:: Romania Development Gateway Satellite Centers - Concept paper

Justification

eRomania Gateway is the first Romanian organization to offer an institutional framework to the partnership among the public sector, the private sector and the civil society, being at the same time an effective tool for developing this partnership. Beside the opportunity to manage more efficiently each partner's resources, another advantage to foster this partnership is the creation of a privileged space for dialogue and cooperation, which ultimately leads to the drawing up of coherent policies and programs.

The Romanian Internet environment includes a significant number of economic-oriented information sources. Unfortunately, a great deal of these resources can only be accessed in Romanian or are lacking in adequate visibility (mainly the companies/industries and stock market related information). Therefore, the Local Gateways should be perceived as the right tools in organizing and/or displaying the significant local economic information on the Web.

This Internet-based promotion effort can become an essential part of a foreign investment-stimulating strategy for Romania. One way to attract foreign investors is through a full-scale, holistic Internet promotion tool for Romania. The Romanian Internet needs a well-structured development portal, which will project an objective image of Romania. This will significantly raise international awareness of the country, and its investment opportunities.

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The Project

"Romania Development Gateway Satellite Centers" aimes at transferring at the local level the main principle of the eRomania Gateway: to reach a shared vision among all development actors (local authorities, industries, civil society and aid agencies) is a core features of e-development. Partnership is the main way for the ability to deliver locally e-developments agendas. Within this project, a number of five satellite centers will be set up in different regions of Romania.

The institutional framework created under this project will facilitate the cooperation and communication between the public and private institutions from different regions. It will also facilitate the communication with the exterior and will ensure the coherence of the local policies and activities with the national policies regarding the support of the underdeveloped areas. This institutional framework will also create the necessary tools for analyzing the local context and for identifying the intervention points in order to contribute to the poverty allegation in this specific area.

The cooperation among the representatives of the three sectors will facilitate their involvement in the local policy making process. The Local Gateway will be a way to attract interest from foreign investors through a full-scale, holistic Internet promotion tool for these areas. The evaluation papers produced during the past 10 years shows the need for a local well-structured development portal, which will project a positive yet objective image of the regions within the country and abroad. This will significantly raise international awareness of the regions, and their investment opportunities. This Internet-based promotion effort can become an essential part of a foreign investment-stimulating strategy for Romania.

The Project will focus on the following specific issues:

1. Activities for supporting the setup of the Local Gateways resources:

a) Creation and facilitation of the Working Groups and other inclusive forms of governance which will ensure broad and active participation in the Local Gateway of the local governments, private sector and the civil society.
b) Development of a business plan for the sustainable operation and financing of the local Gateway organization and related documentation.
c) E-Readiness and Needs Assessment - assessments of the readiness and need of the region.
d) Development of organizational and legal documents for the implementing agency of the Local Gateway.
e) Identification of the technology, marketing and content partners who are to participate in the development and operation of the local Gateway.
f) Identification of financial partners and resources
g) Creation of portal web site of Local Gateway, based on the technological platform provided by the eRomania Gateway.

2. Activities for designing a toolkit to support the Local Gateways initiatives:

The toolkit will provide the principles and regulations to be respected by the Local Gateways in order to ensure the communication and the compatibility both with Global Gateway network and eRomania Gateway network.

3. Promotion of the Local Gateway concept and of the results achieved during this project

In conjunction with the projects' objectives, the promotional objectives are outlined below:

• Promoting the Local Gateways as a part of eRomania Gateway network and with large and open partnership participation: local governments, private sector, civil society and other interested communities.
• Promoting the services (e-development research, consulting, and training) and various components of the portal.
  

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Project results

• Creation of the institutional framework for the cooperation between public and private sectors in order to contribute to the development of different regions
• Facilitation of the policy making for local development
• Enabling support measures for attracting new partners and investors in order to identify areas of intervention and to create new jobs
  

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Partners

eRomania Gateway Association and its local partners will carry out the project.

eRomania Gateway (eRG) is a not-for-profit organization, its mission being to promote and support the e-development in Romania. Established in November 2001, the Association is an open partnership between the public sector (represented by the Romanian Government as a founding member and under the umbrella of the Romanian Presidency), the business community and civil society organizations.

Specific objectives include:

• to develop and manage a leading portal on Romania, "Romania Development Gateway" (RDG), within the context of World Bank's "Development Gateways" (DG) initiative, which aims to assist countries in establishing a presence on the Internet through Country Gateway portals;
• to assist the Romanian Government and Romania in general in drawing-up and implementing various initiatives part of the national information strategy, presenting them with clear guidelines guarantees so that they will be successfully implemented in a medium and long- term perspective;
• to conduct public awareness campaigns on IC&Ts impact on economy, education, and society as a whole.
  

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