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Mobile Technologies and the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs): Reaching the unreachable

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Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education

• Promote gender equality and empower women

• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Develop a global partnership for development   

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The problem

• Both developed and developing countries have committed to the achievement ofthe UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. However, the latestforecasts on achieving this goals are grim. It now seems that many countrieswill not reach that goals, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa and theLeast Developing Countries (LDCs).

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MDGs and ICTs

• Many of the MDGs are closely connected to the provision of public services to poor people either by governments or through the private sector. And Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) can play an essential role not only in reaching marginal/under-served communities but also in scaling up the services at affordable costs. This however is still not happening on asubstantive scale.

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ICTDs

• Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTDs)

• Cross cutting issue for MDGs

• Identification and availability – demands and solutions

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Mobile Web & ICTD development - I

• Developing country Government and their partners need to include in their current development and e-government strategies and priorities the delivery ofpublic services through Mobile technologies. There is need for them to move beyond the so-called "digital divide" and instead focus on the real core social and economic issues and problems that can be addressed via ICTs and morespecifically through MTs.

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Mobile Web & ICTD development - II

• Useful applications and eGovernment – focus on delivering services to the poor

• Need for Mobile Web

• High cost of handsets and services

• Development of mobile solutions for use of Government programs: bringing the price down

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Prospecting for demands in eGovernment

• Identifying local (municipal) government needs

• Interconnecting services offered by different levels of government

• Integration/interoperability of data sources from municipal/state/federal sources

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Public Software - I

• Public Software released as Free and Open Source.

• Brazilian experience: Brazilian Public Software gateway (http://www.softwarepublico.gov.br)

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Public Software - II

• Bringing toghether demands and solutions: Virtual Public Market (http://www.mercadopublico.gov.br/)

• Brazilian experience: Brazilian Public Software gateway (http://www.softwarepublico.gov.br)

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Virtual Public Market

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International Public Software

• Identification of common problems

• Joint work on solutions

• Adaptability and local configuration

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Some conclusions

• Need to move beyond the digital divide

• Need to address traditional development issue by MTs

• Need to include ICTs and MTs in national development plans, policies and priorities

• Need to empower citizens to make them part of key policy making processes that addressed the priority needs

• m-governance is the way to go as long as we put the emphasis on governance and not only on the technology

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Contacts

• UNDP focal point for ICTD and MTs:

Raúl Zambranoe-mail: raul@undp.org