The Sub-regional
Workshop on the Country Gateway Initiative was held at the Center
for the Study for Democracy on July 6 and 7, 2001.
Workshop.
Participating
countries re-presented Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Moldova,
Azerbaijan. Georgia, the United Nations Development Project and the
World Bank.
Workshop participants
spent the first few hours of the agenda discussing experiences
planning and implementing the preparatory phase of each Country
Development Gateway. Par-ticipating countries were in various
phases of their initiative. Georgia and Romania, having the longest
history of implementing the Gateway initiative, shed light on
various aspects of their progress.
By contrast the
Moldovan representatives, having only launched their initiative in
March, detailed their aspirations for the future.
Workshop participants discus-sed
governance models and partnership strategies pertain-ing to their
Country Gateway initiatives. Each country detailed their
perspectives concerning the role of government as a stakeholder and
the Country Gateway as a launching pad for future private sector IT
investments.
A videoconference was held on the
afternoon of July 6 with World Bank-Washington and representatives
from Ukraine and Armenia. Washington representatives shared their
vision for the Global Gateway initiative and their assessment of
progress in Southeast Europe. Technical experts at the World Bank,
Washington detailed a number of new features concerning the Country
Gateway platform. These features will allow each Country Gateway
platform to share information much more readily.
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