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




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