2014•07•01     Guimarães

The predecessor to UNU-EGOV – the Center for Electronic Governance at the former United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST) concluded shortly before the start of the UNU-EGOV operations on 1 July 2014 the preparation of the concluding and way forward chapter of the “Final WSIS Targets Review: Achievements, Challenges and the Way Forward“, which constitutes an important knowledge resource transferred from UNU-IIST to UNU-EGOV:

“The deadlines for achieving the MDGs and the WSIS targets are approaching, and it will be important to seek closer integration of ICT and development issues in the post-2015 development agenda. This should focus on utilizing ICT in service of sustainable development, for instance by transforming governance to better serve public policy through policy-driven electronic governance (EGOV)…”. David Malone, the Rector of UNU, and UN Under-Secretary-General

Produced under the coordination of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and including the United Nations University (UNU) as one of the lead agencies, the report provides a comprehensive evaluation of the achievements made towards the WSIS Targets that governments agreed upon at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It points, among others, at mixed results in terms of achieving the WSIS targets as well as the difficulties in monitoring them.

Written by Elsa Estevez and Tomasz Janowski from UNU-EGOV, with inputs from Vanessa Gray from ITU, the concluding and way forward chapter pursues three goals:

1. to outline the developments in ICT4D in general, including the international policy context, advances in research and understanding of the ICT4D phenomena, the emerging evidence of impact of ICT4D in different sectors, and how this impact is being measured
2. to summarize the content of this report, including statements of achievement, partial achievement or non-achievement of the WSIS targets, the evidence presented in support of such statements, the challenges and lessons learnt regarding measurement of the WSIS targets, and recommendations for defining future WSIS targets, should monitoring continue after 2015
3. to discuss the way forward with measuring progress of ICT4D in general and WSIS in particular, in order to advance the post-2015 development agenda.