The Network of e-Government Leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean (RED GEALC) was created in 2003 as a joint initiative between the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development of the OAS and Institute for the Connectivity in Americas (IDRC/ICA) with the purpose of promoting horizontal cooperation between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and to facilitate the exchange of solutions and experts between the two regions. In 2005, the Inter-American Development Bank joined the aforementioned institutions and began providing support to RED GEALC through its Regional Public Goods initiative, and in 2006 the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA-ACDI) also joined the effort.

Since its creation, RED GEALC has organized workshops of collaboration and exchange in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Canada, Dominican Republic and Colombia, in which more than 80 high ranking civil servants from 32 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have participated. Additionally, the network has put in operation a series of mechanisms that facilitate generating and disseminating knowledge in the area of e-Government, as well as the cooperation in e-Government of all the countries of the regions. Such mechanisms include:

• A database of e-Government experts (almost 300 experts)
• The Awards of excellence in e-Government; excelGOV
• The Horizontal Cooperation Fund, FOCOH
• A library of its own publication
• A newsletter
• 8 virtual working groups through the network’s platform www.redgealc.net
• A program of research and promotion of m-Government
• Training courses of e-Government
• A mechanism whereby the advances on e-Government can be monitored: e-GovMonitor (launched in Dec. 2008)
• An information system of e-Government Applications: e-Govex (launched in Dec. 2008)