Subject: [fem-women2000 451] Re: ECOSOC 情報通信技術 提言事項アップデート / ECOSOC High Level on ICTs - recommendation update
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 05:16:42 +0900
Seq: 451
---------------- Original message follows ---------------- From: Gillian Marcelle <gmarcelle@yahoo.com> Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 13:00:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Update on the recommendations of the UN Panel of ICTs -- Please circulate to networks widely. The link to human rights and gender equality will only be maintained if the relevant interests groups are vigilant. The panel's proposals received favourable consideration at ECOSOC from several member states and also received support in the UNIFEM statement. However, the Ministerial Declaration emerging >from the High Level segment of ECOSOC, is by no means the end of the road, several strategic and operational decisions are needed to create the Task Force and more importantly to shape its mandate. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, under Nittin Desai is leading the set of tasks to examine options for the Task Force and make decisions on its future direction and character. From inside the UN system, and civil society there is a great deal of work to ensure that the concerns of human rights and gender equality are not marginalised. UN PANEL proposals for Conquering the Digital Divide A panel of experts convened by the UN General Assembly met from 17-20 April in New York, chaired by Jose Maria Figures, former President of Costa Rica, to produce an authoritative report and action plan to overcome the information and communication technology lag found in most developing countries. The 17 person panel included independent experts >from government, business and civil society, who have led successful ICT campaigns in developing and transition economies, as well as public and private sector leaders from Europe and the United States. The African panellists included Pascal Baba Couloubaly, Minister of Culture, Mali, Nii Quaynor, Executive Chairperson, National Computer Systems, Ghana, Sushil Baguant, Chairperson National Computer Board Maurititus, Najat Rochdi, President of the Internet Society, Morocco. Ms Gillian Marcelle, citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, Chairperson of the AISGWG, had the opportunity to serve on the Panel. The report of the Panel was considered at the High-Level meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council, was presented at the Summit of the Group of 8 countries in Okinawa, and will be transmitted to the UN Millennium Assembly. The proposals included in that report call for bold measures to increase the priority given to ICT by countries and international agencies and suggests means to attract and leverage funding. The mood of the Panel's report is optimistic, but pragmatic " the itnernational community, working in concert with national governments, private business and civil society, is fully capable of reversing the current alarming trend of the growing digital divide", enabling Internet access in either, home, workplace or community by 2004 for the 80 percent of the world's population who are currently unconnected. The 17-member team agues that ICT should be expanded not only for direct benefits in wealth creation and trade facilitation, but also for the indirect and linked effect these technologies can have on social services such as health and education. Key elements of the panel's International ICT Action Plan * The United Nations should create under the leadership of the UN secreatary General, but outside the regular UN organisational strautures, an ICT Task Force charged with bringing together international agencies, private industry and foundations and trusts to facilitate the expansion of the ICT market in developing countries * Create a development fund administered by the Task Force shoud be amassed from hundreds of millions of dollars solicitedf from sources such as the so-called "Turner Fund", private sector and mathcing funds from beneficiaries. * Design debt for connectivity swaps, in which one per cent of the debt of each developing country is written off, if the equivalent amount is applied to ICT development and countries should receive credits for international financiing for ICT on the basis of national progress in carbon-fixation activities. * Invigorate of the campaign to link the right of universal access to ICT services with existing UN principles and conventions on human rights and development. * Take steps to ensure the fair and equal particpation in the information society, particularly for women through equal opportunity in the workplace, equal access to education and technology and other measures. For more details of the Panel and its report see http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ecosoc/itforum/expert.htm _________________________________________________________________________ fem-Women2000@jca.apc.org for Women 2000, UN Special Session on Beijing+5 Searcheable Archive http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/index.shtml visit fem-net HomePage for other mailing lists http://www.jca.apc.org/fem