The Bulgaria Development Gateway (BgDG) is a country-level
component of a global Development Gateway Initiative launched by the World Bank in 2001 with the goal of
increasing the access to knowledge and using the power of
Information and Communication Technologies to support poverty
reduction and sustainable development.
The mission of Bulgaria's Development Gateway is to facilitate
the country's transition into an information, or knowledge-based
society by consolidating the national dialogue on ICT for
development and promoting a common vision among the relevant
stakeholders in government, business, civil society, academic
and research communities, and international donor organizations.
The main components in the portfolio of BgDG activities include:
development of an knowledge sharing portal to serve as a
one-stop-shop repository for development stakeholders in the
country (www.BGrazvitie.net);
policy design and advocacy aimed at shaping ICT policies
in the country by conducting e-readiness and knowledge assessments,
technology foresight studies, and the like;
raising public awareness on the importance and benefits
of ICT for development;
testing and implementing small-scale pilot projects which
can demonstrate the practical impact of ICT on increasing
transparency and accountability of government, development
of SMEs and e-commerce, coordination of international donor
assistance, knowledge-sharing among civil society organizations,
and development of e-learning applications.
BgDG is also strongly focused on enhancing regional cooperation
and transfer of good practices among the countries in Southeast
Europe.
ARC Fund is one of the founding organizations and coordinator
of this initiative, which started already in March 2001 with
support from the World Bank and later from the Development
Gateway Foundation (www.dgfoundation.org).
Since then a wide coalition of development stakeholders has
been forged in support of BgDG's mission - Bulgarian Internet
Alliance for Economic Development. The goal of this Alliance
is foster wider use of Internet and related technologies to
the benefit of economic and social development in the country.
It brings together Members of Parliament, cabinet ministers,
public sector officials, representatives of large IT companies,
private business associations and major Bulgarian NGOs.
Visit the Bulgaria DG portal at www.BGrazvitie.net
or www.bgrazvitie.net
|
