Gateway: World Bank response

Letter|John Garrison|10 September 2001|update 24|url
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The World Bank's Gateway team asked for space to reply to recent articles in the Bretton Woods Update, and our briefings. In the interests of transparency, we are posting this, although we believe it does not address many of the fundamental concerns raised in the Project's April 2001 briefing. See our short comment below the note from John Garrison.

Note by John Garrison, World Bank Gateway team, June 2001

The Development Gateway appreciates this opportunity to clarify some of the points made in the recent note posted by the Bretton Woods Project about the Gateway. First, the Gateway's editorial and content management policies are designed to encourage broad-based participation and a plurality of opinions on the Gateway. Numerous organizations, including NGOs such as Tarahaat, PACT, and the Microcredit Summit, autonomously manage their topic pages selecting advisors, framing the focus of the page, deciding what content is displayed and highlighted, and promoting online discussions. Further, anyone with access to the Internet can post resources such as links and documents on the Gateway, as well as post comments and ask questions, thus adding to the inclusive and synergestic nature of the Gateway.

Second, while the Development Gateway is being initially funded and designed by the World Bank, it is based on an partnership approach that has involved over 100 government, civil society, private sector, and donor organizations in the planning, design, and implementation phases (see a complete list of contributing organizations). This partnership approach also includes local Country Gateways - to date being established in 32 countries - which are managed by diverse and independent organizations that will aggregate local knowledge and help to address the digital divide at the national level.

Third, the Development Gateway team has not only consulted widely on the design and scope of the portal, but has from the beginning been open to the comments and feedback - both positive and negative - received. It is precisely for this reason that the portal is being built through a phased approach that allows us to constantly reassess our policies, incorporate user feedback, and refine features. We have already introduced many improvements, such as a greater emphasis on open technology standards, adopting institutions as topic guides, hosting autonomous community portals, and moving forward in establishing an independent Foundation that will manage the portal through a multi-stakeholder board of directors.

In closing, we invite all those interested in learning more about the Development Gateway to visit our site, and particularly the "About Us" section to view our business plan, consultation meeting reports, team member bios, and frequently asked questions (FAQs).

John Garrison
Civil Society Liaison
Development Gateway

jgarrison@worldbank.org

Bretton Woods Project response

The Bretton Woods Project feels that the above note from John Garrison does not address concerns include the Gateway's scope, taxonomy, independence, relevance and responsiveness as raised in A Tower of Babel on the Internet: the World Bank's Development Gateway and other critical material.

The comment that national committees (aka Country Gateway teams) will "aggregate local knowledge and help to address the digital divide at the national level" entirely fails to deal with criticisms of the Country Gateway approach made by the Bretton Woods Project and others. These include the difficulties of forming representative "national" teams, the difficulties of spanning local, national and global views, and the dangers of unfair competition with existing country sites (again see Tower of Babel on the Internet, Section 7).

Whilst a range of organisations have decided to join the Gateway as Topic Guides or Counrty Gateway teams, they face severe structural constraints on what they can do, and will have a hard time convincing other organisations that the Gateway can achieve its over-ambitious and ill-defined editorial objectives. On this see Tower of Babel on the Internet, Section 7 and also July 2001 open letter from independent researchers.

Your reactions welcome to the Bretton Woods Project.

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Published: 10 September 2001 , last edited: 29 June 2006

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