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.

The World Summit Award (WSA) is the global initiative to and promote the world''s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. WSA was started in 2003 in the framework of the United Nations'' World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as a contribution of the Austrian Government to the global effort to bridge the digital divide and close the content gap. WSA activities include national contests and ions of best practice, a global contest held every 2 years and content-focused national and international conferences with exhibitions — the WSA Road Show.

WSA works towards a global information society that enables all people to , receive and share information and knowledge for their own economic, social, cultural and political benefits. It works in line with the goals of the WSIS, held in Geneva in December 2003 and in Tunis in 2005, which intends to make this vision real.

WSA directs the focus of the UN on global efforts to support and develop high-quality e-Contents and innovative ICT applications. By ing, presenting and promoting the best products from all over the world in that field, it makes a contribution to bridging the Digital Divide and narrowing the Content Gap. It cooperates with the relevant UN organisations and agencies such as UNESCO and UNIDO, national governments and agencies, the ICT industries and e-Business organisations, NGOs and civil society in all UN member states.

Strong partnership with GAID has been the main link to the UN since WSA launch in 2003. In 2008, this cooperation was strengthened through WSA becoming a flagship initiative of GAID, and also through a number of the leaders of the WSA expert panel being proposed and accepted as members of the GAID strategy council. Moreover, one of the highlights of each WSA 2-years phase, Winners’ Celebrations and the Gala, will be held in Monterrey, Mexico Sept. 2-4, 2009, in close cooperation with the GAID Global Forum.