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The information revolution, along with
its attendant explosive growth of knowledge, and the related
phenomenon of the globalization of the world economy has brought
about the Information Age. South Asia is no exception to this
disparity between information rich and information poor. The need of
the hour is, therefore, to join national development information
portals with that of other regional initiatives in a collaborative
effort to use information and communication technologies (ICT),
specially the power of the Internet, for knowledge sharing and
disseminating development information. The South Asian region
comprises of eight countries that are Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Through a
partnership alliance with country development gateways and in
collaboration with the Development Gateway Foundation (DGF) the
South Asian Regional Development Gateway (SARDEG) is envisaged to be
an online communication initiative (Internet portal) that provides
and promotes exchange and dissemination of information on
development matters in the region initially focused on Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
The State Rural Technology Promotion Council (SRTPC), Assam (India)
has taken the lead in initiating this regional gateway to overcome
the development communication gap in the region and utilize the new
forces of ICT to promote social and economic growth in the region.
Major regional goals that have been articulated by Asian leaders
include :
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Poverty Alleviation and SAARC
Development Goals (SDGs)
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Advancing Economic Cooperation
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Social Challenges focusing on
women and children
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Environmental Challenges and
Natural Disasters
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Combating Terrorism
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People-to-people contact and
cultural cooperation
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Millennium Declaration and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
The global movement towards an information age and the worldwide
technological innovations of recent years, along with other
structural and economic developments, has led to rapidly falling
costs for information and communication technologies. Together with
changes facing global and national telecommunication regimes this
presents a clear window of opportunity for appropriate “leapfrog”
strategies to accelerate the development of the continent. The
creation of SARDEG as a development information portal is both a
necessity and an opportunity to accelerate development in all
spheres of South Asian economic and social activities.
The immediate beneficiaries from the regional gateway will be
various organizations and institutions in Bangladesh, India and
Nepal who are planning and implementing different development
initiatives. They will be more cooperative in knowledge and resource
sharing in their approaches and will develop a capacity to tackle
impediments to their development programs following the approaches
of others who succeeded. SARDEG envisages taking advantage of the
most important aspects of the Internet, and building the ability to
capture and disseminate information services consistently across the
region and provide a unique platform for broad collaborations among
various stakeholders, as well as with other existing Country
Gateways. SARDEG will bring together development stakeholders to
collaborate online and engage in activities related to development
like, e-government, e-health, e-commerce, e-learning etc.
The Mission of the SARDEG is to create
a regional development information portal for the South Asia through
partnership, networking, sharing and exchanging of knowledge and
other resources. Therefore, the overall objective of this project
will be the elaboration of an online development communication
strategy and plan of action for the region, as well the
implementation of an effective development stockholders’ network.
The realization of the above will additionally address several other
critical goals.
The strategic reference points for the
global development initiatives are the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) and nearly all-developmental priorities in the regional are
aligned to these goals. The major goal is to halve the proportion of
people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015 and the principal
strategy adopted increasingly by the development planners are the
poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs). Against this backdrop the
major goals of the regional development gateway will be:
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Awareness Raising
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Connecting Good Governance and
Development Goals
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Coordination in Policy and Project
Implementation and Development
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Capacity Building & Knowledge
Sharing at Regional and National Levels
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Development Information Services
SARDEG aims to become financially
sustainable by the year 2009 through various income generation
activities including ICT related training, and consultancies. SARDEG
will provide a forum for community-based and local, regional or
national organizations to share and exchange ideas, experiences and
resources on issues of common interest. It will catalyse the
development of new e-based economic development tools by providing
web applications and services, notably for e-learning, e-governance,
e-education, e-health, e-jobs, e-communities and e-advisory
services.
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