The Global Mechanism (GM) was established by Article 21 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). It began its operations in October 1998.
The GM is a subsidiary body of the UNCCD. Its original functions of general broker and match-maker have evolved over its first ten years of operations, in the wake of the changing international financial architecture, its new modalities for resource allocation and the increasing importance of domestic budgeting processes in developing countries.
As a consequence, the GM is increasingly specializing in providing a range of financial advisory services to the country Parties to the Convention in close cooperation with International Finance Institutions (IFIs) – in particular the World Bank Group, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the regional development banks. The European Commission and bilateral donor agencies are also long-standing partners of the GM.
The Global Mechanism is hosted by IFAD offices in Rome. Contact person for Dgroups is Maurizio Navarra.
Earlier today, members of the Dgroups Partnership completed their meeting in The Hague. It was followed by a brief meeting of the new Board. For the first time, members could participate virtually in some parts of the discussions, opening a new chapter for Dgroups.
New Helvetas Board member Riff Fullan reflects on the discussions:
Yesterday’s meeting was in plenary and provided an opportunity for participants to re-connect, to reflect on past progress (see Peter Ballantyne’s report), and to explore different future directions and priorities for Dgroups.
Today, participants broke into groups to discuss and set short-term priorities for issues clustered around ‘the partnership’ and ‘the platform.’
SDC’s Patrick Kalas reflects on the first day:
So, what are some of the things that Dgroups users expect to see in coming weeks and months?
Today in The Hague, members of the Dgroups Partnership elected a new Board to guide the Partnership in the coming years. The organizations elected were:
Earlier this month the Dgroups Foundation was established in the Netherlands. After early years incubated by Bellanet/IDRC as a project, Dgroups members decided that a legal entity was needed at the heart of the partnership.
The intention is to keep the Foundation small and smart: It will have a Board elected from members of the partnership. More operational activities like platform hosting, support, and communication among the members will be contracted to others.
The next meeting of the Dgroups partnership is in April 2009 where some important further governance and strategic decisions will be taken.
Organizations interested in joining Dgroups can find more information online. We welcome any non-governmental, governmental and inter-governmental bodies and any other type of organization that shares the objectives of the Foundation.
This week, Maarten Boers and Peter Ballantyne were in Switzerland to meet with WA Research on the status of the Dgroups migration process. We also met with Dgroups members Helvetas and Swiss Development Cooperation.
Helvetas has so far been gradually introducing and using Dgroups into its activities. It also acts as sponsor for the very active KM4dev Dgroup – where people discuss and share knowledge sharing and knowledge management experiences in the development sector.
In its earlier days within Bellanet, SDC provided support for the platform – helping to ensure it would be both a tool providing specific services as well as a wider common good for the development community to benefit from. SDC colleagues indicated that they intend to continue their membership of Dgroups, particularly making use of it to facilitate communication and exchange in their thematic networks. They indicated they might consider providing additional funds to support the further development of the platform and its outreach into communities in developing countries.
View our presentation to SDC colleagues:
On April 15 and 16, members of the Dgroups partnership will meet in The Hague to review progress and plans.
The Dgroups Executive Committee agreed a contract with WA research to build the next version of Dgroups. The contract was signed last week, Thursday.
WA Research SA has been in operation since January, 2002, with a mission to build and support collaborative solutions for the international development sector. Customers include the World Health
Organisation, the United Nations Staff College, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, MD, and a number of other international and non profit
organizations.
WA have developed a collaboration platform called ECS. It was originally funded by the WHO and Implementing Best Practices (IBP) consortium, which includes more than 20 organisations involved in
reproductive public health (http://www.ibpinitiative.org). ECS is used by more than 25.000 active users and is rapidly growing. WA Research approach is summarised at http://edgeof.net/.
This is a MAJOR milestone for Dgroups – we have been planning this next step for a long time now.
If all goes to plan, we should have the new platform ready by the end of the year, with the migration complete in February.
We recognize that we have much to do in a short time-frame. It will also lead to some changes in the way Dgroups operates. We aim to make the transition as smooth as possible, and we count on your help in this.
To anticipate any problems and to minimize disruption, we are putting together a migration team to oversee – and communicate – the process and all the various steps; I am sure you will here from them very soon with more details, and requests to help beta test the new service.
Posted by euforic 
Posted by peterballantyne 
Posted by peterballantyne 
