Report of the Regional Workshop - Escap

Building an e-community
into planning at the beginning of project design if agencies wish to improve
the chance of project success and sustainability. Cost effectiveness and sustainability
are the most important factors to be considered at this stage. It is
also important to have a clear purpose, and to remember that participatory development
is a means to an end.
At the national level other factors that can increase success include
commitment at senior levels. This is necessary and can improve results greatly
by directing effort into project implementation not just design. Local capacity
is recognized as a problem. Planners need to focus on improving this capacity
as well as providing funding.
Mr. Walter concluded his presentation by raising his concern that
evaluators were able to suggest and advise, but had no authority. The challenge
for evaluators was how to encourage planners to work with, and invite
assistance from the evaluation team. He asked the Workshop participants to
consider what incentives could be offered, when there was no veto available,
just encouragement.
J. Building an e-community
Mr. Sahdev Singh, Assistant Executive Secretary
Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions
In opening his presentation, Mr. Sahdev Singh discussed the ways in
which e-community was signifying the importance of new ways of communication
within a community. Though a community can be defined in many different
ways, it essentially was a group of people with some common interest or
objective. Thus, an e-community could be viewed as a group of individuals
who primarily use the Internet for communication for achieving a common
goal. The goal could be any project or activity with well-defined objectives
and expected outcomes. Such communities are also called Internet Forums due
to their greater reliance on Internet-based communication tools.
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If viewed logically, the Internet itself is an e-community as it facilitates
interaction, discussion and sharing of information among the millions of
individuals of the world. Communication within an e-community may have
one or more of the following three broad functions – research, business, or
entertainment. Mr. Singh said his presentation would focus primarily on the
first function, i.e., research or simply exchange of facts and conclusions
among the members of an e-community. The presentation would also cover
both the physical and logical aspects of e-communities. The physical aspect is
the hardware-software facility and logical aspect is the facilitation of communication.