Questions and tentative answers about the proposal.
- We noticed salaries in Armenia, Egypt and Georgia are much lower than in Western Europe. How should we treat collaborators in those countries?
- yes, i imagine this to be true (similar situation in montenegro). my guess here, and really it is only a guess, is that you try and fit within the national context... the UNDP offices in these countries will also help out primarily since they'll be working with you on who those collaborators will be
- Project duration: it is specified to last 4 months yet the timeframe appears to be from 1 February to 1 May, which adds up to 3 months. When is the last activity due? When is the last delivery due?
- id put forward a proposal for 3 months and then we'll deal with timelines as we go along
- Travel: can you advise on the visa issues? How much time and money are needed for getting a visa for, say, an Armenian citizen to go to Egypt?
- the uNDP offices in these countries are likely to help out with visa issuance, the prices i imagine vary from place to place and this is one of the things we'd clear from the get go because it will depend in part on where the contracts come from as well...
- Travel: any chance UNDP could fund some people (not from the Edgeryders team: we are speaking of citizens participating in the conversation) to come to the final event? We did some cursory research and it turns out traveling to/from these countries, especially Armenia, is really expensive.
- any costs you envisage need to be put in the proposal... this is one of the challenges though, i agree, as we had hoped for a bigger budget and in the end didnt get it... so i wouldnt count on it but that's not saying that we wontbe working on it!
- Final event: would that be held in one of the three countries on the exercise? Or in Bratislava? Also: can you confirm that events (small: less than 50 people) can be held in UNDP premises? We would recommend to hold it either in Yeravan or Tbilisi, given that the two cities are connected by rail. This would leave us with the need to move the Egyptians and our own batch of Western Europeans.
- definitely your call on this though i really like the idea of having it in one of the countries... not sure whether UNDP could host up to 50 people in their own premises though [Alberto's note: I guess this means their default was doing the event in Bratislava]
- Final foresight report: what is meant by that? Are you thinking a full-fledge publication (example) or an "online research shelf" consisting of a 10 pages executive summary and reports on the ethnography, the network stuff etc.? We recommend the second thing, because it is cheaper and more amenable to social media dissemination, so you get more impact for your buck.
- yeah, id say 2nd thing for sure...that's what i would value more out of the offer anyway!
- What relationship do you expect us to have with WorldWeWant and MyWorld2015?
- they are looking at this as a possible engagement model that coudl be replicated in other places in order to get citizens' input in a more meaningful way both for the process of drafting the goals and then their monitoring.. so our job on this end is to coordinate with them during the implementation and make sure they are on top of the process and results and the learning... funding for this comes from the post 2015 team itself
- For MyWorld2015: there are results of this sort of questionnaire by country – no surprises here. I am more concerned about WorldWeWant, and especially this part. This is presented as a civil society kind of conversation, and it is very rich, with many thousands of comments. But going through it it seems that most of the participants were not the kind of innovators at the edge we are trying to reach here. Do you have any suggestion as to how to address the issue of the existing UNDP web/consultation plumbing? Or do we simply sidestep it?
- UNDP offices in each country will be the main contacts for picking out collaborators in countries... and each is in a very different place...so in Armenia we have a UNDP set up social innovation lab that is very adnvaced with a great team in place, so i would imagine that they will want a bigger role in leading the process and liaising with you guys where as in Egypt, if you remember Sherif from Montenegro, the offices WANTS to set up something akin to social innovation lab and may want to use this process as a way to gather all those partners, from the edge, to that goal... so all in all, what we're trying to do is test out a new approach (new relative to what we in the Un havebeen doing) at creating a more meaningful platform for engagement...