1. The Role of Bilateral Donors in supporting capacity-building in the area of ICT Open Consultations on Financing Mechanisms for Meeting the Challenges of ICT for Development United Nations Group on the Information Society Geneva 8-9 October 2001

2. ICT4D in Finnish development policy
Fostering achievement of MDGs along the lines of WSIS, EU development policy and Finnish development guidelines
Implementing ICT as a tool for economic and social development: to increase efficiency, impact and results in achieving MDGs
Reducing poverty by making use of ICT in fostering knowledge economy and entrepreneurship and integration of developing country partners to global economy via knowledge networks
Enhancing Policy coherence by bringing new stakeholders to the implementation
Supporting gradual shift from donor-recipient relation to new forms and broader cooperation e.g. Aid-for-Trade .

3. Operationalisation of ICT4D: Investing in capacity development
Focusing on enabling environment for ICT take-up: innovation policy and systems development at all levels of society
Introducing models for co-operation and knowledge transfer
Fostering multi-stakeholder partnerships for development, validation and take-up in local context - private sector is essential
Bringing forward best Finnish knowledge & added-value for peer-to-peer learning.
Establishing platforms for future North-South partnerships for learning through development co-operation: everyone benefits

4. Example: SAFIPA project South Africa - Finland Knowledge Partnership -programme
Objective: to support capacity in development/take-up of local ICT applications for local people.
Component 1: Institutional development to facilitate the take-up ICT service applications
- Process involving value-added instruction, the training of trainers, activities with multiplier effects, and networking both on institutional and human level.
Component 2: Expert skills building to develop ICT applications for end users
- Seed Fund addressing education & learning sector competences and societal development issues amongst selected constituency. Special attention given to the institutional education and learning outputs as sustainability factor. Selection, upgrading and implementation of the on-going projects and Identification and preparation of new projects and stakeholder groups.
Component 3: Partnership development to bring ICT service applications into market
- Strengthen the cooperation between networks and research institutions locally and globally, support PPP in the service delivery process. Open dissemination of results and ideas to innovate new development activities and promote networking.
Result 1 Increased ability by stakeholders to generate and apply new knowledge in ICT applications development/deployment.
Result 2 Improved innovative IS applications for end users.
Result 3 Increased regional, national, African & global R&D/institutional networks in ICT.

5. Instruments for ICT4D
Multilateral cooperation: institutional support (economic capacity, trade policy, regulatory environment) & infrastructure development.
Bilateral cooperation: long-term partnerships for future: capacity building with technical expertise.
Institutional cooperation: public sector partnerships for peer-peer learning and exchange of Good Practice.
Local cooperation: new innovative practice at grass-root-level by local organizations, NGOs.
University cooperation: networked knowledge partnerships through teacher and student exchange
Business cooperation: private sector partnerships with joint projects.
Credit loans: fostering infrastructure investments and productive capacity.

6. Some challenges for bi-lateral donors
Connection to poverty-reduction programmes: addressing real needs of beneficiaries needs ICT validation in field
Limited efforts and investments: impact on systemic level needs to bridge global and bilateral instruments
Ad-Hoc and lack of coordination: mass scale take-up of ICT applications requires wider partnerships
Silo- and project-based thinking: sustainable use requires cross-sectoral cooperation
Focus on top-down / bottom-up: innovative partnerships grow at grassroot level but enabling environment evolves top-down.

7. Most important partners of the bilateral development cooperation of Finland

8. Thank you Ilari Lindy Advisor, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
ICT4D, science, technology & innovation policy