The Daily Summit - ITU Sec-Gen speaks.

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December 09, 2003

ITU Sec-Gen speaks. Mr Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General of the ITU, has been talking to the media. He's insisted that he wants to turn the Draft Declaration of Principles into a reality, and announced that the final agreement on the last contentious pre-summit issue - the digital solidarity fund - "is to be made very soon - so this summit will not be so disastrous".

Daily Summit asked him if the international fund being discussed would be dependent on their practices of human rights and freedom of expression, or will the money go to them free of charge? "I don't know at all" was his response.

He went on to explain that there are two trains of thought at WSIS. One is that many countries already have existing mechanisms to help bridge the digital divide and those mechanisms should be used to their full extent - and so they believe that if the creation of a new fund is necessary it should only be done after studying all existing mechanisms. Others argue that the creation of the new fund is necessary anyway, and this is a voluntary system - in fact some countries have already pledged money.

Cara Swift @ December 9, 2003 12:53 PM

Comments (3)

Building a commons is the most sensible thing.

Taran @ December 9, 2003 02:19 PM

In recent history you might look at the record of the digital opportunity task force which came out with a report at the G8 conference in Genoa in 2001 (dotforce.org) and there was resistance to having a centrally control fund for projects very much like what the Africans are asking for now. And then there's NEPAD, new partnership for Africa's development where US$12 billion was to be pledged by 2006.

Steve Cisler @ December 9, 2003 03:18 PM

Steve Cisler @ December 9, 2003 03:24 PM

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