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Rinalia Abdul Rahim

Making a difference with the Global Knowledge Partnership

The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is a worldwide network of organizations committed to harnessing the potentials of ICT for sustainable development. Currently, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation chairs its elected Executive Committee. Canada, the UK and Sweden are members, along with 15 organizations that include the World Bank, five governments from the developing world, as well as a number of NGOs and research organizations. Its "Strategy 2005" focuses on "realizing the potential of information and communication technologies to improve lives, reduce poverty and empower people."

Rinalia Abdul Rahim is executive director of GKP's Secretariat, located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Rahim, who has a BA in political science from Princeton University, and a Master's in public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, began her career as a policy technologist in 1997 with the National Information Technology Council (NITC) of Malaysia, the primary advisor and consultant to the Malaysian Government on matters pertaining to ICT for national development. NITC was selected to host the GKP Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, and Rahim later became its executive director. Rahim is also involved as a member of the International Advisory Panel for the World Summit on the Information Society's ICT4D platform as well as the United Nations Development Program's Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP).


Programs and Policy
GKP programs range from seed grants for small and innovative projects, capacity building workshops/training, fellowships for developing country representatives to participate in GKP meetings/activities; and awards to gather ICT success stories related to youth, gender, poverty reduction and media etc.

Currently GKP is working on eight major thematic areas and these include: Poverty reduction, youth, gender, governance, financing ICT4D, media and communications, local content and indigenous knowledge, multistakeholder partnerships.

"These themes are of interest to our members and we are able to tap into their expertise with relative ease," said Rahim. With the assistance of like-minded members and partners, we organize various thematic knowledge-sharing or learning/consultative activities in almost all the developing regions of the world. The thematic activities of GKP are primarily focused on gaining knowledge base and enhancing competence for the members. But it also spills over and adds value to our collective work in capacity building, policy advocacy, and future development of GKP programs," she explained.

"Our members are involved in every facet of our activities," said Rahim. "They share their knowledge and resources, provide support for specific activities, and create opportunities to enhance our collective mission of promoting ICT for development (ICT4D). They also collaborate with the Secretariat and with each other wherever possible. In the specific case of donor agencies, the special support that they provide is financing for specific GKP programs."

These activities allow GKP to play a stronger role in global policy-making events, said Rahim. "It has been able to consult and gather concrete grass roots experiences, combine them with multi-stakeholder knowledge assets -- i.e., cross-sectoral perspectives, experiences, learning and analysis -- and channel them into global policy fora/bodies in ICT4D. An example is the GKP consultation and recommendations on 'Bridging the Digital Divide,' which was submitted to the G-8 DOT Force in 2001."

GKP also has a role to play at the World Summit on the Information Society, one of the most important ICT4D global policy-making fora. "As an organization that represents and embodies multi-stakeholder approaches and initiatives towards realizing the Information Society, we have been requested by the Executive Secretariat of WSIS to bring our knowledge and experience to the WSIS process, content and events," said Rahim. And GKP, together with the Swiss government will organize a side event this December, known as, as the ICT4D Platform.

Activities
GKP has now multiple activities through which they address the thematic areas and are supporting the initiatives that have ground-level relevance with innovation.

GKP established an awards program that supports and recognizes excellence in key initiatives and innovation from the ground. The awards, which serve as mechanisms for gathering success stories in the use of ICT4D, will be given out at the WSIS. They include:
  • The GKP Youth Award in collaboration with the YCDO (Youth Creating Digital Opportunities) coalition
  • The Gender and ICT Awards in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communication-Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP)
  • The GKP-Panos Media Award in collaboration with the Panos Institute; and
  • The Tony Zeitoun Award in collaboration with InfoDev and the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) where the GKP financial contribution will go to the ICT stories with the strongest link to poverty reduction.
GKP also holds workshops such as:
  • Workshop for Young Women Leaders in ICT (16-18 June 2003), which was held in Egypt and organized in conjunction with the WSIS Pan-Arab Regional Conference. The workshop targeted young women from the Middle East and North African countries working in or interested in working in the field of ICT4D.
  • Asia Pacific Youth Leaders in ICT Workshop (21-24 June 2003), which was held in Malaysia and organized in conjunction with the InfoSoc Malaysia 2003 International Conference. This workshop focused on capacity building for young practitioners leading concrete projects using ICT4D within the Asia Pacific Community.
  • Forum on ICT and Gender (20-23 August 2003), a collaborative effort among many organizations around the world interested in the topic held in Malaysia. The forum is aimed at raising awareness on gender-related barriers to ICT access as well as producing and evaluating recommendations on gender aspects of ICT across themes such as access, health and education, SME entrepreneurship and rural and disadvantaged groups.
Another interesting and much-appreciated project was to organize a series of E-awareness seminars for Asian Parliamentarians in collaboration with a number of other organizations. Attempts have been made "to sensitize high-level Asian parliamentarians on the use and impact of ICT on the development and transformation of their own constituencies and nation."

"Parliamentarians have a crucial role in helping countries achieve their respective Information Society vision," said Rahim. "To be of real service in the area of ICT4D they really need to be aware about the implications of ICT on society." The seminars were attended by Parliamentarians from South Asian countries, Afghanistan, ASEAN member countries, China, Mongolia and South Korea.

"As a service to parliamentarians in general," added Rahim, "the program is generating a source book on the topic as well as an online platform and research center on ICT tailored for parliamentarians. These materials are available online. As a follow-up to the program, we will explore the various indications of interest from other regions to do something similar collaboratively and to have a comparison of regional perspectives and learning."

Seed Grant and Small Innovative Project Fund
This year GKP started to provide seed grant and small innovative project funds to a number of selected NGOs and networks in the developing world. Talking about this seed grant and funding facilities, Rahim said: 'Our Seed Grant and Small Innovative Projects Fund is meant to finance small scale initiatives and pilot projects in the developing world. We are targeting projects that leverage on ICT for poverty reduction, women's empowerment, youth participation and the needs of the indigenous community."

The idea behind supporting these grass-roots projects rest on the fact that many of these organizations have the potential or have been doing good work and yet have been struggling to obtain funds. Moreover through this funding, GKP hopes "to bring good projects and organizations/networks to the attention of our members so that new 'quality' contacts can be made and mutually beneficial partnerships could be explored and established among them." For example, among projects funded this year are:
  • ICT for Poverty Reduction
    Fantsuam Foundation (Nigeria) for the "Capacity-Building for Women and Youth Operators for Nigeria's First Rural ISP" project.
  • ICT and Women's Empowerment
    PROT
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