Highlights of Main Achievements 1998-1999

The Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) grew from 26 sites in 1996 to serving 40 developing countries helping people get connected to national information networks and the Internet, providing support to content development and building capacity through user training.

SDNP national operations have made a difference in a wide variety of ways and uniquely from country to country. From emergency situations to building information technology skills, SDNP has gained a solid reputation at the international, regional, national and local level having helped over 11,000 institutions to share information and expertise relevant to sustainable development.

For example:

• SDNP Jamaica has focused on providing equipment and training to those who need it most, promoting IT among the development community as a networking tool to support sustainable development. It now has two operational community "tele-centres" with four more in the planning. These tele-centres are not only sites which house computers, but places where staff are trained to provide information in a form that actually meets the needs of users in practical ways. The programme has a particular focus on rural and marginalized groups where information technology can do much for these far-flung communities.
• SDNP Honduras was at the center of coordinating disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, transforming it into the information system of civil society in that country. Linking communities via public access centers and people networks, SDNP Honduras has been putting people who have information in touch with people who need it -- and people who need something in touch with people who have the resources. During the six months following the hurricane, membership in the SDNP national network grew from 360 organisations to 449, scattered throughout almost all of Honduras's 18 provinces.
• Children have learned to become more environmentally aware through the efforts of Mexico's SDNP and its corporate partners as they provide educational programmes demonstrating how information and solutions can be found through the internet. Additionally, SDNP Mexico helps to lessen enviromental pollution in the capitol city and beyond by encouraging entrepreneurs to act responsibly and encouraging the government to give tax breaks to 'green' businesses.
• SDNP Guatamala has helped to support e-commerce through the NGO, The Center for Mayan Women Communicators whose website it hosts. SDNP also provides the technical support. The center's activities include e-commerce on behalf of teams of indigenous women who are making traditional handicrafts. Most of the producers live in isolated areas where they have little opportunity to sell their products or find alternative markets. Not only is the e-commerce made possible by SDNP's IT support providing needed finances, but it is helping to keep these traditional crafts alive.

SDNP provided the initial financial and administrative support for the creation of the Small Island Developing States Network (SIDSnet), a website providing its 42 small island developing states with access to sustainable development information. This website was developed at the behest of the Alliance of Small Island States [AOSIS] in direct response to the Barbados Programme of Action. It has grown steadily since its launch in the fall of 1998 and has now reached the 200,000 hits per month level!

SDNP has pioneered collaborations with the private sector. Beginning with its ground-breaking two-year strategic alliance with Hewlett-Packard, SDNP received over a million dollars worth of equipment and services from this computer giant by 1998. More recently, SDNP has generated contributions from corporate 'partners', including on-going collateral materials support from RedHat for Linux operating systems and IT books and CDs from O'Reilly & Associates. In August, 1999 another contribution worth more than a million dollars was garnered in the form of both hardware and software from two Canadian companies, Corel Corporation and Rebel.com.

SDNP was a major catalyst in stimulating the provision of Internet access in Africa. It also jointly hosted - with UNDP's Internet Initiative for Africa (RBA) - the SDNP/IIA Maputo Workshop, in Mozambique which drew representatives from 28 nations of the region and helped to set the stage for even more accelerated networking activities in that continent.

SDNP training/capacity building projects are highly leveraged through train-the- trainers programmes. Many of the decision makers trained, [over 5,000], represent ministers and high-level officials of large institutions whose decisions and actions have had positive ripple effects on a nation's entire population.

SDNP's senior staff remains sought after as trainers during the prestigeous INET conferences that the Internet Society hosts annually.

The SDNP headquarters unit provides a wide range of IT support to various departments and divisions including the Bureau for Policy Development's Intranet, the new SURF [Sub-Regional Resource Facilities] network, as well as to the UN's Division for the Advancement of Women through its "WomenWatch".

SDNP continues to generate media coverage internationally in the mainstream press as well as in the IT trade and development press [e.g. Forbes Digital Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, United Airlines In-Flight Video, UN Chronicle]

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