Sept-October


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Development Gateway Foundation Newsletter


September/October


From the Foundation: Events: Country Gateway Network News:


FROM THE FOUNDATION

Winner of the Photo Contest
Prashant Bhardwaj of India took this year’s winning photo. The foundation received over 700 entries depicting socio-economic development in developing countries. Visitors to our Web site voted for the best photo among the top ten. According to Mr. Bhardwaj, the photo “represents the freedom from child labor and a hope that there is a bright future ahead…” Read more about the winner.

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AMP Piloted in Burundi
The pilot phase of the Aid Management Platform (AMP) implementation in Burundi commenced in September with in-country testing and consultations. The pilot follows a technical assessment conducted in May and June, after which a prototype of the platform was developed. This is the first pilot of the platform in French. During this phase, the foundation’s policy and technical specialists will work closely with government technical staff to assess whether additional customizations are needed. Their goal is to ensure that the system fully responds to the country’s challenges and is sustainable.

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New dgCommunities Set to Launch
Last month, the Development Gateway Foundation a new partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies to establish online communities dedicated to disaster prevention and reconstruction. Providing a virtual space in which participants can share knowledge, best practices, and other relevant information, these portals are part of an initiative to build capacity, strengthen working relationships, and improve development outcomes. Particular emphasis will be placed on bringing together government agencies and international and nongovernmental organizations in developed and developing countries to discuss common challenges. Read more about the Disaster Prevention & Response and Stabilization & Reconstruction dgCommunities.

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New Coordinator for Asia-Pacific Region
Travis Harvey of Australia is the new program coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Harvey will be the Asia-Pacific liaison for the foundation and responsible for overseeing the planning, implementation, and evaluation of programs across all the business lines. He will lead the foundation’s efforts to promote the use of tools such as the Aid Management Platform and dgMarket. Implementation of these tools throughout the region will leverage the foundation’s network of local Country Gateway partners and promote closer ties with the respective national governments. Read more about Travis.

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Featured dgCommunities Content Coordinator: Anuradha Bhattacharjee
Anuradha Bhattacharjee coordinates content for six dgCommunities. A development communications consultant based in Calcutta, she originally joined dgCommunities in 2003 as a guide. Today, she has built the partnership base of her dgCommunities to a total of almost 200 cooperating organizations. She has recruited volunteer guides for all of them and launched a robust series of online discussions. Membership in these communities has grown considerably. Culture and Development now boasts 13,000 members. Anuradha would like to see more NGOs and civil society organizations from the developing world come on board as partners and members so that, in her words, “they are represented and have a voice.” Private companies that have corporate social responsibility initiatives involved with development can also benefit from becoming a partner with the dgCommunities. “It has been a fulfilling year—and there is so much more we can do!” says Anuradha, whose infectious enthusiasm is reflected in the dynamism of her communities. To read more about Anuradha, go to http://topics.developmentgateway.org/um~user/
showGeneralMemberProfile.do~userId=664977. [Login required]

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Who’s Blogging about Development?
In his posting on crisscrossed.net, Christian Kreutz made the observation that there are not many blogs about development. While there is a lack of coordinated effort regarding development blogging, there are several individuals who blog about development. Here are a couple of our favorites.

John Daly, an editor of several community pages of the Development Gateway and a director of Americans for UNESCO, blogs about Knowledge and Development for Understanding. http://stconsultant.blogspot.com/2007/10/benchmark-passed.html

Willem van Cotthem is an honorary professor at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He has set up a blog to create awareness for his combat against desertification. http://desertification.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/a-discourse-on-food-security-dgalert

Prashant Bhardwaj is a process architect. One of his photos won the 2007 Development Gateway Foundation photo contest. http://rightmore.blogspot.com/2007/10/writing-future.html

Ideas for Development, an international blog designed to stimulate debate on economic development issues, launched at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings in October. Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, and Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Program are a few of the prominent people who will be blogging on this site. http://www.ideas4development.org.

Teresa Salazar is a member of the dgCommunity Gender and Development. Her blog, written in Spanish, draws information about gender issues from several sites including this dgCommunity. http://equidadegenero.zoomblog.com

Let us know what your favorite development blogs are. Contact us at newsletter@dgfoundation.org.


Events

What Does Civil Society Need to Be Effective?
Staff member Charlotte Moser, manager of global online communities, gave the international perspective at a conference in London on September 19. The conference, “Transparency, Civil Society and Effective States in the Information Age” was organized by the GuideStar International. To view her presentation, go to http://www.guidestarinternational.org/events



Country Gateway Network News

Burkina Faso Joins the Network
The Burkina Faso officially joined the Country Gateway program in collaboration with the Yum Pukri Association and our partner, the International Institute for Communication and Development. This program is supported by the Swiss Development Agency which provided the seed funding for the implementation in Burkina Faso.

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LAC Regional Coordinator Participates in eLAC 2010 Meeting
On September 12, Cesar Yammal, the Latin American and Caribbean regional coordinator, represented the Development Gateway Foundation in an interagency consultation meeting on eLAC 2010, held in Santiago. Representatives from international organizations active in the region commented on steps to obtain the World Summit on the Information Society’s milestones for 2015. According to the Economic Commission for LAC, the conference organizer and eLAC’s executive secretariat, the meeting was very useful in gathering key inputs for eLAC 2010 documentation. To date, eLAC has proven successful in providing technical assistance in implementing regional action plans to achieve those goals.

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LAC Regional Forum in Final Phase
The Country Gateway coordination team is in the final phase of the preparation for the Latin America and Caribbean Country Gateways regional forum. The event will be held in El Salvador November 3–6, 2007. All of the Country Gateways in the region will participate. The forum serves as a venue for them to share their knowledge and strengthen their regional collaboration. El Salvador Gateway is managing the logistics of this collaborative effort. Mark Fleeton, CEO of the Development Gateway Foundation, will attend. http://www.developmentgateway.org/cg/country-gateways/country.do~country=sv~iso3=SLV

Lebanon Prepares E-commerce Component
The Lebanon Development Gateway is preparing to add an e-commerce component to its Web site. E-commerce will be closely linked with the economic empowerment program that targets female producers in Lebanon. Other activities include resuming the implementation of ICT training for rural women in an effort to address the question of women's access to information technology. http://www.developmentgateway.org/cg/country-gateways/country.do~country=lb~iso3=LBN



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The Development Gateway Foundation provides Web-based tools to make aid and development efforts more effective. It offers innovative solutions that increase access to critical information, building local capacity and bringing partners together for positive change. The Development Gateway Foundation is a nonprofit organization with activities around the world.

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