Wanted: How Does Your Organization Use Technology To Help Improve People's Lives?

The World Bank Institute publishes a magazine, Development Outreach, that covers current issues and trends in international development. CommGAP's Program Head, Sina Odugbemi, is guest editor of the upcoming issue of Development Outreach, which will feature articles and debates around the issue of Open Development. In this issue we strive to present a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge - and we are asking you to share your experience with us and the readers of Development Outreach. Specifically, we are asking you to send us your stories about projects in which your organization used information and communication technologies to improve people's lives in developing countries. Send your stories to commgap@worldbank.org! You can also share your story by commenting on this post (but don't forget a reply-to email).

Experience from developing countries has shown that Open Development has gained a foothold in real-world efforts toward successful and lasting reform. This currently unfolding paradigm shift has led to the increased recognition that effective pro-poor social and political change requires multiple sources of development knowledge and multiple sources of collaborative action. In short, knowledge and action generated in the Global South are crucial to achieving development results. Open Development means that development has increasingly become the shared concern of collaborative and networked individuals and communities. In the developing world, citizens and civil society groups are co-creators of solutions, not passive recipients of assistance.

Technology obviously plays a crucial role for Open Development. ICT open new channels and platforms for citizen participation in policy planning and making. If you are working with a civil society organization and have been involved in development projects that make use of digital or online technologies, cell phones, social media and other related technologies to empower people and improve their lives, please share your experience with us! We will chose a few of your stories to be published in Development Outreach this summer.

Please share with us, in no more than 150 words, your experiences with developing and implementing a development project that makes use of technologies and utilizes them to improve people's lives in developing countries. When writing, please identify yourself, your organization, the country you are working in, and please briefly describe how technology is being used in your project to improve development outcomes for the people. Please share with us what your objectives are using technologies and how it impacts citizens. What have been the main challenges in using technology? What are the outcomes of your project? Please only write to us about projects that are actually being implemented, so we can learn about possibilities and pitfalls in the real world.

Please write to us at commgap@worldbank.org or comment on this post (please include an email address where we can reach you)! We are looking forward to your input and to sharing your experiences with a wide audience of development specialists.

Picture: Flickr user escalepade