DGF is an international nonprofit organization with the mission to reduce poverty and enable change in developing nations through information technology.

To this end, DGF provides Web-based platforms that make aid and development efforts more effective around the world. We focus our resources in three areas where even small investments in information and communications technology (ICT) can make a major difference:

• Effective government - enabling better aid management and coordination, and more efficient and transparent government procurement.
• Knowledge sharing and collaboration - leveraging the Internet for online communications among development practitioners worldwide.
• Local partner programs in nearly 50 countries - connecting developing country organizations into our mission and helping empower them to use ICT to scale up local development efforts.

ICT4Peace aims to enhance the performance of the international community in crisis management through the application of information Communications Technology (ICT) – technologies that can facilitate effective and sustained communication between peoples, communities and stakeholders involved in crisis management, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding. Crisis management is defined, for the purposes of this process, as civilian and/or military intervention in a crisis that may be a violent or non-violent with the intention of preventing a further escalation of the crisis and facilitating its resolution. This definition covers peace mediation, peace-keeping and peace-building activities of the international community. In bridging the fragmentation between various organisations and activities during different crisis phases, ICT4Peace aims to facilitate a holistic, cohesive and collaborative mechanisms directly in line with Paragraph 36 of the WSIS Tunis Commitment:

“36. We value the potential of ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict which, inter alia, negatively affects achieving development goals. ICTs can be used for identifying conflict situations through early-warning systems preventing conflicts, promoting their peaceful resolution, supporting humanitarian action, including protection of civilians in armed conflicts, facilitating peacekeeping missions, and assisting post conflict peace-building and reconstruction.”

The UNITAR Webinar Series on ICT Policy Issues for Development will provide United Nations delegates with a forum for discussion and learning related to the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) within global development efforts.

Series Objectives

• To present participants with the most current information from civil society, academia and the public and private sectors on key ICT policy issues of interest to delegates.
• To allow participants the opportunity to interact substantively in a seminar setting with ICT experts and the tools and strategies they employ in the field.