Policy reform and policy influence
Active engagement with the government―most notably the executive branch and Congress, the World Bank and other international financial institutions to reform their policies is an area that Interaction is actively involved. Interaction has organized several meetings with World Bank executives and leaders of nongovernmental organizations to examine the impact of their policies on people in the developing world. Interaction's office of legislative affairs tracks United States legislation and organizes meetings with lawmakers and interaction members to ensure the United States meets its obligations, and most recently, to cancel bilateral debts to poor countries. Interaction members such as Bread for the World and Oxfam figured prominently in this effort, which led to a highly successful culmination in early November with President Clinton's signing of the 2001 Foreign Operations Spending Bill which called for $435 million in debt forgiveness. This was a highly bi-partisan effort, which ultimately led to the passage of a debt relief package far in excess of what had been anticipated or hoped for.
This success would not have come about in the United States had it not been for NGOs taking the lead where nation states had failed to come on their own to an agreement.
As you know, this type of debt relief is essential for the development of many countries where they must devote the lion-share of their resources to service debts incurred, often by predecessor governments that were not themselves democratic.
Information technology for development
Keeping track and taking advantage of new trends in development is another important role played by NGOs. Our members are, for example, looking at communications and information communications technologies and other cutting edge technologies for development. I mention this effort, because there is a specific component of recent activities that involves our relationship with Japan.
To this end, Interaction formed an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Development Working Group to specifically examine the use of technology to promote international development efforts.
The purpose of the working group is two-fold: (1) to exchange ideas, best practices and a vision of the NGOs' use of technology for development and advocacy work; and (2) to look at how Interaction, as a secretariat, can use ICT to better communicate and serve its membership. This working group aims to address topics such as member organizations' internal communications and technology, communication with the public and inter-organizationally, and uses of ICT for development and poverty reduction and, of particular relevance here, bridging the digital divide. One cannot hope to apply information technology to sustainable development goals, if the basic infrastructure is missing. To that end, Interaction is now working closely with the white house on a global initiative to close the global digital divide.
In brief, less than five days following our establishment of the IT Working Group, Interaction was invited by White House officials to convene a meeting of Interaction members at the White House to discuss a new initiative launched by the G-8 at its recent meeting in Okinawa to help close the global digital divide. Each G-8 country has been asked to convene meetings around the digital divide issue with interested stakeholders and to establish formal representation to the G-8 (a so-called dotforce) on the global digital divide.
