News

The Commission has launched the public consultation on “Towards an EU approach to local democratic governance, decentralisation and territorial development"

In order to stimulate the debate and receive external contributions to enrich the policy making process, the Commission launches this public consultation supported by an "issues paper" and a "background document". The issues paper aims at identifying the main questions to be addressed in this preparatory process. The public consultation is expected to provide inputs for a Commission's Communication, which should be finalised in July 2008.

There are three related themes, central in the issues paper, which will be explored in the consultation: (i) Local democratic Governance; (ii) Decentralisation; and (iii) Territorial Development. The role of local actors is also a central issue.

Non-state actors' organisations, institutions and networks interested or active on this debate, partner countries institutions, individual experts, donors and development partners' organisations will be involved in this consultation.

This public consultation, which starts on 21th april 2008, will be closed on 16th June 2008.

I invite you to send written contributions in the framework of this public consultation on this important topic to DEV-local-gov@ec.europa.eu . The Commission looks forward to receiving your contributions and having a fruitful debate in the coming weeks.

Link to access to documents and information about the public consultation is : http://ec.europa.eu/development/about/consultat... .

08/05/2008

The European Commission is financing a €20 million "ACP-Information and Communication Technologies [@CP-ICT] Programme" from its 9th European Development Fund (EDF) out of which €9.5 million will be made available through call for proposals. ACP local government organisations, among other ACP stakeholders, are invited to participate in this call for proposals especially in Lot 2 of the activities to be supported (see below) for which no less than € 3.0 million will be allocated. The Contracting Authority is the ACP Secretariat.

Objective: The objective of the project is poverty reduction and in particular to address intra-ACP needs in terms of ICT. It is capacity building programme that can be carried out at continental, regional, sub-regional or national level institutions to provide locally-appropriate capacity building for ICT strategy, policy and regulation.

Activities: Three distinct types of initiative will be supported:

· Lot 1 – actions focusing on research, knowledge-management, knowledge-sharing and learning networks;

· Lot 2 – actions involving the ACP Parliamentary Assembly, Parliaments of ACP States, ACP regional parliamentary institutions/bodies, ACP parliamentarians and ACP local government organisations, in initiatives relating to the ICT sector; such initiatives are to be supported by no less than € 3.0 million;

· Lot 3 – actions with specific highly-targeted expert interventions by international experts or international institutions, designed to address specific, complex policy and regulatory issues of urgent importance to one or more countries.

Information below concern only Lot 2 that is of interest to ACP local government associations.

Grant size: minimum EUR 300 000 and maximum EUR 1 000 000

Co-financing rule: the maximum rate of EC co-financing of the action total eligible costs is 85%.

Eligibility criteria: Applicants can but are not obliged to act with one or more partner organisations. All applications must contain at least one applicant or partner who is an ACP national. In case of a partnership, the number of partners that are EU nationals, if any, must not exceed the number of partners that are ACP nationals.

Duration of the action: minimum 6 months and maximum 24 months.

Sectors or themes: All actions must have ICT as their central theme and addressing intra-ACP needs in ICT. The overall objective of EDF funding is poverty reduction within the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – this is the context within which proposals will be judged.

Location: Actions must take place in one or more ACP country or EU Member State. However the action must benefit directly one or more ACP country.

Why investing in ICT?

Many observers think ICT should be treated as a matter of urgency, since any delay puts developing countries at risk of being further marginalised. The importance of ICT in achieving development goals is increasingly recognised in international initiatives such as the MDGs. For local government, ICT can improve access to basic services such as health and education. For instance in the field of health, ICT can be used to manage drug distribution; salaries and health records; to support training, diagnosis and treatment; to gather and collate statistics and epidemiological data; and to enable patients to monitor, feed back and hold service providers accountable.

ICT is also a critical tool in ensuring transparency and accountability of local government. It is a powerful tool in connecting communities and local government officials, thereby enabling citizens’ full participation in the decision making process, for example allowing the local authorities to formulate development plans with the full participation of the community. Access to useful information can benefit the poor in improving the quality of their products or services, obtaining a better price and enabling them to market their products/services beyond the confines of their immediate neighbourhood. This is particularly true in the rural communities and marginalised areas, where long distances and difficulties in transportation can be avoided by effectively using ICTs to have and provide timely and reliable information.

ICT has also an important impact on business in developing countries by creating new opportunities, especially by enabling the creation and delivery of digital goods, such as music. It can help disseminate indigenous knowledge, such as herbal medicine. It also allows the elimination of middlemen in marketing of farm products, arts, crafts and clothing, etc. and allows enterprises in developing countries to increase margins and revenue by accessing lucrative foreign markets directly.

Finally ICT and applications are increasingly important in natural resource management and disaster prevention.

However, without available skills to operate and maintain the physical infrastructure, as well as develop and maintain software, users or potential users will naturally be unable to take advantage of the infrastructure, which itself will therefore not be used to its full potential. Thus the importance of capacity building focused on training individuals but also on reinforcing the institutions capacity at the local government level. Forging alliances between private and public sector, including international and multilateral organisations is pivotal.

Further useful information

· The system of open calls for proposals is used. This means applicants have to submit both the Concept Note and the full Application form at the same time (before 16 September 2008).

· National association of local government (NALG) can bid alone however you would be advised to work in partnership with EU development cooperation agencies that have experience in ICT such as DFID UK, SIDA Sweden, Germany (GTZ and KfW), DANIDA Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Irish Aid Ireland, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, etc.

· NALG can also work with some national universities/institutions specialised in ICT such as: in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa University, College of Telecommunication and Information Tech.); Ghana (Saga Academy); Jamaica (University of the West Indies); Kenya (Egerton University, Maseno University, University of Nairobi); Mali (FMPOS); Mauritius (Universite of Technology of Mauritius); Mozambique (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane); Namibia (Polytechnic of Namibia); Nigeria (University of Agriculture in Makurdi, University of Ibadan); Rwanda (Rwanda Information Technology Agency – RITA); Senegal (Société Africaine d’Education et de Formation pour le Développement); Tanzania (Open University of Tanzania, University of Dar es Salaam, DIT); Trinidad (University of Trinidad and Tobago); Zimbabwe (Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe Open University).

· NALG may also develop partnership with ACP/international institutions specialised in ICT such as: African Virtual University (AVU); African Learning Networks; African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD); International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD); Association for Progressive Communications (APC); the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP); Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (AFNIC).

· Finally NALG can be inspired by various international programmes/initiatives to support ICT in ACP countries such as: the Global e-schools and communities initiative (in Ghana, Rwanda and Namibia); e-governance Capacity-Building for African Municipalities Project; Electronic Distance Training on Sustainability in African Local Governments (EDITOSAI); the Swedish Program for Information and Communication Technology in Developing Regions (SPIDER); Global Development Gateway (GDG) and InfoDev; Global Digital Opportunity Initiative (GDOI); Global Development Learning Network (GDLN); etc.

How To Apply?

The guidelines and application form for submitting a proposal are available through the websites of the European Commission ( http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/cgi/frame12.pl... ) and the ACP Secretariat ( www.acp.int ) .