ICTlogy

Round Table: Enric Senabre (moderator), Ana Moreno, Eduardo Sánchez, Carlos Mataix, Paco Prieto, Martín Jerch
ICTs in the policies and strategies of Development Cooperation, particularly in Spanish Cooperation

Carlos Mataix: some reflections about the design and management of organizational networks in cooperation

• Networks are open and can help to reduce transaction costs between nodes, provided there are common standards, confidence, etc. in these transactions
• Networks are complex, but a good environment to help ideas grow
• From (classic) strategic planning towards a paradigm or leadership based on values, and networks should be lead by such values
• Generative networks have distributed power, then again challenging the traditional ways of leadership and organization government: the commitment to enter a network is both a commitment outwards and inwards.

Ana Moreno: ICTs in the organization

ICTs both integrated in daily work and integrated in projects.

Change management in the organization a must.

Lessons learned

• Shared designs
• Bottom-up
• Capacity building, competences

The emergence of networks offer a new role for firms to enter the world of development cooperation in brand new ways.

Martín Jerch

Strong commitment to open content, procedures, etc. within the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency, of strategic importance when having 60 offices spread all over the world.

Eduardo Sánchez

• ICTs to drastically cut down costs of development cooperation
• We have achieved a somehow good level, in a quantitative point of view, of resources for development cooperation, now we have to build quality projects based on these available resources. Accountability, transparency
• Participation, engagement as part of this transparency and quality goals
• Nonprofits are means, not goals, and ICTs can help in this, in reinforcing the role of ICTs as canalizators

Paco Prieto

• The role of technological centers and telecenters as a node of the development cooperation network
• New ways to do projects
• New ways to assess projects.

Comments from the audience

What about North-North cooperation? Why not using ICTs to coordinate nonprofits in developed countries and/or help smaller nonprofits so they can achieve big successes just like big nonprofits do. [by someone at the CRUE]

Paula Uimonen & Manuel Acevedo: ICTs in development cooperation vs. ICT4D. The table agrees that, of course, there’s a difference and that probably the former should come first, then the latter, and to do so (to do the former), nonprofits have to knock at the politicians’/funders’ door so they put it in the development agenda (read budget). Well, I couldn’t agree less. I think newest ICTs, especially the ones that the Web 2.0 brought in, are challenging way more the organizations’ design, the (lack of) foresightedness of their leaders, and the commitment with real openness of their goals and functioning. And this is, by no means, dependent from highest policy making and even budgeting.

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