As always- I am reluctant to post to MISTICA since I have to resort to
English for clarity, and would rather have posted en español. I have been
following this Development Gateway discussion and would like to build on
the excellent points made by Cornelius Hopmann of Nicaragua.
I was a firm critic of the World Bank's Development Gateway (Portal)
strategy from the beginning. It was badly conceived, wrongly designed as a
top-down initiative, and overly dependent on a flawed World Bank view of
ICTs and knowledge management. However, the World Bank controls the money
and the DG initiative went forward in spite of all its flaws.
As a result of the funding, and with a flawed strategy, Development
Gateway initiatives were started in a large number of countries, and over
a dozen of the initiatives have managed some degree of survival in Latin
America. Since those beginning years two different arenas of action have
developed. The first is from the World Bank down. The second is within
countries and between countries.
From the top down the World Bank's policies, those of the DGFoundation,
and others (infoDev, etc.) continue to exert some control, in part based on
what they fund, and in part based on what they are doing with their own money.
Cornelius correctly observes that it is not useful to confuse what is going
on in terms of motives, activities and results at this "top down" level
with what is becoming increasingly "home grown" within the country
Development Gateway (ccDG) level.
I remain a critic of the World Bank's arrogance with regard to the DG
initiative and the waste of funds resulting from their strategy. At the
start there were voices trying to tell the World Bank that knowledge
networking was as much (or more) about linking communities of practice,
communities of interest, or communities of concern into knowledge networks
and in support of learning.
The World Bank's focus was on content (archives of knowledge) with success
measured in terms of sites, web pages, and similar digital objects.
However, the accumulation of "archives of knowledge" did not generate
"knowledge into use". To their credit, but at a high initial cost, the top
down partners are beginning to understand that knowledge networking is
about a live digital animal - the knowledge network - and not limited use
"archives of knowledge". The top down organizations are capable of some
learning, even if their overall policies remain questionable.
However, the important story here is the one highlighted by Cornelius'
comments. The ccDGs are growing out of a "top down" guided childhood and
into a "self directed" adolescence. As always, the young adult is not the
child that the parents initially planned for. The ccDGs in South America
and in Central America are moving beyond infoDG (informational sites) to
espDG (electronic social process venues). They are moving to support
knowledge networking efforts within countries and between countries across
Latin America. They are, of course, not alone in that perspective, but as
"young adults" they are joining other electronic communities and civil
society electronic service providers to become a basis for truly country
and region level networks of social processes, including knowledge sharing,
organizational learning, policy analysis and policy formation, etc.
The ccDG country level, and regional level, story is the good news story
here. Of course much of the initial funding was ill-used; and of course the
top down funding organizations will take credit for making this happen.
There is nothing one can do about that other than ignore it. Parents always
take credit for the successes of their children, as do teachers for the
successes of their students.
The important lesson here is to build inward, up and out from the ccDGs.
There is still much scope for criticism of the top down organizations (e.g.
World Bank & IDB support for dam projects in Central America). But, that
should not be mixed in with what is happening at the ccDG country level as
the ill-started Development Gateways move through adolescence to young
adulthood. That is good news story. It should be celebrated and
supported,even if some of us would wish that it renamed itself to distance
it from its birth parents.
Sam Lanfranco
Distributed Knowledge Project
York University
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