Re: National Recovery Plan . . . misses the point!

John,

Precisely. That is why I, as a member of the Solomon Islands ICT Working Group, and Technical Advisor for the PFnet project which is trying to help rural people communicate and then PARTICIPATE, am so concerned about the failure of the draft plan to include specific mention of affordable rural connectivity and e-governance.

It will be a disaster for rural people if the NERDP goes through without specifically committing the government to use ICT to allow their huge "unheard" majority to participate.

It might be hard for politicians to contemplate this, which might explain the ever-uphill struggle that the ICT Working Group has had to get ICT in the document.

So far, they have only agreed one bullet point tucked away in the Communications section. There is no mention of the World Summit on the Information Society in the section on MDGs.

It is not adequate yet, but as it is still only draft there is time to improve it. As long as the project really listens to stakeholders. We had to fight tooth and nail to even be consulted.

David Leeming