United Nations-Solution Exchange portal

Monday, June 18, 2007

Solution Exchange is a project initiated by the United Nations Country Team in India to build a discussion forum platform between communities of development practitioners, where they can discuss current problems on various topics such as AIDS, decentralization, education, enviro- nment, and water and benefit from each other's solutions for day-to-day challenges they face. Here, people can share similar concerns and interests, bringing them together virtually and face-to-face toward the common objective of solving the problems. Communities are organized around selected development targets of both India's Tenth Five-Year Plan as well as the globally mandated Millennium Development Goals.

The project has two parts: email list and discussion board. All the discussions held on the forum are mailed to every member in the mailer list. When members reply to the mail, their replies automatically get posted on the forums. The entire project is developed on an open source platform, integrating applications like mailman and webforum (FUDForum). Features of the application include web archiving, Email Bounce Report, E-Discussion List Service, Comment List Service, Cross Post List Service, and integration with Wiki for Project Documentation and Online User Manual (for internal users of the Solution Exchange website).