[WSIS CS-Plenary] UN News: UN task force reviews adequacy of global funding for information technologies

[Ralf Bendrath]

I hope we also get reports from the outcomes of the meeting. 
Did anybody here attend or knows more?

Ralf

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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=12119&Cr=information&Cr1=technology

UN News Service

UN task force reviews adequacy of global funding for information
technologies

4 October 2004 – A United Nations task force today began examining the
adequacy of funding worldwide for information and communication
technologies (ICT), particularly in developing countries.

Chaired by the Administrator of the UN Development Programme, Mark
Malloch Brown, the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms was born out of
the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
last December in Geneva.

At the event, financing of ICT for development was one of two key issues
left unresolved, the other relating to Internet governance. President
Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal had proposed the creation of a Digital
Solidarity Fund to bolster ICT in developing countries, while numerous
western countries favoured using existing funding mechanisms instead.

The task force was set up to probe the matter further with a view to
making a recommendation to the Summit's second phase, to be held from 16
to 19 November 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia.

Consultations during the two-day meeting in New York will involve
representatives from the private sector, civil society, regional banks
and commissions as well as individual experts. Inputs will also be
mobilized through virtual discussions on WSIS-online.