Friday, March 24, 2006

The Rise and Era of Non Governmental Individuals (NGIs)

We know of NGOs: Non Governmental Organisations. Recognised. We also know of NGIs: Non Governmental Individuals. Unrecognised. Now, we must!

As mainstream publishers have found, on-demand publishing is redefining our world. From books to music to multimedia materials....and out-of-print titles! You can now write your "obscure" stuff for your equally obscure tiny audience, and have it published! This technology is called "Print on Demand", POD.

As the mainstream media industry has discovered, citizen-reporting has now gone high-tech. Individuals use the Internet to report happenings around the world, for all the world: News that no media house can possibly have the resources or presence to cover. We saw it during the Asian Tsunamis, the Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistani Earthquakes, the Dafur Crises and The Olympics. This has been taken further by BLOGGING - the online journal. Now, we call it "Citizen Journalism".

NGIs are going to extend the frontiers of voluntarism and charities. There will also be excitng home-based actors everywhere. We better start recognising and rewarding them with our fullest embrace. It will be tricky, for we need special incentives, including tax breaks, donation-matrix, legal protections and new actuarial services, etc.

With Baby Boomers heading for retirement in due course, the world would have a reservoir of human and material resources never known to humankind before. Spare, and available!

The key: Non-Profits and For-Profits, as well as mixes in-between.

Watch this space.

Monday, March 20, 2006

User's Guide for Onoviran PAGES (OP)

You see, I come from an area of the world where politics has always been played yet democracy and development seem to be at loggerheads. If you have some ideas, good or bad, your chances of being heard are pretty slim. If you send in views about ongoing programmes and projects, very few decision makers get them. They're most likely to be blocked or killed in bureaucratic processes/files!

The news media of course carries a lot of these things but they are transient and, for many publishing houses, perishable. Most are not archived at all, nor put in indexed user-friendly form.

Political party manifestoes, where they truly exist, are most likely bland and grandiose - such that elected officials implement them in the breach or by whims and caprices. Tied to the now ignoble past of military dictatorships, one can and should leave that past to the past. What now?

As we move into a new era , both for Nigeria and Africa, I thought we ought to try new ways of proffering advice, advancing initiatives and motivating change. Using creative thought processes and projectised delivery, we can stimulate debates and instigate action at trisectoral levels - i.e. Public, Private, Civil Society(People/Popular).

For several decades I have thought, fantasised, romanticised, speculated and projected about the future of our land, and the world at large. I have also taken action. Most times, however, the environment hadn't been right or ready or both. Now, I believe things are different, should change, or will certainly be changed!

And, fortuitously, reforms are officially underway, which includesNational Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy - NEEDS (for Nigeria), New Partnership for Africa's Development - NEPAD (for Africa), UK Africa Commission, ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, and UN Millennium Development Goals - MDGs (for the Global Community). Then, enter the Internet and 24/7 Satellite TV & Radio Broadcasts with their multimedia mechanisms, matrix and outreach. NOW is a different world!

OP Goals:
a) Sharing my thoughts in longer essays and detailed formats
b) Proposing new, creative, crazy and ambitious projects
c) Dedicated PAGES for NEPAD, MDGs, ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, UK Africa Commission
d) Advancing policy advisories, business development and civil society interventions
e) Offering "OP BlogBooks" on special subjects and spotlight-sectors
f) Showing/Sharing my personal archival materials for reference and nostalgia!
g) Strategic support for NGOs, CBOs, CDAs and other civil society entities in Africa
h) Critiques, Recommendations, Commendations, Competitions and Awards through "Onoviran PAGES Presents..."

OP Contents:
i) Long Essays and Special Columns
ii) Action-Studies and Action PLANS
iii) Research & Development (R&D)
iv) Joint Works
v) Project Profiles
vi) Product/Service Profiles
vii) Feasibility and Viability Reports
viii) "From My Library" materials
ix) "Onoviran PAGES Presents..."
x) "OP BlogBooks" and "e-Manuals"
xi) Announcements/Notices

Who Can Use OP:
1) Africans, African Diaspora and Friends of Africa
2) Operators in Public, Private and Civil Society(People/Popular) Sectors
3) Politicians, Political Parties, Governments and Parliaments
4) Au, EU and UN Agencies, IMF/World Bank and the ADB
5) Diplomatic, Development and International institutions
6) Academics, writers, students and researchers
7) Thinkers, Forcasters and Futurologists
8) The Media
9) Bankers and Entrepreneurs
10) Anyone wishing to link to this site and to my Onoviran OBZervatory blog

What OP Isn't:
Onoviran PAGES is not a cast-in-stone definitive or contractual offering. Its contents are my personal opinions and creative ideas. Where so-indicated, especially in joint works, they represent the views of the authors. Readers are strongly recommended to seek independent professional and expert advice on all matters covered or propagated in OP.

Please update all data, references, status and other info at point-of-use.

REACTIONS WELCOME
i) Post your comments here or on your sites
ii) Link this site or any posts to your sites
iii) Refer or Recommend this site or any posts
iv) Advertise or Sponsor right here

OP Partnerships/Services:
We invite partners and collaborators on any aspect of OP Goals and Contents as well as new areas of mutual interest/benefit to all.

We are also able to offer professional services and special consultancies on short, medium, long terms or one-off dedicated basis.

All inerested parties are encouraged to link to Onoviran PAGES for the above purposes and/or general dissemination.

CONTACT ME

* By Email: veonoviran@gmail.com
* See my blogs: www.onoviranobzervatory.blogspot.com
www.onoviranseries.blogspot.com
www.manifestoesnigeriafrom2007.blogspot.com
www.versesforthemasses.blogspot.com
* Telephone: Mobile + 234 804 2123747

Thursday, March 16, 2006

My MILLENNIUM Telescope

There is this sense of "home-coming" about so many aspects of our humanity that one can be forgiven to assume that the world is returning home! Which home, you are bound to ask, and I am (who the heck do I think I am!) triggered to suggest: BASIS....the basic values, basic needs and common good. The basis of all things. I suggest also that, as the elders (baby-boomers and above) of today ease into retirement and relinguish power, or the looming prospects of that reality, the world is getting sobre and saner. Slow or gone are the cut-throat contests and incestuous conspiracies, sharper are the internal and insider conflicts, mellow is the emerging mien and shrieller be the voice of civil society.

Haven't you noticed (why am I pestering!) that all men and women of power end up in either charity, philanthropy or crusading after leaving office? And, note you not how some are now clever enough to compete in the realms of Goodwill Ambassadors? Smart souls! And, pray, welcome lights, also.

I just thought that instead of huge after-thoughts, we may reinvent power and its Internet-age public/private utilisation. So I should be beaming my Millennium Telescope on this matter because it matters. Major pragmatic propositions. Crazy...easy. MT be means.

Ha, definitions, right? Sure. My MT is the slim equivalent of a surgeon's knife: DISSECTION!
We need a fresh, deeper, inventively incisive look at things. The "what now" introspection. You won't be prepared for my propositions, I tell you! But very few will be surprised. People are speaking out.

So, this prior note is to wish you kindly take note of another tool in the toolbox. The full guide
cometh!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

My INTELLECTUAL KITCHEN Concept

Perish the thought! This is not bookishness. This kitchen is the hub of my creative day-dreaming, the lab for propositions and theatre for display. Yet it will be real, and it will be simple. Yes, the Archives for Action. Well, sort of.

I am thinking of how a non-rocket scientist (that's me!) can bring down-to-earth ideas to the sustainable development mix of our planet. I am cool about robots. I do not mind mass production. But, hey, why would we need to grow artificial food? Have we run out of natural fields? Well, not in Africa or South America or Asia!

When people talk banking, I truly wonder. The majority of humankind is left out of today's financial system. Can that be true banking? Now, with the corporate frauds around the globe, where should banking be heading? In this celebrated Global Village, where is village banking, the People's Bank?

Then the media, especially third world media. Shouldn't journalism be reinventing? Media people are now subjects of renewed targeting worldwide - even in the United States! Can't the Free Press protect itself, and our world?

Right here, we will mix, concoct, cook and manufacture ways and means for public consumption. Who knows!

The guide? I'll keep my word. Next week. These prior notes are merely...well, prior notes.

Monday, March 13, 2006

BACKGROUNDERS

Welcome to my "Intellectual Kitchen" where you will find appropriate materials that look, read and feel like me....and my thought process.

There will be a healthy fare of backgrounders as a necessary component of our postulations and permutations. In a week from today, I should have a Layman's Guide posted...some kind of road-map for safe navigation and utilisation of the kitchen. You want a menu card, don't you! So tarry, as the humble Chef gets on all fours.

See you folks next Tuesday!