Commonwealth Network

There are over 20 of us from as many countries, working together for two weeks on the Commonwealth Network of Information Technology for Development. We are at the COMNET-IT Workshop. We invite you to join a discussion list named comnetit to discuss a number of issues. Details follow.

COMNET-IT Workshop, 28 Mar - Apr 8, NCST, Bombay, India

Country Participant

------- ----------- Bahamas Ian Bonamy Cayman Islands David Archbold Ghana Emelia Nortey India Harindranath G India Mahesh Jaisinghani India Sanjay Pathak India Srinivasan Ramani India Geetanjali Sampemane Malawi Tayemu Masikini Maldives Ahmed Arif Malta Joseph Galea Namibia Nangula Hamutenya Nigeria Ajibade Peters Seychelles Rickbert Woodcock Sierra Leone Jim Roberts Sri Lanka M Samanthilaka St Kitts & Nevis Terrence Richards St Lucia Chris Girard St Vincent Kenwyck Lewis South Africa Mike Jensen Tanzania Gerald Mpyisi Tonga Sitiveni Finau Uganda Frank Mugasha Zambia Naboth Ngulube

Two others from the Commonwealth Secretariat, London are

Rogers W'O Okot-Uma Sajda Qureshi

COMNET-IT: the Commonwealth Network of IT for Development

1. WHAT IS COMNET-IT

This is a Commonwealth initiative that is not restricted to the Commonwealth countries.

An objective of COMNETIT is to facilitate the development of strategies and policies for the creation and effective use of networking. The network itself is meant to promote international cooperation in the use of Information Technology for Development.

2. IMMEDIATE FOCUS

We would like to start a discussion on the following topics while we are here at this workshop in Bombay.

a) Networking of research institutions for co-operation in projects and activities relating to IT for development. This also includes IT policies.

b) Co-operation for administrative and civil service reforms. Governet is a project being implemented in Africa to this end with potential applicability in other regions.

c) Identification, use and management of low-cost networking technologies.

3. PUBLICIZING THIS NOTE

We are planning to publicize this note through two routes:

posting in the newsgroup comp.society.development and circulation through wg9.4 distribution list of IFIP

We welcome any suggestions for other channels of distribution of this note.

4. LISTSERVER

You can join us in these discussions by sending an Email as follows, using your first and last names.

Welcome to the COMNETIT public mailing list. This will give you information about COMNET-IT activities. You probably know that COMNET- IT is the

Commonwealth Network of Information Technolgy for Development

You can contact the other members of the list by sending email to comnetit@soochak.ncst.ernet.in It will reach all the other recipients.

To get a list of the members of the list, send a mail to: listproc@soochak.ncst.ernet.in with one line:

recipients comnetit (The subject line may be left blank.)

You can get an index of information available by sending a mail to listproc@soochak.ncst.ernet.in with a one line message saying :

index comnetit

You can get the individual items mentioned in the index by sending a mail to the same address with the contents :

get comnetit item-name

where item-name is the item you want to retrieve.

You can unsubscribe to the list at any time by sending a message:

unsubscribe comnetit

to listproc@soochak.ncst.ernet.in

In case of any problems or if you have any suggestions you wish to one person, please Email to ramani@soochak.ncst.ernet.in