Sustainable Development Networking Programme, India - A Success Story

Author : Mr. Harjit Singh & Ms. Rakhi Gupta
Date added : 2002-03-14

Brief Project Background

The world is facing unparalleled environmental crisis and a growing imbalance between rich and poor. Great thinkers and policy makers all over the world are concerned about this crisis and trying to evolve a process that can solve the crisis or at least lessen the degree of this crisis. In this context, the concept of sustainable development emerged. Though the concept of sustainable development emerged at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, for the first time, the slogan "Sustainable Development" started gaining popularity in the last two decades especially after the release of Brundtland Commission report in 1987. The concept talks about quality of life, integrated decision making and equity. Countries especially the third world economies, realized that information and communication technologies can play an important role in achieving these objectives and this realization formed the genesis of the Sustainable Development Networking Programme.

Genesis of Sustainable Development Networking Programme, India

The genesis of Sustainable Development Networks (SDN) dates back to 1992. The principle objective of SDN was to facilitate and promote connectivity between the users and suppliers of information of direct relevance to sustainable development, and to support the preparation and implementation of agenda 21. An autonomous initiative of UNDP, Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) enhances the capacity 21 programme by enabling developing countries to share vital information and expertise. In this context, SDNP India started it''s operation in 1999. Recognizing the importance of information in making informed decisions for development policies, the SDNP India started an information network as well an informed dialogue and communication to empower stakeholders since its inception in 1999. Actually the project SDNP India was launched after a feasibility study carried out by the Development Alternatives-India in 1994. The study identified five options such as clearing house, association of netwroks, high-speed backbone, user network or network service provider, which were considered to be both technically and economically viable. Through the years 1996-97, discussions led to
· adoption of clearinghouse mechanism as the option for SDNP India, and
· to locate the project in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, with the National Center for Software Technology (NCST) taking the role of advisor and as a facilitator of resource flows.

In India, the SDNP was funded jointly by UNDP and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. The project commenced in June 1998, operationalised in June 1999 and completed in December 2001.

SDNP India aimed at facilitating the process of sustainable development, promoting good practices and strengthening the democratic processes through a mechanism of information exchange between the government and research organisations, NGOs, business establishments and the civil society over the electronic and hybrid media. In this light, it launched a portal site at http://sdnp.delhi.nic.in mirrored at http://members.tripod.com/sdnp_india to provide information and resources on a gamut of issues ranging from agriculture to waste management to climate changes. Besides, it provided a platform for fostering debates and discussions, and highlighting development issues and advocating concerned environmental actions at all levels.

The services provided by SDNP India to help people all over the world especially those in developing countries to improve their lives by enabling them to share information and expertise relevant to sustainable development are as follows:

Information on Sustainable Development

SDNP India created a portal website, that provides in-depth analysis and covers major issues / debates concerning multifarious areas having bearing on Sustainable Development. A total of 26 major thematic areas covered ranging from pollution, bio-diversity, wildlife conservation, climate change to agriculture, bio-technology, poverty, population etc. deal with basic issues, case studies, success stories, best practices, replicable models, conventions/ treaties and provides linkages to various databases, libraries, organisations, publications, journals and listservs. This information highway provides news updates on latest sustainable development related events, insights on national and international debates and changes in government policies. A database of national and intentional organisations working on diverse issues related to sustainable development has been provided on the website and has been classified according to the subject areas they are working on. Besides, search engines, links to worldwide web libraries and other sources of information has also been added to the site. Over time, the website has grown in size and is about 330 MB in volume, containing approximately 16000 links. In order to ensure a wider reach, and create a great impact worldwide, facilities to translate the information provided in the site into German, French, Italian, Spanish and Protugese has also been provided. In its quest to enable knowledge based Networking among common people, SDNP India has initiated a section on articles in local language i.e., Hindi. With a firm belief that information not just needs to be easily accessible but also be available in a form which could be easily interpreted by the end users, SDNP India made available information relating to environment and sustainable development in some of the local languages.

Building Bridges Service (BBS)

Building Bridges is an initiative to keep track of some of the sustainable development related contemporary issues. It provides daily update on news items concerning sustainable development through e-Newsletter called "Development Today" which is generated by scanning about 50 national and international sources. Separate coverage on major Indian stories relating to environment and sustainable development is also provided through "Recent Indian Headlines". Besides, it provides information on the current local level development related controversies and thus helps in generating awareness. The bulletin board in this section has been set up to serve as a platform for communities, organisations and individuals to share their views and experiences on sustainable development with the broad objective of enriching ideas and contents through cross-learning.

Query Desk Service (QDS)

Query Desk is a customized service that answers queries related to sustainable development and environment. Query Desk service exists to serve individuals and development organisations worldwide and to serve the diverse global community that aims to foster sustainable development.

Event Reporting Service (ERS)

SDNP India highlights the important conferences, seminars, training programmes and events through it's portal website.

Nodes

To strengthen and regularly update its web site for disseminating information pertaining to sustainable development, SDNP India has established eleven partner nodes by involving reputed organisations, Institutions and Universities working in the diverse field of sustainable development. The nodes have created website on subject areas like Environmentally Sound Appropriate Technologies and Sustainable Livelihood, Energy and Environment, Biogeochemistry and Environmental Law, Human Settlements, Environment and Media, Panchyati Raj and Environment, NGO's Media and Parliament, Environmental Education and Hospital Waste Management, Women and Environment, Water Resources Management and Eastern Ghats, containing information about emerging issues/debates, numerical and textual data, publications and database, case studies/success stories highlighting 'best practices', replicable models and links to other related sites. These nodes have also developed linkages with information users, carriers and providers from Government, academia, corporate sector and NGOs.

Web-Space and Support to Development Organisations and Networks

SDNP India has been involved in promoting enhanced access to IT and the internet. With the support of SDNP India, a website for Community Adoption and Monitoring Programme for Schools (CAMPS), funded by UNDP, executed by Ministry of Environment and Forests and implemented by TERI (Tata Energy Research Institute) is being developed which is updated by the school children on regular basis, based on the samples of data collected by them from various parts of Delhi. For this purpose the selected schools are being provided with latest computers along with Internet connection. A total of ten schools had been selected, some of them in localities where a number of disadvantaged families live. The CAMPS programme enabled connectivity to disadvantaged children. Besides, SDNP India, in its endeavour to create an information highway on development issues, has provided webspace to organisations working in the area of sustainable development for a wider presence in the development arena.

It also hosts Ministry of Environment and Forests publications such as Annual Report, "Enviro News", "Paryavaran Abstracts" and provides information on legislation concerning environment and various funding schemes of the Ministry.

Training on Information and Communication Technologies

With a motto to reach wider section at the macro as well micro level and spread the benefit of development efforts, SDNP India provides training to Government, non-governement and research organisations. This includes training on setting up communication infrastructure and protocols, efficient handling of information and creating interactive processes.

Results

In it's two and half years tenure, SDNP India could create a major impact at all the levels of the multifaceted sustainable development process. Although it is very difficult to quantify the impact, a brief on the qualitative impact can help in understanding the achievements of SDNP India. Impacts created by SDNP India are basically three-fold.

· Value Creation: It could develop an awareness and common value regarding sustainable development by developing new insights through the interaction of different perspectives and approaches, by providing exhaustive information on issues, government policies, resource organisations and resource people related to sustainable development and by providing an active mechanism for communication, coordination and networking among NGOs, academic and research institutions and government bodies on issues relating to sustainable development.

· Linkage with Policy Processes: In order to foster change in policies and practices to support sustainable development, SDNP India continuously monitored policies and events and facilitated partner organisations, and resource persons in advocacy of policy level changes to create a conducive environment to achieve sustainable development.

· Capacity Development: It helped in capacity development of the Government as well non government organisations through training. Information and communication technology by itself can not solve the problems related to sustainable development. Information and communication technologies can help in reaching a wider section and making them aware about different issues related to sustainable development. By providing training to different government and non-government personnel, SDNP India could make it easy for them to use this tool effectively in order to achieve sustainable development.

SDNP India's impact can be assessed by the number of hits the portal site got. The website has got nearly 105,000 hits since May 1999, which is very encouraging. In between 1999 and 2001, SDNP India responded to a total of about 30000 queries, out of which around 25% were received from the world over and the rest are from different parts of India. The information disseminated against the received queries are primarily on environmental legislation, pollution, wildlife conservation, international conventions and protocols, forestry, environmental education, EIA guidelines etc.

Everyday SDNP India receives lot of enthusiastic and suggestive feedback from it's wide range of users. Some of the feedback quoted in Annex I, that SDNP India received from a wide range of users all over the world can give some idea about the kind of interest and impact it has generated. Media practitioners also found the information provided in the site useful in preparing background documents on sustainable development.

Annex I
Feedback

· The site is informative and has wealth of information.
International Institute of Sustainable Development, Canada
· I am impressed by how comprehensive your site is. I have seen many of these such pages with outdated and dead links, but fortunately this site is not one of them!
USA
· The new look site is great. Keep up the good work!
Oxford Forestry Institute, UK
· Your varied coverage is good and can benefit many people
Horizon Communications, USA
· This is the website which will make a difference especially in the developing world
Nkongolo Elumba, Japan
· The range of information is exciting
Centre for Science and Environment, India
· The site is quite informative, would like to receive more information on Biotechnology
University of Pune, India
· Great Site! Information on India's environment, and a lot more, at finger tips. Would like more on conservational efforts at micro level.
Dr. Rucha Ghate, India
· It is an interesting development. I remember things happening in this direction when I left India. Would like to see it more developing and integrated with similar networks in the world.
S. Mudgal, France
· I have found your site to be full of information on sustainable development. Keep up the good job.
Gabriel Negatu, Ivory Coast, West Africa
· Very good site, I am looking forward to reading your updates and the latest issues
Nichole O' Neil, Florida
· I am very happy to see this page on the web. I think it will provide a very good platform for sharing the information on the environment sustainability.
Rakesh K. Trivedi, Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur, India

Lessons

· The project was conceived of in 1994 as both a connectivity solution and a content creation effort. By the time the project was fully operational in mid 1999, extraordinary changes had taken place within the country and globally. At the global level as well national level, lot of sites maintained by Sustainable Development oriented organisations were already existing. In this regard, SDNP India had to come out with something exiting that could be thought provoking and provide something more than the existing sites.
· With the increase in popularity and viewership, SDNP India started receiving huge number of queries from all over the world. In the beginning, it was quite difficult for SDNP India to answer all the queries in time, as network with the line organisations was not developed.
· Although some very motivated and dedicated people were working for SDNP India, their inexperience was a barrier in developing the networking programme effectively in the beginning.
· Thus, SDNP India arranged for the training of the professionals working with SDNP and with the help of this highly motivated team developed a website on sustainable development containing loads of information and thought provoking issues related to sustainable development. It also developed a network of resource people, subject experts and Sustainable Development oriented organisations, which proved to be quite an effective tool for the functioning of SDNP.

Development Impacts

Enhancing and widening the scope and spectrum of SDNP India with assistance from the World Bank

UNDP funding for SDNP India ended on 31st December 2001. In order to carry out it's outstanding initiative and endeavor to reach a wider spectrum of the society, SDNP India could channelise around $2 million from the World Bank. As a part of the new World Bank programme it's been planned to set up 90 nodes which will generate loads of local level information and data related to sustainable development and environment. It has been decided to involve various State Governments and State Pollution Control Boards as network partners for environmental and sustainable development related information dissemination to varied users through out the country. It has also been decided that the assignment of thematic areas to various State Governments and State Pollution Control Boards would be done on the basis of the environmental problems faced by the region and focused area on which information is required by the concerned Government for decision making. Workshops would be organised for transfer of information and knowledge among the nodes and to discuss the designing requirement of the appropriate information system for disseminating online information to all concerned. One of such workshop is scheduled to be held in the first week of April 2002 at Vishakhapatnam. Besides, sponsorship would be provided for organising workshops / conferences to propagate environmental information, problems, concerns, solutions particularly through the means of modern Information and Communication Technologies. To ensure a greater reach, gap areas in SDNP India has already been identified. The areas on which information and database would be generated during the World Bank programme are as follows:

· Urban Municipal Solid Waste Management
· Environmental Biotechnology
· Conservation of Ecological Heritage and Sacred Sites in India
· Coastal Regulation Zone Management
· Environmental Audit
· Promotion and Maintenance of Renewable Energy Sources
· Environmental Law
· Medicinal Plants
· Marine Eco-Systems
· Bamboo Conservation
· Coastal Shelterbelt
· Micro-organisms and Environmental Management
· Eco-labeling and Promotion of Eco-friendly Products
· Environmental Problems in Tea Gardens
· Cold Desert Eco-system
· Wetland Eco-system
· Natural Disaster Management
· Global Environmental Issues

The above mentioned activities will continue for another six and half years. The nodes identified have given an undertaking that they would continue with this initiative till 2008 even after the withdrawal of the World Bank's financial assistance in June 2003. SDNP India can become a moneymaking venture through charging people to access information. But in a developing country like India, very few people can afford to pay for information and the very purpose of SDNP India of reaching unprivileged class and remote areas is lost by this. In future, maybe after one and half years when World Bank would cease it's financial assistance, SDNP India will start generating some income by providing technical assistance and help with website design to those organisations / institutes who can afford to pay and by charging for some highly technical and specialised information.

Conclusion

Improving information technology is a way to improve the decision making process. Higher the communication capacity, higher the potential of sustainable development of human kind. And in this regard SDNP India has already made important contribution.

Project Information

Organisation : National Project Director, SDNP India & Senior Advisor, Ministry of Environement & Forests, Govt. of India. Programme Officer, S
URL : http://sdnp.delhi.nic.in
Total budget in US$ : 404155
Country of activity: India [IN]

Contact Information

Mr. Harjit Singh & Ms. Rakhi Gupta
guptarakhi_in@yahoo.com

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