Commission on Science and Technology for Developement, 21st May by AM

Morning sessions

Chairperson: H.E. Ambassador Stefan Moravek

As a co-chair of that opening session, Mr Guy Sebban (Secretary-General, International Chamber of Commerce) stressed that the access to ICT should be provided beyond international level but also by governments at national level. Government should put in place the needed condition to enhance the development of ICT in their respective countries. In that regard, they are key actors that should facilitate trade and attract investments.

Then Mr. Houlin Zhao (Deputy Secretary-General of ITU) recalled the involvement of private-sector in the U.N. work in supporting numerous and various U.N. programmes. As private-sector is a dynamic and exciting sector its task is all the more challenging. Indeed the private-sector should provide quality and speed in ICT access and it should also guarantee affordability of those ICTs. Despite the growing number of Internet and mobile users, Mr. Zhao drew the assembly's attention to the remaining differences in the world regarding ICT's access. Finally, Mr. Zhao recalled the role played by ITU, a forum where diverse stakeholders concerned by ICT's development can discuss together on many issues such as the new market opportunities.

Dr. Tim Evans (Assistant Director-General, WHO) took then the floor and said that ICT diffusion was one of the goals –and a transversal one- bound to be achieved in the MDGs. He declared that ICT are playing a vital role in the field of health. In fact, ICT can bring people together, it can enable people to learn and solve problems and it can accelerate health equipments.

In the last part of that introductory phase, a video of Mr. Ban Ki-moon was broadcasted. The Secretary General of the United Nations underlined the vital role played by ICT and he called for strong partnerships between private-sector, civil society, NGOs, academies and U.N. agencies in order to improve access to those technologies.


Session 1
How are innovative uses of ICT concretely contributing to achieving individual goals and targets?

Moderator: Ms. Maria Cattaui, Member of the Board, Petroplus Holdings, Switzerland; Member of the Board, ICT4Peace Foundation

Professor C.K. Prahalad (University of Michigan) expressed his concern and looked at the ICT issue in a broader perspective. Indeed, to him, the fundamental problem is the fallowing question: "How to democratize commerce?" He raised attention on the asymmetric access to information and called "poverty penalty" the fact that poor people pay more for goods and services than richer parts of population. Such an observation remains true regardless of which country we are actually considering. This unfair situation includes developed countries such as U.S.A.
Mr. Erkki Ormala (Vice-President of Technology and Policy, Nokia) considered as evidence that mobile communication increases prosperity and economic growth. According to him, the most important impact is at a grass-root level. He asked for much more affordable solutions for accessing to data but also to Internet.
Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen (Executive Director, Association for Progressive Communications) insisted on the need to take into account the capacity of learning of the population to whom the different programmes are dedicated to.

According to H.E. Mr. Gaoussou Drabo (Minister of Communication and New Technologies, Mali) a massive equipment of developing countries is not a good solution. There should be extremely realistic projects such as the implementation of ICT in schools. The material aspect should also be done with special trainings for pupils, students and their teachers. The positive effect of such policies could be effective at two levels. On the teachers' side, access to technology is a way to recover the willingness to get informed and to improve their teachings. On the pupils and students' side, introduction of ICT in learning would enable their awakening.

Mr. Walter Fust (Director-General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) shared the same ideas as he told that we had to invest on young people. He added that information is power; it is an access to change life and an access to democratization of access to commerce.

Finally, Mr. Chris Kabwato (University of Rhodes at Grahamstown) emphasised that media which are consumers of ICT had also an important role to play in ICT development. The expression "Information Society" should be well understood by the journalists and they should contribute to the demystification of ICT by changing their perception.


Session 2
What will it take to stimulate and support ICT innovation in developing countries?

Moderator: Ms. Hilary Bowker, Former Anchor, CNN

As the first panellist to intervene in that second session H.E. Mr. Kong Cho Ha, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (Malaysia) put emphasize on the need to establish a system able to encourage innovations. He also insisted on the needed infrastructure, considering material goods, knowledge and adapted legislation. To him, a multi-sectorial approach that implicates both public stakeholders, industries, NGOs, financial agencies and scientists is the most convenient approach in the ICT field.
The role of governments is to behave as facilitators that would decrease bureaucracy and encourage innovation in ICT in their respective countries.

Fallowing the statement concerning the role of Governments in ICT innovation and answering to the question raised by the moderator concerning the legal environment, Mr. Juan Rada (Senior Vice-President, Public Sector and Education Global Business Unit, Oracle Corporation) expressed private-sector expectations in that regards: deregulation of the communications in developing countries. He laid stress on the need to encourage deregulation rather than encouraging inter-connectivity as the numeric gap was partly due to the different standards that exist in developing countries.

Mr. Jos Engelen (Deputy Director-General and Scientific Director, CERN) underlined the role that are currently playing –or that should be able to play- universities and academies in ICT development.
According to Professor Liu Chuang (Leading Professor of Global Change, Information and research Centre, Chinese Academy of Sciences) one of the most important challenge of developing countries was to attract or to give the young researchers the willingness and the desire to go back and stay in their native country. The governments should provide them an appropriate environment for their researches and a stable employment.

Ms. Heather Creech (Director, Knowledge Communications, International Institute for Sustainable Development) finally added a remark concerning the evolving perception of the "national identity" or even the "family" for the coming generations. To her, their homes would be –or are already- much more flexible and virtual. For that reason, it would be difficult for them to identify themselves to one country or to limit their perspective of work to the same one. According to her, the workers will have a growing opportunity to work everywhere.


Afternoon sessions

Before the opening of the third session, Mr. Sanjiv Ahuja (Chairman of the Board, Orange, "Liberating Digital Opportunities For All") delivered a speech concerning liberalisation of communications. He laid emphasis on the role played by mobile phones in development and economic growth. He talked about several issues including: regulation, taxation and cooperation. He concluded by saying that there should be a "bottom-up development" with a liberalization of the market, a creation of the right environment and then, "operators, suppliers and customers will close the digital divide by themselves".

Session 3
Are the ITC innovations that are truly making "value at the bottom of the pyramid"?

Moderator: Mr. James P. Dougherty, Director, Foreign Policy Association and Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations

Mrs. Anh-Nga Tran-Nguyen (Director, Division for Services Infrastructure for Development, UNCTAD) gave examples of various programmes developed in order to grant access to ICT in areas far from the principal towns of certain countries (a programme was settled in Gambia to allow the population of rural area an access to advices through Internet concerning how to cure some diseases). She also said that in its Poverty Reduction Strategy, Gambia has included the issue of ICT in each targeted actions.

Mr. John Gage, Chief Researcher and Vice-President of the Science Office, Sun Microsystems
Mr. John Daly, ICT Consultant
Mr. Daniel Salcedo, Executive Director, CATGEN
Mr. Sami Al-Basher, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU


Session 4
What innovative uses of ICT and partnership are delivering e-government services?

Moderator: Mr. Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO
Before the floor was given to the panellists, the moderator gave a definition of "e-governance". "E-governance" is a term used to describe the various use of ICT that contribute to an increase in transparency, an improvement of internal organization and the promotion of democratic practices (for example by increasing participation of citizens that are not able to move to the decision centres or to enable a communication between political actors and their electorate).

Mr. A.S. Panneerselvan (Executive Director, Panos South Asia) first asked a question: how can ICT help parliamentarians to become more informed decisions, to become more informed?
Mr.Mincho Vikto Spasov (International Parliamentarians Association for IT, Member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria) underlined that ICT are useful in the exercise of the three kinds of powers (judiciary, executive and parliamentary powers) and he gave an answer concerning the third one. Granting access to ICT to the Parliaments would improve transparency and discussions between parliamentarians and people in general. At the same time, having the necessary means to get the right information at the right moment would help to optimize the production of legislation. It would also provide parliamentarians an adequate feedback distinguishing the wrong and the right effects of legislation once implemented.

Ms. Danielle Mincio (Library of the University of Lausanne, IFLA) underlined the role of libraries in ICT diffusion. Not only do the libraries are diversifying their supports but also are they playing a determining role in the training of users. She also recalled that most of the libraries have a free access and are a good place to enhance ICT use.

H.E. Mr. Montassar Oualili, Minister for Information Technology (Tunisia) main actor in the organization of the Tunis World Summit on the Information Society talked about a project implemented in his country and called "madaniyya". This Arabic word means "citizenship" and the first part of the project organized an electronic collect of data and access to civil status. This project has clarified a complex and imprecise situation. The Tunisian citizens do not have to reiterate annual declaration as they are all registered and the evolvement of their situation is taken into account by the system. Currently, Tunisia is implementing "madaniyya 2" and this program is already successful.

Mr. Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director of Research, IT for Change ended the morning session by underlying the role of civil society in ICT saying that such a role goes far beyond "access to information".