Development Gateway Launches Software Tool for International Relief and Development Coordination

Development Gateway Launches Software Tool for International Relief and Development Coordination

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The Development Gateway Foundation has launched an open source software tool that organizations can use to coordinate international relief and development efforts. Called the Local Projects Database (LPD), this tool can be downloaded from the web. (See http://lpd.sourceforge.net/.)

"The Development Gateway enables the exchange of information essential to relief and development coordination," said Development Gateway Chief Executive Officer Alan J. Rossi. "These information needs have never been greater, as organizations from around the world try to coordinate efforts to save victims of the recent tsunami and rebuild their future."

Launching the LPD is one of several ways the Development Gateway is supporting the tsunami relief and reconstruction effort. Others include:

* Putting its global web portal of development information at the service
of relief and development organizations for the immediate crisis and
long-term recovery effort. On the Development Gateway portal,
development professionals are already posting and accessing relevant
news and information on subjects including food delivery, effective aid
approaches, and the use of information technology in relief and
recovery. (See http://topics.developmentgateway.org/special/tsunami.)

* Regional and local development portals supported by the Development
Gateway, known as Country Gateways, are also providing platforms for
information exchange. Among them are Country Gateways in Australia,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam (See
http://www.developmentgateway.com.au/, http://www.bangladeshgateway.org/,
http://www.developmentgateway.org/node/171482/,
http://vietnamgateway.org/.)

* The dgMarket online public tendering service is available for posting
procurement contracts that come up for bid during the reconstruction.
(See http://www.dgmarket.com/.)



The LPD, developed with the Romania Development Gateway and World Resources Institute, consolidates project, organization, and contact data to share among development organizations at work in a particular country or region, enabling communications among these organizations through a web interface. The LPD is based on well-accepted standards for the exchange of project information, currently used by a Development Gateway directory known as AiDA (Accessible Information on Development Activities) to gather and post project information from nearly 200 development organizations.

The LPD is already being piloted by Country Gateways in Colombia, Mongolia, Morocco, Poland, and Romania. For instance, the Morocco Development Gateway and United Nations Development Programme are using the LPD to generate an annual report on development assistance in Morocco.

The open source approach to designing applications has been heralded for its potential to make information technology more affordable and better tailored to the needs of developing nations. Under the open source approach, applications can be created by a community of software developers anywhere in the world, rather than a single vendor. The source code is available for any organization to modify to its own purposes.

The Development Gateway Foundation (http://www.developmentgateway.org/) is an enabler of development. We help improve people's lives in developing countries by building partnerships and information systems that provide access to knowledge for development. The Development Gateway is an independent not- for-profit organization based in Washington, DC.


Source: Development Gateway Foundation

CONTACT: Karen Lynch of the Development Gateway Foundation,
+1-202-572-9216, or klynch@dgfoundation.org

Web site: http://www.developmentgateway.org/
http://lpd.sourceforge.net/
http://www.dgmarket.com/


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