In developing countries there is a vast range of different examples of national government, from the democratic to the autocratic and then to the militaristic. This conference chose to focus on the means whereby communities and individuals can participate more effectively in national affairs.
As promoted at CIRN2005, the main role players can be grouped under the major headings: civil society, government, business and the individual. Hence, there are potentially five different kinds of partnerships as well as a number of combinations, as illustrated in the figure below:
As ICT migrates further into general use in all strata of society, we see the need for new partnerships between and within civil society, government and business. Although the main thrust of this conference was intended to be the right hand side of this model, it was gratifying that corporate representatives chose to come and join in a panel session that examined Corporate Social Responsibility and laid some foundations for a more detailed future discussion of the left hand side of the model.