Funding for information technologies (IT) in the least developed countries has proved to be the most difficult obstacle to overcome in the negotiations leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Despite tireless efforts by African governments and civil society to push for a Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) to finance IT development, no consensus has been reached about its implementation.
The Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Yoshio Utsumi, addressed a pre-Summit press conference on Tuesday afternoon acknowledging that many issues have been challenging.
In an apparent reference to the DSF, Utsumi, who is also the secretary-general of the WSIS, said that individual countries have to find new ways of finding funds to bridge the digital divide. ‘That was basically the most difficult one. Every country has to find resources to finance efforts at bridging the digital divide, there is no question about that,” said Utsumi.
He explained the different viewpoints: ‘The developed countries argue that there are already enough funds, but that they are badly distributed. The African countries argue however, that what is needed is a special fund dedicated to improving access to IT.”
Utsumi said that a study will be completed by the end of 2004 to establish ways of dealing with a prospective DSF. — Hana