Work Team C-56: Networks for Human Development: Network Cooperation

Work Group description

The emergence of the digital revolution has not bypassed Human Development processes, nor structures/practices of development cooperation. The 'digital divide' as a topic was introduced since the mid90's in the work of development cooperation, and has progressively been understood as a type of 'development divide' (not simply as a gap in infrastructure). The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), (Dec 2003, Geneva; Nov 2005, Tunis) dealt in part with the digital divide (or divides) and how to get benefits for all (particularly in developing countries) from the new information and communications technologies (ICTs).

The new technological wave is taking place within the context of the 2.0 ecosystem (or Web 2.0), structure atop the Internet and mobile telephony. It's creating a social-type Web that stimulates communication and collaboration using applications that allow people who are not technological experts to construct new networks for content and collaboration. We are thus witnessing technological trends that accentuate networking (process-wise, structure-wise), both among development actors as well as in cooperation actions (projects, programmes, etc.).

Development Cooperation (or Development Aid, as it´s sometimes called) is not isolated from the technological and organizational changes that characterize the Network Society. Cooperation agents has shown variable levels of receptivity and capacity for the transformations derived from integrating (or mainstreaming) ICTs. We could say, overall, that large and official development agencies have been a bit more adverse towards absorbing ICT, while development NGOs have been more nimble in taking advantage of ICT for networked collaboration.

From the organizational perspective, it is interesting to know more in depth how the institutional visions, strategies and cultures of cooperation actors balance out their related technical and social variables. Their organizational structures, productive processes and work-flow techniques are partially adapting to these changes. At a time where the borders of organizations are becoming less clearly defined and fuzzier in order to take part in networks, the traditional pillars of pyramidal structures and work places from which physical and presential processes stem are proving to be brakes for the deployment of new models.

We already have the necessary conditions for cooperation actors to structure in network models, at least on paper. Moreover, there are incentives and possibilities for re-considering the arquitecture of international systems of development cooperation. However, if we explore various dimensions inherent to these models to understand what they really imply, it can be observed that the process is longer and more complex than our intuitive theoretical considerations would at first suggest.

We would thus lke to propose a debate in this IV Congress of Cibersociety about models of 'Network Cooperation', coherent with Human Development strategies (as put forth by Amartya Sen) and in the context of the Network Society (described by Manuel Castells). This will take us to examine the fundaments of networks as an organizational form, to value the strategic impacts they can have, and to offer some keys that can help take networked work to the practical level, to our day-to-day.

We will part from two fundamental assumptions (which as with any other thing in the debate, will be examined openly and critically). One is that networks constitute a source of innovation as they incorporate their organizational flexibility to the processes of bringing together capacities coming from different organizations. Two, that the central element to advance towards network models is the person, so that change management at the organizational level should be based in implicating or better yet empowering individuals as protagonists of change.