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eAgriculture

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E-agriculture is one of the action lines identified in the declaration and plan of action of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society," published on 18 November 2005, emphasizes the leading facilitating roles that UN agencies need to play in the implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been assigned the responsibility of organizing activities related to the action line under C7. - ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life - and more particularly on the e-agriculture. In 2006, a multi-stakeholder working group was set up to guide efforts in this area.

For the WSIS Plan of Action click here

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eLAC 2010

tagged:

eLAC is a regionally concerted strategy that conceives of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) as instruments for economic development and social inclusion. It is a strategy with a long-term vision (until 2015) in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and those of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which is concentrated on short-term action plans with concrete qualitative and quantitative goals to be achieved

Project Status: 
ongoing - active
ICT Focus Areas: 
Access / Connectivity
Capacity Building
Disaster Preparedness & Response Systems
eAgriculture
eBusiness
eEnvironment
eGovernment
eHealth
eLearning, ICT in Education
ICT Infrastructure
ICT Awareness
Information Society Statistics/Indicators
Local Content Development
Technology, Research and Innovation
Related Member States: 
Cuba
Trinidad and Tobago
Regional CARIFOURUM
Background: 

eLAC2010 is the result of a long process of public consultation that has been complemented by monitoring of the progress made until 2007.

In order to ensure the optimal performance of any regional policy, plans require regular revision and renovation. Given that eLAC is a short-term process, it is possible to monitor the fulfillment of its goals and reformulate its objectives along the way, with the strengthening of dispositions or the incorporation of significant changes every two to three years.

As a result, renewing eLAC2007, to bring it in line with the new challenges towards 2010, has entailed a long process of consultations with experts from government, academia, the private sector and civil society. This began in 2006, with the elaboration of an eLAC Policy Priorities Delphi, organized by ECLAC, which has been valued in the region as a model for multi-stakeholder participation and as an innovative tool for the elaboration of public policies.

Experts throughout the region made 1,454 contributions and 14 international agencies contributed actively in the exercise that involved online and offline collaboration. The process consisted of three rounds of online surveys, which resulted in 1,274 online contributions from almost every country of the region, as well as personal interviews with more than 150 representatives of the public, private and academic sector and civil society.

Keywords: 
eLAC
ICT
development
Design of Project: 

The Action Plan is overseen by a Regional Follow-up Mechanism, which is made up of two main levels of coordination.  Presiding Officers will constitute a first level of general coordination and shall be composed of representatives of the following four countries, representing the subregions: 

 

For Mexico and Central America: El Salvador (Chair)

For the Andean countries: Peru

For the Southern Cone: Argentina

For the Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago

 The Presiding Officers shall be responsible for directing the administration of the Follow-up Mechanism and, in particular, the activities of the thematic coordinators and Working Groups.  The second level of the Mechanism is divided into each of the chapters of the eLAC platform, with representatives who will serve as thematic coordinators. They will be responsible for monitoring progress towards the goals included in the corresponding chapters, identifying opportunities for collaboration based on the continuation of working groups or creation of new ones, and encouraging the use of collaborative elements, such as forums or other electronic media, including, coordination with ECLAC for the preparation of newsletters referring to each chapter. This level of thematic coordination will be led by: 

 

Cuba (education)

Costa Rica (infrastructure and access)

Mexico (health)

Peru (public administration)

Uruguay (production sector)

Bolivia (policy instruments and strategies)

The plan also contemplates the creation of new Working Groups, although their functions and membership and remain to be determined. The Regional Action Plan eLAC2010 recommended renewing the mandate of the majority of the eLAC2007 Working Groups, on infrastructure, creative industries, telework, financing, Internet governance, software and legislative and legal frameworks. It also solicited the creation of four new groups, on:

e-health

ICTs and disability

technological waste, and

gender

 

Finally, National Focal Points (nominated by each country) will coordinate the participation of their country at the different levels of the eLAC structure.  The region’s countries have reiterated their request for ECLAC to act as their Technical Secretariat, coordinating efforts, monitoring advances, and exchanging information between the various instances.

Project Importance: 

The historical importance of the eLAC Regional Action Plan lies in the fact that the countries of the region are all facing common public policy challenges. This has made it possible for them to agree on a set of initiatives aimed at driving forward digital development for growth, equity and democracy.

The purpose of eLAC is to mediate between the ambitious goals of the global community and the needs of the region’s countries, agreed upon under the Millennium Development Goals and those of the World Summit on the Information Society, as well as the needs of the region’s countries, as determined by the situation of each member.

The adoption of measures concerted at the regional level helps to boost national strategies and enable the digital revolution to make a positive contribution to regional integration.

eLAC is a new type of regional agreement, in terms of its style, scope, issues covered and participating agents. The agenda covers a cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary topic that impacts the most diverse aspects of development.

Its working style emphasizes the design of technical proposals with a monitoring system, rather than an overtly political approach where initiatives are mainly declarative. Governments maintain the leadership role in the process of elaborating and implementing a public policy agenda, but they facilitate participation of new non-state actors, such as private sector companies, civil society, academia and international organizations.

One very important consideration is the highly dynamic nature of information and communication technologies, which is why the Action Plan is configured for the short term, even though it is inspired by the long-term vision arising from the World Summit on the Information Society and the Millennium Development Goals, which converge in 2015. Combining a short-term action plan with a long-term vision gives countries the opportunity to review progress towards the targets and if necessary reformulate the goals by strengthening what has already been decided or introducing significant changes.

Anticipated Outcomes: 

The aim of the measures proposed below is to build an inclusive and development-oriented information society. In this regard, the Governments of Latin America and the Caribbean invite all actors in their societies and the international community to provide their cooperation, through the “eLAC” platform, in order to achieve the objectives set forth in the Plan of Action.

Risk Assessment: 

The development of the information society offers unique opportunities for identifying and implementing a coordinated set of public policies in the region. There are various reasons for this.

In the first place, contrary to other divisive issues in the development agenda, the use of ICTs does not appear to arouse controversy. International cooperation and the sharing of experiences in this development area are welcome by the vast majority of governments and other interested parties. Disagreements may arise over specific issues, but the desire to collaborate is never at issue. The use of new technologies in development strategies has turned out to be a unifying issue which has encouraged and accelerated integration and cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Secondly, most of the countries have already initiated major projects in this area and are using incentives and regulatory mechanisms to develop the necessary institutions. There are a great variety of common or similar challenges in the countries of the region that can be addressed in a coordinated fashion. Moreover, the multi-stakeholder nature of the project naturally gave way to the design of a public-private platform for cooperation. In this sense, the plan’s objectives do not stray from the realities on the ground, synergies are created, and the duplication of efforts is minimized.

Thirdly, the moment could not be more propitious: the region’s countries have already adopted specific political declarations and are forging their own national ICT strategies. The first Regional Action Plan eLAC2007 has been in place for three years (2005-2007), with proven results. Contrary to other initiatives, eLAC2007 is a short-term action plan with concrete and quantifiable goals that must be met within reasonable three-year deadlines. The real opportunity to see the fruits of their labour has proven very useful in enlisting regional authorities in the eLAC effort.

Finally, it has been demonstrated that ICTs represent transversal technologies that directly or indirectly affect the daily lives of all of the inhabitants of our region. The fact that in less than a decade half of the people in the region are communicating via mobile telephones illustrates the great potential these tools have for generating social cohesion.

Thus, integrating agendas for economic growth with equity in the region and enhancing public-sector transparency and efficiency can make a major contribution to the construction of information societies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Private Comments: 
http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getprod.asp?xml=/socinfo/noticias/paginas/4/32554/P32554.xml&xsl=/socinfo/tpl/p18f-st.xsl&base=/socinfo/tpl-i/top-bottom.xsl
Website: 
http://www.eclac.org/socinfo/elac/default.asp?idioma=IN
Draft ICT Development Strategy for St. Lucia
St. Vincent & the Grenadines National ICT Strategy and Action Plan
Caribbean ICT Stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC)
http://www.carisnet.org/civic/civic-eng.html , http://www.civicaribbean.org
Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI)
http://www.cardi.org
Fundación Taigüey
http://taiguey.org/
ICT4D Jamaica
http://www.ict4djamaica.org
Institute of Applied Science and Technology - Guyana
http://www.iast.gov.gy