elaborate on the kinds of feedback received, and what
action
we took -- or didn't -- in response, and the reasons why. We hope this will
be
useful, and welcome your suggestions on how to do this most effectively.

The Gateway Organization

Gateway Foundation
On March 8, a proposal was presented to the World Bank's Board of Executive
Directors for the establishment of the Development Gateway Foundation, a
non-profit organization, which would be a public/private partnership. The
Board
expressed their support for the proposal in principle, and authorized
further
efforts to develop and help establish the Development Gateway Foundation and
to
solicit the participation of other organizations in the Development Gateway
Foundation. A follow up meeting with the Bank's Board will be arranged
probably
by mid-year to assess efforts of the next few months.
The broad objectives of the Gateway Foundation are to:

Support sustainable development and poverty reduction through the
creation of
a common Internet platform (the Development Gateway portal), in
partnership
with the donor community, governments, the private sector, civil society
organizations, and other key development actors.
Create a knowledge resource that will catalogue, organize, and monitor
initiatives intended to diminish the digital divide and provide a forum
for
discussions intended to promote partnerships and synergies between civil
society and the public and private sectors on key ICT issues. It will
also
promote the development of an active network of experts on ICT for
development, training staff from partners to strengthen their capacity
for
delivering projects in this area.
Establish a research and training center in the developing world where
ideas
can be exchanged and programs can be tested on the ground.
Provide seed funding for selected projects and programs at the local,
national, regional, and global levels that are working to overcome the
digital divide and to foster the use of ICTs to enhance the fight against
poverty. Recipients will include local and national governments, civil
society organizations, NGOs, multilateral and bilateral donors, and
private
enterprises engaged in projects with the potential for the creation of
significant public goods.

Contact Us

To send comments and feedback about the newsletter, or to subscribe or
unsubscribe, please send an email to [email protected]
Please note that the general email address for the Gateway has changed.
As of
end February, the email address is [email protected]. We will
no
longer be able to retrieve messages sent to the previous account
([email protected]).
(See attached file: MarchSpanishnews..doc)