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03/2003 EXPERTS TO DISCUSS INFORMATION AND GOVERNANCE Addis Ababa, 09 May 2003 (ECA) - Development Information experts from 53 African countries will gather in Addis Ababa from 10-16 May 2003 for the third meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI III), to discuss the link between development information and good governance. CODI is one of seven technical Committees established by the ECA's Conference of Ministers in May 1997. Its mandates are to ensure the implementation of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) so as to promote the growth of an information society in Africa, advise on measures to improve all aspects of statistical development of member States, and advise on the building, maintenance and dissemination of regional development databases, including bibliographic, textual and spatial databases. Participants at the meeting, organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), are drawn from national statistics offices, population agencies, university libraries, archives and documentation centres; information and communication institutions; and telecommunications agencies, national mapping agencies and geo-information management organizations. This year's theme, 'Information and Governance', is in recognition of the consensus that Africa's development challenges cannot be achieved in the absence of good governance. "Since good governance requires transparency and community participation in the decision process," says Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, Director of ECA's Development Information Services Division, "it is important that appropriate data be collected, maintained, processed into information and made easily accessible to the general citizenry". The meeting will highlight the link between development information and the on-going discourse on governance in Africa, and recommend strategies for providing information for good governance to Member States, ECA and its partner organizations. Participants will also review progress made in the implementation of the recommendations of CODI II. CODI meets every two years and conducts its technical deliberations under three subcommittees, the Sub-Committee on Information and Communications Technologies, Sub-Committee on Statistics, and Sub-Committee on Geoinformation. The first meeting (CODI-I) was held in Addis Ababa from 28 June - 2 July 1999 under the theme 'Harnessing Information for Development'. The second meeting was also held in Addis Ababa, from 4-7 September 2001 under the theme of 'Development Information for Decision Making'. END For all CODI III-related documents, visit the DISD Home page at http://www.uneca.org/programmes_home.htm and click on 'Harnessing Information for Development'. For information on AISI, visit http://www.uneca.org/aisi/ For more information on CODI III, contact: Yinka Adeyemi Issued by the Communication Team |