With the key goal of empowering people through knowledge creation and sharing, GFDD will promote training and learning activities through the use of video conference (ISDN) and IP technology, face-to-face dialogue, e-learning platforms, teleconferencing, and printed documents, as needed, in collaboration of more than 120 worldwide affiliates.

The first plenary session was hosted by Shigeo Katsu, Vice President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia Region. At the end of the session, GDLN affiliates learned about GDLN history and had the opportunity to share different regions’ achievements and challenges through speakers from Africa, the Americas, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

Affiliates described some GDLN activities that had strong impact in the region. Some are: “to strengthen the justice system in East Timor”, which was a course developed by Dili GDLN center to reinforce a fair judiciary system following democracy steps; “Fight against HIV/AIDS”, a program that allowed many participants around the world to discuss and give insights regarding the global issue, its proliferation and control; and “Scale up capacity community driven development in Francophone Africa”, which involved an e-Learning course in Africa. 

A great surprise was the presence and speech of the creator of the GDLN idea, the former President of the World Bank, Mr. James D. Wolfensohn (1995-2005). Mr. Wolfensohn remarked that GDLN, after six years (was launched June 2000), is just the beginning of a learning revolution and that what he expected from all affiliates was to “think out of the box” to be able to accept innovation, to use technology as a tool to reach equality among the peoples and to reduce ignorance as a means to reduce poverty.