Intercept: Proposal for infoDev activity

Deliverables and evaluation

Reviewer 1: The proposal is heavily weighted towards report-based deliverables, not to the development of useful and widely available knowledge. The effort required in this respect should be balanced with what can be achieved through standard Bank supervision.

It is not clear what "report-based" means in relation to the intentions of this project. The essential deliverables of this project are electronic information services which generate "reports" or profiles to users on demand. The only reporting proposed is to chart the project’s progress.

If the comment refers to the fact that the content material to be delivered is text documents of importance to India or relies on documents supplied from international organizations and other international sources, including the Web, then we fail to see the criticism.

If the criticism implies that this project is not associated with the "development of useful…knowledge", then there is a misunderstanding. Considerable effort goes into clearly articulating the problems and strategies on the basis of material that is often highly confusing in its presentation. Furthermore there is a heavy investment in the (hyper)linkages between such "concepts" in a process of building up a network of interrelated concepts -- and the networks of organizations associated with them. This process is effectively a concrete step, beyond data and information, to knowledge building -- to the extent that this is associated with patterns of information.

As to the matter of "widely available", again the import of this comment is not clear given the intention of making the information available on the Web and through interfaces available also to email and fax users.

To these ends, it would be most helpful to understand the operational significance associated with the benefits of "standard Bank supervision".