Sustainability

The indications are that sustainability -- defined in the current context as the process of ensuring that newly-prepared course materials are regularly updated and reused for a reasonable period -- has often been disappointing as well. One main problem is that oneoff courses and seminars are common. This means that much material is only used once rather than revised and improved for presentation in follow-up events. Bearing in mind that the initial costs of developing course materials are often expensive, this approach means that the investment costs of preparing courses are not spread as widely as they might be across large numbers of participants.

Sustainability would probably also be improved by more effective dissemination, but as noted above dissemination arrangements are often in need of improvement. A third way in which sustainability might be improved would be for short courses and workshops to be help in close cooperation with partner institutions in developing countries. This approach would hopefully strengthen commitment on the part of local partner institutions to make good and continuing use of the coursework materials as well as help international training providers to identify training needs more precisely.

The Way Ahead

What can be done to improve the way that international agencies share information and knowledge about key development issues across the Asia-Pacific region? What changes are needed to improve traditional methods of providing education and training?

Although the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution currently underway across the globe is in its early stages, it is already clear that the revolution is opening up a substantial range of valuable new techniques which can be used to greatly improve the sharing of information and knowledge across developing countries (UNDP 2001: 85). In Asia, in countries such as India and China particularly, the rate of adoption of ICTs is high (Sood 2002: 17). One key challenge for the international development community, therefore, is to identify practical ways in which traditional approaches to teaching and education can be combined with new ICT techniques to provide relevant information and knowledge to much larger numbers of people in developing countries.⁴

As a step towards trying to find practical ways to use the new ICTs, the ADB Institute in Tokyo is currently exploring four ways of using ICT media to improve the delivery of ADBI programs. Although in principle each of these four initiatives can be seen as a stand-alone activity, in practice there are various linkages across the activities which serve to improve the quality of all of them. The four activities are:

• Production of e-newsline, a daily electronic newsletter.
• Several programs based on the use of CD-ROMs.
• Redesign of the ADBI web site.
• Use of the Global Development Learning Network of videoconference distance learning centres.

E-newsline

E-newsline, which is freely available to all readers who wish to register their interest, provides a daily (weekday) summary of key economic news from developing countries across the Asia-Pacific region. With the aim of keeping the presentation crisp, an editorial decision has been taken to summarise no more than ten main stories each day. Electronic hotlinks are provided in the newsletter so that readers who wish to access the full reports can easily do so. In addition, with the aim of encouraging discussion and promoting the sharing of information, e-newsline provides both brief analytical comment on selected issues and crosslinks to several other sources of information about development issues in the region.

CD-ROM programs

Several CD-ROM programs have been started with the aim of improving the dissemination of both existing material and new material on development issues. One of these programs, the CD-ROM review project, is designed to help improve access to highquality information and knowledge about development issues in the region that is currently available on the wide range of CD-ROMs issued by various organisations both in the Asia-Pacific region and in other parts of the world. The reviews, seven of which have already been posted on the ADBI web site (a summary list is also posted), provide information on such aspects of the CD-ROMs as content, easy of use, target audience, and how to obtain a copy of the CD-ROM.

A second CD-ROM production project is exploring ways in which both existing material (from past ADBI courses and workshops) and new material (to be developed as an output from future short courses) can be more effectively disseminated using CD-ROMs. The lessons learned that emerge from the CD-ROM review project will be incorporated into the development of ADBI's own CD-ROMs so that, hopefully, the quality of ADBI CDROMs can be enhanced.

ADBI Web Site

A recent review of the ADB Institute's web site has identified a range of ways in which the ADBI can improve the electronic dissemination of information and knowledge. Although it is clear that 'content is king' on web sites because numerous international surveys indicate that web site users generally give high priority to the provision of highquality content, it is also clear that the underlying technology and organisation of web sites needs to be good as well. The new ADBI web site will be easier to use and will provide an expanding range of interactive ADBI products. The target date for the launch 7 of the new web site is mid-2004.