Getting on Board: Promoting E-Government Via Bus

E-government has many wonderful benefits for citizens in promoting transparency of activities, troves of information, and new ways to participate as well as to express opinion. Citizens, however, must first be equipped with the access and skills to take advantage of e-government. And for that, UNESCO's Information for All Programme (IFAP) are urging people to get on the bus.

All this month, citizens in Quito may take chivas, popular Equadorian buses, from busy neighborhoods to public Internet access centers called cybernariums. These cybernariums will hold training workshops of 25 people each that will focus on explaining and promoting e-government services to spread the word about what is available for the community.

Radio and television spots will additionally promote awareness of the initiative; the population of focus will consist of secondary school students, leaders of organizations or neighborhoods, and housewives.

This initiative is part of UNESCO's IFAP "E-government Model for World Heritage Cities" project, which is sponsored by the Spanish government. The cities of focus are Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador), and Cusco (Peru).

Projects like this and others regarding Latin American e-government promoted by the Spanish government and UNESCO certainly have tremendous potential for change on a global level. For more information, see UNESCO's e-government news as well as the World Bank's e-development publication.

Review of UNESCO’s Capacity-Building Function

A review was completed last February or UNESCO’s experience in capacity building and of the international research on capacity building to answer the following questions:

1. What have UNESCO and others learned about the most effective approaches to capacity building?
2. What should UNESCO’s role in capacity building be (given UN reforms that emphasize country-led, comprehensive development strategies and collaboration among donor agencies)?
3. What needs to change within UNESCO in order to do a better job of capacity building?

The purpose of this review was to inform UNESCO's senior management about good practices in capacity-building and to enable UNESCO's Secretariat to improve their capacity-building interventions.

A key finding of the review was:

Most UNESCO staff members interviewed recognize that capacity building needs to get beyond conventional inputs, such as training and technical assistance, in order to bring about sustainable change within institutions. However, much of the Organization’s programming begins and ends there.

Read the full Review (PDF, 47 pages.)