Dear Colleauges,

A warm Hello! from the Digital Governance project, more popularly
known as the DigitalGovernance.org Initiative or E-Governance
Initiative for developing countries.

This project update is coming up after a long time. Nevertheless,
several things have been happening in the background, including:

* Redesigning of our project website to make it totally-relevant to
developing countries at http://www.DigitalGovernance.org and
expanding the Digital Governance community to over 2500 colleagues

* Providing consultative support on egovernance and ICT for
development projects in several countries, including to Egypt,
India,
Jordan, Mongolia and Nigeria

* Sharing project learnings at various conferences and through guest
lecutures, including at World Summit on Information Society
(Geneva), International Forum on National ICT Strategies and E-
governance (Baku), and International Civil Society Forum (Mongolia).

The update below, gives information on the New Resources available
at our website, the Key Learnings emerging, and How To Participate
in this project.

To subscribe updates, send a blank email to:
digitalgovernance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com


NEW PROJECT WEBSITE and RESOURCES:
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Redesigning of website was essential to accommodate new learnings
emerging from the project and to provide webspace to growing number
of case-studies, publications and other resources on electronic
governance relating to developing countries sent to this project.

Case Studies: The section lists over 85 E-Governance Case-Studies
from 42 developing countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, Brazi,
Cameroon, Croatia, Honduras, Hungary, India, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia,
Namibia, Nepal, Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, UAE, Vietnam
and Yemen.

Publications: Over 90 publications devoted specifically to
electronic governace in developing countries are available from this
website.

Links, Events and EForums: Over 50 References to other interesting
websites, electronic forums and events relating to egovernance in
developing countries are provided.


KEY E-GOVERNANCE LEARNINGS:
--------------------------
DigitalGovernance.org Initiative was initiated in September 2000.
Since then, several learnings have emerged out of this project. But
the key ones are:

1. Electronic governance has to be viewed as a political process
dealing with reform of governance towards good governance. And
governance reform is a slow process- requiring engaging with
governance institutions and bringing about both attitudinal and
constitutional changes.

2. Where political will exists, electronic governance can
significantly catalyze the reform process towards good governance.

3. In absence of political will, the impact of electronic governance
models will be weak and may not lead to qualitative change in
governance processes. In such cases, there will be far greater onus
on civil society organizations to build strong citizens movement to
either create a political will or to bring about a change in
leadership.

We will keep sharing other learnings emerging out of this project
through our website and mailing list. In our next update, we will be
informing members on how to sucessful E-egovernance Projects not
only enhance "Information Acess and Flows" in the society but also
alter the "Geometry of Information Flows" in it.


PARTICIPATE:
------------
Digital Governance Initiative is a voluntary, non-funded initiative
relying on participation of colleagues, mostly from developing
countries for their intellectual contributions and online
volunteering efforts.

1. At the moment, we are in the process of creating:
"National E-Governance Networks"

These networks will encourage national-level knowledge exchange and
mentoring in setting-up or supporting egovernance projects,
DigitalGovernance.org has initiated country-specific virtual
networks. The country-level networks would primarily deal with
issues and learnings that are relevant to their specific countries.

To join, these National Networks, write to us at
knownet@... along with the specific country network
that you wish to belong in. If we do not have an existing country
network, we will create one provided adequate representation exists.

2. In addition, we are setting up:
Translators Network:

Translators Network will help us evaluate e-governance resources and
provide information on this website in different languages. We are
always looking for translators for Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish,
Tamil and other developing countries languages, who will be able to
volunteer their skills online.

To join our Translators Network, write to us at
knownet@... along with information on your language
and translation skills.


FEEDBACK
--------

We very much appreciate your feedback and suggestions on how we can
incorporate the learnings from this project into specific
egovernance related activities taken up by governments in developing
countries.

Please write to knownet@... or at v.nath-
alumni@...

Best regards and happy learnings,

Best,

Vikas Nath
Founder, DigitalGovernance.org and KnowNet.org Initiative
Email: knownet@... or v.nath-alumni@...
Homepage: http://www.vikasnath.org

To subscribe updates, send a blank email to:
digitalgovernance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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The term Digital Governance refers to governance processes in which
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) play a significant
role. The role played by ICT could be wide-ranging: in delivery and
standards of governance services, to how people access such
services, and the participation of people in the governance sphere.
Digital Governance uses ICT to induce changes in the delivery and
standards of governance services and more importantly, in the way
citizens interact and participate in the governance sphere.
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