Information Society Watch

February 2004, Sustainable Development Networking Programme.

This report is the result of an independent external assessment of the UNDP Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP). The report submits that SDNPs had a significant role to play in helping poorer communities and marginalised groups, including women take advantage of ICTs, with the participation of Community Support Organisations (CSOs) in developing countries. The report recommends that the experience of the SDNPs be leveraged in helping UNDP implement its governance and poverty reduction programmes and achieve the MDGs. SDNP represents a significant store of corporate experience and institutional memory that can readily be applied to fulfilling the mandate of the agency as it focuses on achieving the MDGs and mainstreaming ICTs. The report notes that the challenge of achieving sustainability was great and distracted the SDNP from achieving its basic objectives and in some cases pushed the initiative into becoming a commercial entity.The report concludes that the SDNP helped to raise awareness of the needs for greater access to information and of the benefits that accrue as a result, especially from a development perspective. Its main impact was in lobbying decision makers about the importance of information and access to information (adapted from authors)

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