The Sub-regional Workshop on the Country Gateway Initiative was held at the Center for the Study for Democracy on July 6 and 7, 2001. Participating countries re-presented Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Moldova, Azerbaijan. Georgia, the United Nations Development Project and the World Bank.

Workshop participants spent the first few hours of the agenda discussing experiences planning and implementing the preparatory phase of each Country Development Gateway. Participating countries were in various phases of their initiative. Georgia and Romania, having the longest history of implementing the Gateway initiative, shed light on various aspects of their progress. By contrast the Moldovan representatives, having only launched their initiative in March, detailed their aspirations for the future.

Workshop participants discussed governance models and partnership strategies pertaining to their Country Gateway initiatives. Each country detailed their perspectives concerning the role of government as a stakeholder and the Country Gateway as a launching pad for future private sector IT investments.

A videoconference was held on the afternoon of July 6 with World Bank-Washington and representatives from Ukraine and Armenia. Washington representatives shared their vision for the Global Gateway initiative and their assessment of progress in Southeast Europe. Technical experts at the World Bank, Washington detailed a number of new features concerning the Country Gateway platform. These features will allow each Country Gateway platform to share information much more readily.