This is the website to the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID).  It contains a multiude of information regarding GAID activities, ICT development projects, and publications regarding relevant ICT and development issues.  There are various articles on the use of Open Source Software in development projects, which I will use as examples in this paper. 

The GAID is an organization launched by the United Nations in 2006 to address the use of ICT in acheieving the Millenium Development Goals, particularly for reducing poverty in the developing world.  It formed from the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), during which a need for a global ICT and development policy forum was established.  The GAID serves to facilitate collaborative development projects between the private and public sectors, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups.

As stated on the website, the Objectives of the GAID are as follows:

"The Alliance will seek to contribute to:

(1) Mainstreaming of the global ICT agenda into the broader United Nations development agenda

(2) Bringing together key organizations involved in ICT for development (ICT4D) to enhance their collaboration and effectiveness for achieving the internationally agreed development goals

(3) Raising awareness of policy makers on ICT4D policy issues;

(4) Facilitating identification of technological solutions for specific development goals and pertinent partnerships

(5) Creating an enabling environment and innovative business models for pro-poor investment and growth and for empowering people living in poverty

(6) Acting as a "think-tank" on ICT4D-related issues and as an advisory group to the Secretary-General."

Wagner, D. A.2005, ‘Pro-equity approaches to monitoring and evaluation: gender,

marginalized groups and special needs populations’, Monitoring and evaluation of

ICT in education projects: a handbook for developing countries, pps. 55 – 63, viewed 23 July 2009 <http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.288.html>.

This work is a critique of the methods used to evaluate the progress of ICT development projects. It is specifically geared towards projects associated with the Millennium Development Goals. In this work Wagner presents some poverty, literacy and ICT statistics that may be useful to my project.  This work calls for more sophistacted techniques in analyzing data regarding development.  Wagner specifically calls for a "Pro-equity" approach to monitoring and evaluating development projects.  This method requires analysts to expand data used for project evaluation to accurately reflect marginalized groups within a society instead of focussing on macro-level data.  Focussing on high level summarized statistics often masks underlying structural problems and inequalities. 

This work will be particularly useful when discussing the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). I will be able to look at some of GAID’s publications and evaluate them using some of Wagner’s perspectives outlined here. For example, he discusses multiple biases that currently exist in the monitoring and evaluation of ICT projects. These include various exclusion factors and demographic classifications such as: rural vs. urban, male vs. female, somewhat poor vs. very poor, young vs. old. Looking at data through these lenses may at times provide different results than focusing strictly on macro-level population data.

 The GAID is an initiative launched by the UN in 2006 to address the use of ICT in achieving the MDGs.  This book outlines the purpose, goals, and operations of the GAID.  It is organized into three parts: 1) principles and structure of the GAID; 2) summary and outcomes from the organization's first meeting; and 3) the business plan of the GAID.  It is published by the UN/GAID so it is somewhat of a manifesto rather than a critique or analysis of the organization's operations.  It will give a concise view of the GAID stated goals and objectives and how the organization plans to promote the Millenium Development Goals through the effective use and proliferation of ICT.

The GAID originated as a result of the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).  During this summit, representatives from the UN, civil society groups, and non-governemental organizations (NGO) determined a need for a global open forum within which ICT policy dialogue could take place.  It is from this need that the GAID was concieved and launched in 2006.  In pursuit of this goal the GAID "will contribute to transforming the spirit and vision of the WSIS into action and promote the use of ICT for the acheivement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millenium Development Goals (pp. 2)."  The organization acts a facilitator and a spring board for colaborative partnerships aimed at tackling development issues using ICT.  This is the main focus of my research and thus this book will be helpful in understanding the vision and operations of this organization.