Re: GDG

Mr. Potashnik, it's a great honour to receive your answer and to discover
that you are committed with a new way of working together with the civil
society. I'm probably unable to speak about the very new World Bank project
Gateway is. But my fear is to see how so many millions as you are in charge
of, could be diluted in a bureaucratic giant tool as WB is. The mistake
could be to drive this goodwill project in a way in which only a small part
of the huge financial capacities the WB is investing in it will get used in
sharing concepts beetwen WB researchers, civil society investigators and
field people.

Your idea of facilitating people access to all the proposals sent by all
the participants is a commendable target. But it's not enough! Your role as
main world entity in charge of fighting poverty is to contact all the
actors (concerned poor people, local NGOs, international NGOs, local
governments, international entities, researchers, decision-makers) and,
above all, to keep them informed of the ongoing process of policies
definition, in a way to receive their feedback at every stage of the
process. When you'll arrive to the last stage,  just before the official
announcement of the policies to be applied worldwide to fight poverty, you
should still being in contact with all the actors and not only the last
ones of the list (the decision-makers) but above all with the former ones:
the poors and their representatives, the local NGOs. That is the real
challenge!

On a technical point of view, I think the Gateway is a good tool to compile
information coming from people who are able to access to Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) world, but it's a weak instrument to rally
poor people thoughts, because of the digital divide... So, even if the G8
are decided to boost ICT in the third world countries, it still being
merely a goal to be reached, not a reality. This is why I used the vacuum
metaphor,  not because you may hide your informations, but because you may
catch informations without been able to send back the synthesis you will
realize. To be effective, your communication strategy should work in two
ways: from the field to the WB analysts through the existing civil networks
and from your communication office to the international and local NGOs to
be spread to local communities through local smart communication tools.

This might be the most original work you'll have to promote because it's
not the usual WB way of proceeding i.e. it's against the usual bottom to
top practise. And here lies the cooperation with the NGOs, I mean if you
promote transparency and a shared discussion with NGOs, you could be backed
by them at the time of spreading the several steps of the analysis process.
If the WB hear the NGOs, the NGOs would hear the WB. This could be the
beginning of a new relation in beetwen both sectors. It's a way to
transform competition into cooperation.

More than giving you a chance, I wish you can transmit this new concept to
all the Gateway team, and, by osmosis to the WB at large. We could both
hope this will also change the way Bretton Woods bodies are defining their
role and shaping a sustainable future. As you have noticed, the
Simultaneous Policy ( http://www.simpol.org )  is a practical way to reach
the future target of the peaceful, economically and environmentally secure
world we all desire. We are ready to participate in every sustainable
policies forum, including yours.

Good luck, we all hope to like what you will built.

Regards,


>Dear Mr. Drouet,
>
>I saw your contribution to the Bellanet discussion fourm this morning.   I
>also
>visited your website--which, by the way, I found most interesting in its
>concept
>and content,  and perhaps could serve as one of many sources of policy
>debate on
>the Gateway.
>
>You have one major misconception about the Gateway which I would like to
>correct.    You state:   "The Gateway will work as an ideas' vacuum. I mean
>their project is to suck our ideas, mix them with their experience [The World
>Bank] and write policies unilateraly. "
>
>Nothing could be further from the truth about the Gateway.   Indeed, as
>you will
>see in the Gateway demo on our planning site,  but more so in about 6 weeks,
>the Gateway will include many different perspectives and be fully
>participatory,
>enabling all users to input comments and contributions whenever they want
>through out the site, without any modifications in the text.    Indeed,  the
>Gateway will offer opporunties for all  " (concerned poor people, local NGOs,
>international NGOs, local governments, international entities, researchers,
>decision-makers)," to have their inputs-comments, documents, etc.  viewed
>on the
>Gateway.
>
>We certainly will welcome all points of view on the Gateway in support of the
>principles you state and encourage with your website.   So, give us a chance.
>I hope you will like what you see.
>
>Regards,
>
>Michael Potashnik,
>Acting Director
>Global Development Gateway
>The World Bank
>Visit:  www/worldbank.org/gateway/

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