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OAS MEMBER STATES TO BENEFIT FROM IACD/CANADIAN TECHNICAL SUPPORT

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD) are joining forces in efforts to benefit Organization of American States (OAS) member countries with three innovative programs, Computers for Schools, MuNet and Best Practices Forum. CIDA’s contributions to the three projects will be of approximately US$1,071,000. This support comes out of CIDA’s CAN$5M program announced in 2003 to promote and support IACD’s new approaches to programming.

Canada already has a successful Computers for Schools program linking the donation of refurbished computers to Canadian schools and libraries via the establishment of community computer repair and refurbishing centers. Based on the success in Canada and in other countries of the region, CIDA and the IACD will join forces with Industry Canada and the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas in order to provide technical assistance that will lead to the implementation of programs in a number of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. CIDA’s contribution will be an estimated US$375,000 and IACD’s contribution will be an estimated US$130,000 and the program is estimated at US$1,125,000.

MuNet will promote socioeconomic development by strengthening and enhancing institutional capacity of local governments in the Andean region and in Central America. CIDA and the IACD have designed a program aimed at addressing the two key issues in the management of public services at the local level: the modernization of public services through e-Government and the generation of municipal income to support public expenditures at the local level through cadastre projects for the collection of property taxes. The estimated contribution of CIDA will be US$580,000 and the IACD US$300,000.

Finally, under its “Best Practices Forum of the Americas” initiative, the IACD is working with CIDA to consolidate an Internet-based solution for sharing lessons learned and best practices. The aim is to provide a high-level forum for representatives of OAS member states to learn about the experiences of other leaders and to communicate efficiently and cost-effectively. The IACD successfully organized a forum on e-government in 2003 with the support of the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas and is seeking to replicate and maintain the approach on a more permanent basis. CIDA will contribute an estimated US$116,000, and the IACD an estimated US$80,000.

Ronald Scheman, the IACD Director General said, “ The IACD is very pleased with the recent approval to support the dynamic direction we want to give to our programming. In coordination with other units of the OAS, we are looking forward to the successful implementation that will give OAS technical assistance programs a united focus in confronting some of the challenges being faced in the Americas.”

Reference: PR.2.19