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JUSTIFICATION

Without a strategic network of standards for implementing COPINE, its outlook may become a little more than a mere literary foray despite its being the product of the light of renaissance that has been fired from a vibrant and reassuring concert of political will, autonomy, vision and synergy needed to achieve development. These standards and components are linked to COPINE and all potential beneficiaries of development as the following brief explanations show:

POLITICAL WILL

COPINE was not uncertain about the primacy and right components of what constitutes the political will in a development landscape. These components are facilities; equitable distribution of wealth, power and prestige; labor; and innovation.

FACILITIES: USERS’ NEEDS ASSESSMENT

COPINE conducted users’ needs assessments before it took off in 1995. The results of the various assessments show that computers and telecommunication facilities, including a reliable communication satellite system, is required for a fully operational COPINE.

PRODUCTITABLE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM: STRATEGIC BENEFICIARIES

As a commitment towards equitable distribution of wealth, power and prestige, COPINE was to be strategically located in knowledge institutions and service access points, and be where the people already meet often with varying degrees of innovations.

LABOR: PILOT PROJECT

It was also realized that human resources development and capacity building will be the first beneficiaries of COPINE because information kick-starts the mental process before any form of development or even cooperation may ever take place. Hence, COPINE embarked on several awareness campaign initiatives with the organization of training programs and formation of users’ groups that climaxed in the National Workshop on Information and Communication Infrastructures, Policy, Plans and Strategies (NICI) held in Abuja from March 28 – 30, 2000 . This workshop challenged Nigerians in the Diaspora, the private entrepreneurs and government to further invest in the provision of information and communication infrastructures as a first step to improving the capacity of the labor force to effectively, precisely and accurately participate in development.

INNOVATION: GLOBAL WIND OF CHANGE

One thing that is almost synonymous with nature is innovation, which is puts a constraint on how far the capacity of a vision matters to pull through thick and thin. This aspect was not neglected in view of the role the United Nations played in following up with actions on the take-off of COPINE by:

Setting the international development targets (IDTs) for countries interested in development in 1996.
Transforming the IDTs into the millennium development goals (MDGs) in 2000.
Challenging African countries to set up a regional peer review mechanism for country-based efforts towards achieving development known as the New Partnership for Africa ’s Development (NEPAD).
Challenging countries, like Nigeria to create the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) as their development vision, to reach every one about their role in development efforts.
COPINE steered the development of the National Information Technology Policy

AUTONOMY

COPINE is expected to be sustainable when it has the autonomy to make a choice out of many possibilities. The edges of autonomy are discretion, resources and trust, which build on the respective linkages of innovation, on one hand, and labor, facilities and equitable distribution of wealth, power and prestige on the other hand.

RESOURCES: INNOVATION & FACILITIES

Resources are measured in terms of the impact of various policies/applications on man, systems, and cybernetics following the recreation of a close-knit management of facilities and innovation. This measure is the basis of the policy reform initiative of COPINE.

DISCRETION: INNOVATION & LABOR

The hallmark of discretion is in the effective management of the databases available from the recorded interaction between labor and innovation. This is the scientific planning initiative of COPINE.

TRUST: INNOVATION & EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL FACTORS

Trust is built into models that constantly interconnect innovation with equitable distribution of wealth, power and prestige to the people. This effort is the development vision initiative of COPINE.

VISION

COPINE had a clear vision about the nexus between information exchange and development. The main components of information exchange are cooperation and information:

INFORMATION: RESOURCES & DISCRETION

Information is an economic resource, which implies a network of resources and discretion.

COOPERATION: TRUST & RESOURCES

Cooperation is the antithesis of conflict and thus shows a unity expressed through a combination of resources and trust

SYNERGY

COPINE may have lost substantial financial steam since 1995 - 2001, when it was funded mainly by the United Nations Office of Outer Space affairs (UNOOSA), but not its poignant theme on development because it recognizes that development is simply the product of unstoppable synergy, which is the provable concept of COPINE as a network of cooperation and informationCOPINE is therefore a well thought-out program to ensure the continuity and repetition of development visions, policies and programs needed to improve the course of humanity.

COPINE SERVICE INITIATIVES

The following initiatives are pilots of the three main aspects that COPINE will frequently intervene on the development landscape (Fig. 1):

Fig. 1: Framework for Implementing COPINE Initiatives

SCIENTIFIC PLANNING (SP) INITIATIVE ON METEOROLOGICAL SERVICES

Data collected by meteorological stations are potentially of immense benefit to national efforts aimed at the regulation and planning of civil aviation, and the radio communication and agricultural sectors of the economy. However, there are difficulties in sustaining the campaign for collecting new meteorological data due to their limited use and understanding. This is because the basis for scientific planning begins with the accuracy of the models derived from the collected sample information from multiple sources that may be systemic, lagged and/or stochastic. Moreover, there is the need to ensure that any model derived is accurate and also available as a standard tool for transforming such sample information within and among databases into renewed models for scientific planning. The objective of this initiative is to obtain the much needed symbols of scientific planning from strategically located meteorological databases in Nigeria for onward transmission to stakeholders, using a new meteorological database algorithm (MEDAL) to be developed into full-blown standard software in the Cooperative Information Network (COPINE).

BENEFITS TO THE COUNTRY

Provide employment and opportunities for wealth creation and food security.
Improve meteorological services.
Strengthen the knowledge base for agriculture and natural resource planning.
Create new grounds for the dynamic deployment of radio communication frequencies.
Pilot to improve the rationality and universality of development plans.

DEVELOPMENT VISION (DV) INITIATIVE ON AFFORDABLE TABLE WATER

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has been campaigning for improved access to safe table water. This development vision relates very well with the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Labor and Productivity, Water Resources, and Health often, and, also, the drive to achieve one of the millennium development goals (MDGs) in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), on one hand, and the activities of the Small and Medium-scale industries Development Agency in Nigeria (SMEDAN) and the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN), on the other hand. This is because the stakeholders in the table water industry have the ability to experience the impact of social programs, and their individual and collective roles in the course of rolling out any development vision. However, most development visions are simply models’, which are better imagined than experienced in view of their potentially frightening and/or catastrophic maneuver, to provide a standard tool for creating the expected contribution of all stakeholders. In this initiative, the Cooperative Information Network will provide the link to precisely convey the desired meaning of this development vision to stakeholders using a newly developed policy-oriented research methodology to periodically analyze and disseminate information on the table water situation in Nigeria .

BENEFITS TO THE COUNTRY

Improve health and productivity of Nigerians.
Creation of jobs and wealth.
Reduction of conflict and duplication of efforts in water resources management.
Provides a direct poverty alleviation benefit to all Nigerians’
Pilot improvements of the rational use of resources for development.

POLICY REFORM (PR) INITIATIVE ON HIV/AIDS

Ever since the sudden appearance of the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) on the waiting list of infections to be controlled by health authorities, the need for a constant reform of the HIV/AIDS infection rate reduction policy was etched in gold. Policy reform is a function of many variables, and, is capable of generating the critical mass of the desirable chain reactions in all facets of the society. There is therefore a need to ensure that there are no reform-driven inconsistencies in the repetition and continuity of social policy through the development of a standard tool for recreating databases to suit policy reform(s). Moreover, the dynamic nature of the spread of HIV/AIDS gives an attendant harmful blow on the psyche, values and resources of all Nigerians. In this initiative, the effectiveness of the efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS will be target driven, empirically derived and periodically evaluated to inform stakeholders fighting against its potentially crippling effect on national resources.

BENEFITS TO THE COUNTRY

Increase the critical mass of stakeholders involved in the fight against AIDS.
Attract more public support for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Reduce the spread of AIDS among Nigerians.
Strengthen the resolve to awaken out of the poor state and vulnerabilities of human resources in Nigeria .
Pilot improvements for the acceptance of the universality of policy reforms.

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