MISSION

The Mission of the SARDEG is to createa regional development information portal for the South Asia throughpartnership, networking, sharing and exchanging of knowledge and other resources. Therefore, the overall objective of this project will be the elaboration of an online development communication strategy and plan of action for the region, as well the implementation of an effective development stockholders’ network.

The realization of the above will additionally address several other critical goals.

GOALS

The strategic reference points for the global development initiatives are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and nearly all-developmental priorities in the region are aligned to these goals. The major goal is to halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015 and the principal strategy adopted increasingly by the development planners are the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs). Against this backdrop the major goals of the regional development gateway will be:

• Awareness Raising
• Connecting Good Governance and Development Goals
• Coordination in Policy and Project Implementation and Development
• Capacity Building & Knowledge Sharing at Regional and National Levels
• Development Information Services
• Financial Sustainability

Awareness Raising: Through the activities of the SARDEG network, and in formulating, implementing and publicizing the strategy and action plan, awareness will be raised amongst key development stakeholders within the region as to the benefits and challenges of development information sharing. It will be done through:

• Frequent Seminars, Workshops, and online discussions.
• Publication in the newspapers.
• Regular shows/programmes in the electronic media.
• Publication of relevant materials and distribution.

These activities will focus on the constraints and opportunities of development initiatives in the region, the requisite technological, human, cultural infrastructures, and policy frameworks, understanding the roles of various stakeholders, and the current development landscape within the region with special reference to poverty reduction.

Connecting Good Governance and Development Goals: As an information portal the regional development gateway will seek to link good governance and development goals in the region. The gateway will:

• Support the on-going national efforts in institutional and administrative reform and modernization through
• Serve to enhance public administration and the delivery of public services by providing a ready information outlet/window on the SARDEG portal.
• Help public and private institutions to ICT-based medium to channel the processes of decision-making, planning, co-ordination and management of their programmes. Eg, monitoring foreign assistance flow to the NGOs in a state/country.
• Establish links between actors in development initiatives at government, non-Government and multilateral organizations and priorities of the regional as well as national and regional economic, social and political goals.
• Disseminate local success stories in development efforts and good governance and help scaling them up in other parts of the region.

Coordination in Policy and Project Implementation and Development: While the countries in the region are at varied levels of ICT access and usage, the regional gateway portal will set the scene for improved co-ordination in South Asian regional developmental policy and project implementation. Much of developmental project implementation takes place at the national level and is not regional issues as such. Towards knowledge sharing on these activities and possible harmonization within the countries and possibly at the regional level, the SARDEG portal will:

• Seek to build stakeholder consensus, provide broad guidelines for the harmonization of national efforts and identify opportunities for joint programming (e.g. meteorological warning systems),
• Facilitate partnerships through online networks between individual champions, organisations, and institutions.
• Create opportunities for collaboration and mechanisms for resource mobilization through online networks and promotional events.
• Develop an action plan to be formulated through a participatory process, involving consultations with key-actors to strategize development information sharing in the region.

Capacity Building & Knowledge Sharing at Regional and National Levels: Through the development of an effective regional network of policy and decision makers, public administrators, the private sector and the civil-society, SARDEG will:

• Share information and knowledge on various developmental activities and strategies adopted by various actors and lessons learnt thereof.
• Increase visibility of "best practices" and fostering co-operation on developing common policies and activities.
• Inform the stakeholders, various government and non-government actors to build capacity in regional resource and knowledge sharing.
• Organize events to build the capacity of development planners and implementers in the region with regard to the operational aspects of poverty reduction policy and implementation of initiatives and programmes.

Development Information Services: SARDEG will provide a forum for community-based and local, regional or national organizations to share and exchange ideas, experiences and resources on issues of common interest. In doing so SARDEG will:

• Organise a regional workshop of relevant institutions on development research and create an institutional network for data collection in key areas: infrastructure, sectoral applications (education, health, public and private sector), and the information economy.
• Develop a suggested framework for baseline studies with indicators.
• Disseminate the results of the studies through the SARDEG portal in four components: Indicators and Benchmarks, policy Issues, Human Resources and Applications.
• Create a platform for action research by the development actors as well as institutional researchers (eg, as interns, research associates with SARDEG).
• Will catalyse the development of new e-based economic development tools by providing information on and evaluations of various web applications and services, notably for e-learning, e-governance, e-education, e-health, e-jobs, e-communities and e-advisory services.

Financial Sustainability: SARDEG aims to become financially sustainable by the year 2009 through various income generation activities like:

• Subscription for web-based service delivery (eg, Institutional admission, hospital appointments, out-sourcing of various licensing and tendering processes of smaller government departments who does not have dedicated ICT facilities).
• ICT related training, and consultancies.
• Creating a corpus fund through international donors.