Presentation by Sarah Cummings (Dgroups Board) at the Dgroups Annual Partners Meeting 2014.

1. An introduction to Dgroups
Sarah Cummings, Dgroups Board
Dgroups Annual Partners Meeting
3 December 2014

2. Dgroups is…
1. A partnership of development organisations, striving
for international development and social justice
2. A web based platform, with email at the core and as
killer app
3. A global public good, inclusive and free to individual
users, hosting a family of discussion groups on
international development

3. Dgroups partnership
● Established as Dgroups Foundation in 2009 in the
Netherlands
● 20 development organisations: international, bilateral,
think tanks, NGOs, private sector
● A common vision of maximum inclusion: e-mail based
and low bandwidth platform

4. Governance, management and support
● The Dgroups Board is entrusted with the
management of the Foundation
● The Participants Council comprises Dgroups Full
Partners - convened annually at the Annual Meeting
of Members
● Euforic Services is contracted to provide
communications and admin support to the Dgroups
Board

7. Dgroups platform - Key data
●700+ active communities
●150,000+ active users, working in
●International & intergovernmental organizations
●Government agencies
●National and international NGOs
●ICT- and knowledge focused institutes
●Interested individuals
●Professional groups
●400,000+ email messages delivered each day
●over 50% of emails exchanged with & within African countries

8. Dgroups vision
“A world where every person is able to contribute
constructively to dialogue and decision-making for
international development and social justice”

9. Dgroups platform - Key features
● Simple, reliable, robust
● Multilingual
● Flexible and scalable
● Non commercial
● Respectful of privacy
● Targeted at low bandwidth users in the South
● Hosted, maintained and developed by WA-Research
in Switzerland

10. Dgroups as a global public good
● Dgroups partners support Dgroups as a global
public good - making the platform available to actors
across the development sector
● Dgroups hosts a large 'family' of discussion groups
related to international development - this is the
strength and opportunity of Dgroups

11. Quick links and references
● Dgroups foundation website
http://dgroups.info
● Info and inquiries
dg-coordination@dgroups.org
● Help and support
http://dgroups.org/help

12. An introduction to Dgroups
Sarah Cummings, Dgroups Board
Dgroups Annual Partners Meeting
3 December 2014