Introduction
Development Cooperation 2.0: The First ICT International Meeting for Development Cooperation was held on 30 and 31 January 2008 in Gijón, Asturias (Spain).
For two days more than 200 experts on Information Society and Development Cooperation from 20 countries and 138 entities from governmental, social and business sectors have gathered to share experiences and knowledge with the aim of transforming digital divides into digital inclusion and promote the use of ICT for improving the methods and practices of development cooperation.
The aim has been to provide a space for reflection and awareness of the need to promote, develop and adapt the use of ICT in policies, programmes and projects for development. It has also driven practices of networking for development cooperation.
In this first edition, it has sought to set up not only a national but also an international reference framework on ICT and Development Cooperation matters. Thus, we will be making it easier to exchange knowledge on ICT applications as innovation regarding Cooperation, and so, giving visibility to ongoing actions.
To top it all, it has been highlighting the need of an ICT knowledge network for Cooperation, made up of cooperation agents. This was created a new sort of knowledge on the area coming from the experience many cooperation agents already have. As a matter of fact, even though there were many projects to bridge the digital device through the use of ICTs, there were not so many spaces for debate or reflexion. Neither physically nor virtually; neither in Spain nor abroad. That is why we were proposing a kind of net of networks on cooperation.
The specific targets that have taken part in holding this meeting were:
- To recognize ICT as tools for application development and to identify the way these relations are being drawn in practice, and to manage to disseminate them throughout all development agents.
- To know how the players themselves of cooperation are integrating ICT (mainstreaming ICT) to advance the effective execution of its goals.
- To create networking development cooperation, namely to know how the system development cooperation had been incorporated the networking, and how it adapts to the environment in the Network Society. Are we facing 2.0 Cooperation, an emerging model of cooperation network makes use of the technological possibilities and incorporates collaborative practices to overcome limitations in the practice of traditional development cooperation? What are the necessary changes in architecture (structure) of the system of international cooperation and its engineering (processes) to enhance their impact in the Age of Information and Network Society?
During the meeting we were able to compare the structure and dynamics of the sector with the cooperation of other sectors, drawing ideas and positioning that sector in the socio-technological present - and it comes at least in the short term. After all, ICT are merely means to an end, here are tools that serve to enhance communication and collaboration network to facilitate the real impact of our work.
At this site you can access to all the information that has been generated during the celebration of this event.
